fAeVn45R

1DEDICATION
2Bob Southey! You're a poet, poet laureate,
3And representative of all the race.
4Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory 
5Last, yours has lately been a common case.
6And now my epic renegade, what are ye at
7With all the lakers, in and out of place?
8A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
9Like four and twenty blackbirds in a pye,
10Which pye being opened they began to sing'
11This old song and new simile holds good,
12'A dainty dish to set before the King'
13Or Regent, who admires such kind of food.
14And Coleridge too has lately taken wing,
15But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,
16Explaining metaphysics to the nation.
17I wish he would explain his explanation.
18You, Bob, are rather insolent, you know,
19At being disappointed in your wish
20To supersede all warblers here below,
21And be the only blackbird in the dish.
22And then you overstrain yourself, or so,
23And tumble downward like the flying fish
24Gasping on deck, because you soar too high,
25Bob, And fall for lack of moisture quite a dry
26And Wordsworth in a rather long Excursion
27I think the quarto holds five hundred pages
28Has given a sample from the vasty version
29Of his new system to perplex the sages.
30'Tis poetry, at least by his assertion,
31And may appear so when the Dog Star rages,
32And he who understands it would be able
33To add a story to the tower of Babel.
34You gentlemen, by dint of long seclusion
35From better company, have kept your own
36At Keswick, and through still continued fusion
37Of one another's minds at last have grown
38To deem, as a most logical conclusion,
39That poesy has wreaths for you alone.
40There is a narrowness in such a notion,
41Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes fo
42I would not imitate the petty thought,
43Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
44For all the glory your conversion brought,
45Since gold alone should not have been its pric
46You have your salary; was't for that you wroug
47And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.
48You're shabby fellows true but poets still
49And duly seated on the immortal hill.
50Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows,
51Perhaps some virtuous blushes; let them go.
52To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs,
53And for the fame you would engross below,
54The field is universal and allows
55Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow.
56Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe wil
57'Gainst you the question with posterity.
58For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,
59Contend not with you on the winged' steed,
60I wish your fate may yield ye, when she choose
61The fame you envy and the skill you need.
62And recollect a poet nothing loses
63In giving to his brethren their full meed
64Of merit, and complaint of present days
65Is not the certain path to future praise.
66He that reserves his laurels for posterity
67Who does not often claim the bright reversion
68Has generally no great crop to spare it, he
69Being only injured by his own assertion.
70And although here and there some glorious rari
71Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion,
72The major part of such appellants go
73To God knows where for no one else can know.
74If fallen in evil days on evil tongues,
75Milton appealed to the avenger, Time,
76If Time, the avenger, execrates his wrongs
77And makes the word Miltonic mean sublime,
78He deigned not to belie his soul in songs,
79Nor turn his very talent to a crime.
80He did not loathe the sire to laud the son,
81But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.
82Think'st thou, could he, the blind old man, ar
83Like Samuel from the grave to freeze once more
84The blood of monarchs with his prophecies,
85Or be alive again again all hoar
86With time and trials, and those helpless eyes
87And heartless daughters worn and pale and poor
88Would he adore a sultan? He obey
89The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?
90Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant!
91Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore,
92And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,
93Transferred to gorge upon a sister shore,
94The vulgarest tool that tyranny could want,
95With just enough of talent and no more,
96To lengthen fetters by another fixed
97And offer poison long already mixed.
98An orator of such set trash of phrase,
99Ineffably, legitimately vile,
100That even its grossest flatterers dare not pra
101Nor foes all nations condescend to smile.
102Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze
103From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil,
104That turns and turns to give the world a notio
105Of endless torments and perpetual motion.
106A bungler even in its disgusting trade,
107And botching, patching, leaving still behind
108Something of which its masters are afraid,
109States to be curbed and thoughts to be confine
110Conspiracy or congress to be made,
111Cobbling at manacles for all mankind,
112A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,
113With God and man's abhorrence for its gains.
114If we may judge of matter by the mind,
115Emasculated to the marrow, it
116Hath but two objects, how to serve and bind,
117Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit,
118Eutropius of its many masters, blind
119To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit,
120Fearless, because no feeling dwells in ice;
121Its very courage stagnates to a vice.
122Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds,
123For I will never feel them. Italy,
124Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds
125Beneath the lie this state-thing breathed o'er
126Thy clanking chain and Erin's yet green wounds
127Have voices, tongues to cry aloud for me.
128Europe has slaves, allies, kings, armies still
129And Southey lives to sing them very ill.
130Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate
131In honest simple verse this song to you.
132And if in flattering strains I do not predicat
133'Tis that I still retain my buff and blue;
134My politics as yet are all to educate.
135Apostasy's so fashionable too,
136To keep one creed's a task grown quite
137Herculean Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?
138CANTO THE FIRST
139I want a hero: an uncommon want,
140When every year and month sends forth a new on
141Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
142The age discovers he is not the true one;
143Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
144I 'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Ju
145We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
146Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.
147Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
148Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Ho
149Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
150And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesl
151Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stal
152Followers of fame, 'nine farrow' of that sow:
153France, too, had Buonaparte and Dumourier
154Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.
155Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
156Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
157Were French, and famous people, as we know:
158And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
159Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Morea
160With many of the military set,
161Exceedingly remarkable at times,
162But not at all adapted to my rhymes.
163Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
164And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd
165There 's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
166'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
167Because the army 's grown more popular,
168At which the naval people are concern'd;
169Besides, the prince is all for the land-servic
170Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.
171Brave men were living before Agamemnon
172And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
173A good deal like him too, though quite the sam
174But then they shone not on the poet's page,
175And so have been forgotten: I condemn none,
176But can't find any in the present age
177Fit for my poem that is, for my new one;
178So, as I said, I 'll take my friend Don Juan.
179Most epic poets plunge 'in medias res'
180Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road,
181And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,
182What went before by way of episode,
183While seated after dinner at his ease,
184Beside his mistress in some soft abode,
185Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,
186Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.
187That is the usual method, but not mine 
188My way is to begin with the beginning;
189The regularity of my design
190Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,
191And therefore I shall open with a line
192Although it cost me half an hour in spinning
193Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,
194And also of his mother, if you 'd rather.
195In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,
196Famous for oranges and women he
197Who has not seen it will be much to pity,
198So says the proverb and I quite agree;
199Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,
200Cadiz perhaps but that you soon may see;
201Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,
202A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.
203His father's name was Jose Don, of course, 
204A true Hidalgo, free from every stain
205Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source
206Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;
207A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,
208Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,
209Than Jose, who begot our hero, who
210Begot but that 's to come Well, to renew:
211His mother was a learned lady, famed
212For every branch of every science known
213In every Christian language ever named,
214With virtues equall'd by her wit alone,
215She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
216And even the good with inward envy groan,
217Finding themselves so very much exceeded
218In their own way by all the things that she di
219Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart
220All Calderon and greater part of Lope,
221So that if any actor miss'd his part
222She could have served him for the prompter's c
223For her Feinagle's were an useless art,
224And he himself obliged to shut up shop he
225Could never make a memory so fine as
226That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez.
227Her favourite science was the mathematical,
228Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,
229Her wit she sometimes tried at wit was Attic a
230Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity;
231In short, in all things she was fairly what I 
232A prodigy her morning dress was dimity,
233Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,
234And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzz
235She knew the Latin that is, 'the Lord's prayer
236And Greek the alphabet I 'm nearly sure;
237She read some French romances here and there,
238Although her mode of speaking was not pure;
239For native Spanish she had no great care,
240At least her conversation was obscure;
241Her thoughts were theorems, her words a proble
242As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'e
243She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,
244And said there was analogy between 'em;
245She proved it somehow out of sacred song,
246But I must leave the proofs to those who 've s
247But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong
248And all may think which way their judgments le
249''T is strange the Hebrew noun which means "I 
250The English always use to govern d n.'
251Some women use their tongues she look'd a lect
252Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily,
253An all-in-all sufficient self-director,
254Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,
255The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector
256Whose suicide was almost an anomaly 
257One sad example more, that 'All is vanity'
258The jury brought their verdict in 'Insanity'.
259In short, she was a walking calculation,
260Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their co
261Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education,
262Or 'Coelebs' Wife' set out in quest of lovers,
263Morality's prim personification,
264In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers;
265To others' share let 'female errors fall,'
266For she had not even one the worst of all.
267O! she was perfect past all parallel 
268Of any modern female saint's comparison;
269So far above the cunning powers of hell,
270Her guardian angel had given up his garrison;
271Even her minutest motions went as well
272As those of the best time-piece made by Harris
273In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
274Save thine 'incomparable oil,' Macassar!
275Perfect she was, but as perfection is
276Insipid in this naughty world of ours,
277Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss
278Till they were exiled from their earlier bower
279Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss
280I wonder how they got through the twelve hours
281Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve,
282Went plucking various fruit without her leave.
283He was a mortal of the careless kind,
284With no great love for learning, or the learn'
285Who chose to go where'er he had a mind,
286And never dream'd his lady was concern'd;
287The world, as usual, wickedly inclined
288To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd,
289Whisper'd he had a mistress, some said two 
290But for domestic quarrels one will do.
291Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,
292A great opinion of her own good qualities;
293Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,
294And such, indeed, she was in her moralities;
295But then she had a devil of a spirit,
296And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities,
297And let few opportunities escape
298Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.
299This was an easy matter with a man
300Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard;
301And even the wisest, do the best they can,
302Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,
303That you might 'brain them with their lady's f
304And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,
305And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,
306And why and wherefore no one understands.
307'T is pity learned virgins ever wed
308With persons of no sort of education,
309Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred,
310Grow tired of scientific conversation:
311I don't choose to say much upon this head,
312I 'm a plain man, and in a single station,
313But Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
314Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you 
315Don Jose and his lady quarrell'd why,
316Not any of the many could divine,
317Though several thousand people chose to try,
318'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine;
319I loathe that low vice curiosity;
320But if there 's anything in which I shine,
321'T is in arranging all my friends' affairs,
322Not having of my own domestic cares.
323And so I interfered, and with the best
324Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;
325I think the foolish people were possess'd,
326For neither of them could I ever find,
327Although their porter afterwards confess'd 
328But that 's no matter, and the worst 's behind
329For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs,
330A pail of housemaid's water unawares.
331A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
332And mischief-making monkey from his birth;
333His parents ne'er agreed except in doting
334Upon the most unquiet imp on earth;
335Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both
336Their senses, they 'd have sent young master f
337To school, or had him soundly whipp'd at home,
338To teach him manners for the time to come.
339Don Jose and the Donna Inez led
340For some time an unhappy sort of life,
341Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;
342They lived respectably as man and wife,
343Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred,
344And gave no outward signs of inward strife,
345Until at length the smother'd fire broke out,
346And put the business past all kind of doubt.
347For Inez call'd some druggists and physicians,
348And tried to prove her loving lord was mad;
349But as he had some lucid intermissions,
350She next decided he was only bad;
351Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions,
352No sort of explanation could be had,
353Save that her duty both to man and God
354Required this conduct which seem'd very odd.
355She kept a journal, where his faults were note
356And open'd certain trunks of books and letters
357All which might, if occasion served, be quoted
358And then she had all Seville for abettors,
359Besides her good old grandmother who doted;
360The hearers of her case became repeaters,
361Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,
362Some for amusement, others for old grudges.
363And then this best and weakest woman bore
364With such serenity her husband's woes,
365Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,
366Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose
367Never to say a word about them more 
368Calmly she heard each calumny that rose,
369And saw his agonies with such sublimity,
370That all the world exclaim'd, 'What magnanimit
371No doubt this patience, when the world is damn
372Is philosophic in our former friends;
373'T is also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous,
374The more so in obtaining our own ends;
375And what the lawyers call a 'malus animus'
376Conduct like this by no means comprehends;
377Revenge in person 's certainly no virtue,
378But then 't is not my fault, if others hurt yo
379And if your quarrels should rip up old stories
380And help them with a lie or two additional,
381I 'm not to blame, as you well know no more is
382Any one else they were become traditional;
383Besides, their resurrection aids our glories
384By contrast, which is what we just were wishin
385And science profits by this resurrection 
386Dead scandals form good subjects for dissectio
387Their friends had tried at reconciliation,
388Then their relations, who made matters worse.
389'T were hard to tell upon a like occasion
390To whom it may be best to have recourse 
391I can't say much for friend or yet relation:
392The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,
393But scarce a fee was paid on either side
394Before, unluckily, Don Jose died.
395He died: and most unluckily, because,
396According to all hints I could collect
397From counsel learned in those kinds of laws
398Although their talk 's obscure and circumspect
399His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;
400A thousand pities also with respect
401To public feeling, which on this occasion
402Was manifested in a great sensation.
403But, ah! he died; and buried with him lay
404The public feeling and the lawyers' fees:
405His house was sold, his servants sent away,
406A Jew took one of his two mistresses,
407A priest the other at least so they say:
408I ask'd the doctors after his disease 
409He died of the slow fever call'd the tertian,
410And left his widow to her own aversion.
411Yet Jose was an honourable man,
412That I must say who knew him very well;
413Therefore his frailties I 'll no further scan
414Indeed there were not many more to tell;
415And if his passions now and then outran
416Discretion, and were not so peaceable
417As Numa's who was also named Pompilius,
418He had been ill brought up, and was born bilio
419Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,
420Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him.
421Let 's own since it can do no good on earth 
422It was a trying moment that which found him
423Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
424Where all his household gods lay shiver'd roun
425No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
426Save death or Doctors' Commons so he died.
427Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir
428To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands,
429Which, with a long minority and care,
430Promised to turn out well in proper hands:
431Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,
432And answer'd but to nature's just demands;
433An only son left with an only mother
434Is brought up much more wisely than another.
435Sagest of women, even of widows, she
436Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon,
437And worthy of the noblest pedigree
438His sire was of Castile, his dam from Aragon:
439Then for accomplishments of chivalry,
440In case our lord the king should go to war aga
441He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunner
442And how to scale a fortress or a nunnery.
443But that which Donna Inez most desired,
444And saw into herself each day before all
445The learned tutors whom for him she hired,
446Was, that his breeding should be strictly mora
447Much into all his studies she inquired,
448And so they were submitted first to her, all,
449Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery
450To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.
451The languages, especially the dead,
452The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
453The arts, at least all such as could be said
454To be the most remote from common use,
455In all these he was much and deeply read;
456But not a page of any thing that 's loose,
457Or hints continuation of the species,
458Was ever suffer'd, lest he should grow vicious
459His classic studies made a little puzzle,
460Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
461Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
462But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
463His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
464And for their AEneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
465Were forced to make an odd sort! of apology,
466For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.
467Ovid 's a rake, as half his verses show him,
468Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
469Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
470I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
471Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn
472Where the sublime soars forth on wings more am
473But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horri
474Beginning with 'Formosum Pastor Corydon.'
475Lucretius' irreligion is too strong,
476For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;
477I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,
478Although no doubt his real intent was good,
479For speaking out so plainly in his song,
480So much indeed as to be downright rude;
481And then what proper person can be partial
482To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?
483Juan was taught from out the best edition,
484Expurgated by learned men, who place
485Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,
486The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface
487Too much their modest bard by this omission,
488And pitying sore his mutilated case,
489They only add them all in an appendix,
490Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;
491For there we have them all 'at one fell swoop,
492Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages;
493They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troo
494To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
495Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
496To call them back into their separate cages,
497Instead of standing staring all together,
498Like garden gods and not so decent either.
499The Missal too it was the family Missal
500Was ornamented in a sort of way
501Which ancient mass-books often are, and this a
502Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they,
503Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all,
504Could turn their optics to the text and pray,
505Is more than I know But Don Juan's mother
506Kept this herself, and gave her son another.
507Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
508And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
509To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,
510He did not take such studies for restraints;
511But how faith is acquired, and then ensured,
512So well not one of the aforesaid paints
513As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
514Which make the reader envy his transgressions.
515This, too, was a seal'd book to little Juan 
516I can't but say that his mamma was right,
517If such an education was the true one.
518She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;
519Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,
520You might be sure she was a perfect fright;
521She did this during even her husband's life 
522I recommend as much to every wife.
523Young Juan wax'd in goodliness and grace;
524At six a charming child, and at eleven
525With all the promise of as fine a face
526As e'er to man's maturer growth was given:
527He studied steadily, and grew apace,
528And seem'd, at least, in the right road to hea
529For half his days were pass'd at church, the o
530Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.
531At six, I said, he was a charming child,
532At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;
533Although in infancy a little wild,
534They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy
535His natural spirit not in vain they toil'd,
536At least it seem'd so; and his mother's joy
537Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady
538Her young philosopher was grown already.
539I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,
540But what I say is neither here nor there:
541I knew his father well, and have some skill
542In character but it would not be fair
543From sire to son to augur good or ill:
544He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair 
545But scandal 's my aversion I protest
546Against all evil speaking, even in jest.
547For my part I say nothing nothing but
548This I will say my reasons are my own 
549That if I had an only son to put
550To school as God be praised that I have none,
551'T is not with Donna Inez I would shut
552Him up to learn his catechism alone,
553No no I 'd send him out betimes to college,
554For there it was I pick'd up my own knowledge.
555For there one learns 't is not for me to boast
556Though I acquired but I pass over that,
557As well as all the Greek I since have lost:
558I say that there 's the place but 'Verbum sat.
559I think I pick'd up too, as well as most,
560Knowledge of matters but no matter what 
561I never married but, I think, I know
562That sons should not be educated so.
563Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,
564Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he see
565Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;
566And everybody but his mother deem'd
567Him almost man; but she flew in a rage
568And bit her lips for else she might have screa
569If any said so, for to be precocious
570Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.
571Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
572Selected for discretion and devotion,
573There was the Donna Julia, whom to call
574Pretty were but to give a feeble notion
575Of many charms in her as natural
576As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean,
577Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid
578But this last simile is trite and stupid.
579The darkness of her Oriental eye
580Accorded with her Moorish origin
581Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by;
582In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin;
583When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,
584Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin
585Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain,
586Her great-great-grandmamma chose to remain.
587She married I forget the pedigree
588With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down
589His blood less noble than such blood should be
590At such alliances his sires would frown,
591In that point so precise in each degree
592That they bred in and in, as might be shown,
593Marrying their cousins nay, their aunts, and n
594Which always spoils the breed, if it increases
595This heathenish cross restored the breed again
596Ruin'd its blood, but much improved its flesh;
597For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain
598Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;
599The sons no more were short, the daughters pla
600But there 's a rumour which I fain would hush,
601'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma
602Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.
603However this might be, the race went on
604Improving still through every generation,
605Until it centred in an only son,
606Who left an only daughter; my narration
607May have suggested that this single one
608Could be but Julia whom on this occasion
609I shall have much to speak about, and she
610Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-thre
611Her eye I 'm very fond of handsome eyes
612Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
613Until she spoke, then through its soft disguis
614Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
615And love than either; and there would arise
616A something in them which was not desire,
617But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
618Which struggled through and chasten'd down the
619Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
620Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth
621Her eyebrow's shape was like th' aerial bow,
622Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
623Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
624As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,
625Possess'd an air and grace by no means common:
626Her stature tall I hate a dumpy woman.
627Wedded she was some years, and to a man
628Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
629And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE
630'T were better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,
631Especially in countries near the sun:
632And now I think on 't, 'mi vien in mente,'
633Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue
634Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.
635'T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,
636And all the fault of that indecent sun,
637Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,
638But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
639That howsoever people fast and pray,
640The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:
641What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
642Is much more common where the climate 's sultr
643Happy the nations of the moral North!
644Where all is virtue, and the winter season
645Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth
646'T was snow that brought St. Anthony to reason
647Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,
648By laying whate'er sum in mulct they please on
649The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
650Because it is a marketable vice.
651Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,
652A man well looking for his years, and who
653Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr'd:
654They lived together, as most people do,
655Suffering each other's foibles by accord,
656And not exactly either one or two;
657Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
658For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.
659Julia was yet I never could see why 
660With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;
661Between their tastes there was small sympathy,
662For not a line had Julia ever penn'd:
663Some people whisper but no doubt they lie,
664For malice still imputes some private end,
665That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage,
666Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;
667And that still keeping up the old connection,
668Which time had lately render'd much more chast
669She took his lady also in affection,
670And certainly this course was much the best:
671She flatter'd Julia with her sage protection,
672And complimented Don Alfonso's taste;
673And if she could not who can? silence scandal,
674At least she left it a more slender handle.
675I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair
676With other people's eyes, or if her own
677Discoveries made, but none could be aware
678Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown;
679Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,
680Indifferent from the first or callous grown:
681I 'm really puzzled what to think or say,
682She kept her counsel in so close a way.
683Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,
684Caress'd him often such a thing might be
685Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,
686When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;
687But I am not so sure I should have smiled
688When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;
689These few short years make wondrous alteration
690Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.
691Whate'er the cause might be, they had become
692Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth 
693Their looks cast down, their greetings almost 
694And much embarrassment in either eye;
695There surely will be little doubt with some
696That Donna Julia knew the reason why,
697But as for Juan, he had no more notion
698Than he who never saw the sea of ocean.
699Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,
700And tremulously gentle her small hand
701Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
702A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland
703And slight, so very slight, that to the mind
704'T was but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand
705Wrought change with all Armida's fairy art
706Like what this light touch left on Juan's hear
707And if she met him, though she smiled no more,
708She look'd a sadness sweeter than her smile,
709As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store
710She must not own, but cherish'd more the while
711For that compression in its burning core;
712Even innocence itself has many a wile,
713And will not dare to trust itself with truth,
714And love is taught hypocrisy from youth.
715But passion most dissembles, yet betrays
716Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky
717Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays
718Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,
719And in whatever aspect it arrays
720Itself, 't is still the same hypocrisy;
721Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate,
722Are masks it often wears, and still too late.
723Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppress
724And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
725And burning blushes, though for no transgressi
726Tremblings when met, and restlessness when lef
727All these are little preludes to possession,
728Of which young passion cannot be bereft,
729And merely tend to show how greatly love is
730Embarrass'd at first starting with a novice.
731Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state;
732She felt it going, and resolved to make
733The noblest efforts for herself and mate,
734For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sa
735Her resolutions were most truly great,
736And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:
737She pray'd the Virgin Mary for her grace,
738As being the best judge of a lady's case.
739She vow'd she never would see Juan more,
740And next day paid a visit to his mother,
741And look'd extremely at the opening door,
742Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another;
743Grateful she was, and yet a little sore 
744Again it opens, it can be no other,
745'T is surely Juan now No! I 'm afraid
746That night the Virgin was no further pray'd.
747She now determined that a virtuous woman
748Should rather face and overcome temptation,
749That flight was base and dastardly, and no man
750Should ever give her heart the least sensation
751That is to say, a thought beyond the common
752Preference, that we must feel upon occasion
753For people who are pleasanter than others,
754But then they only seem so many brothers.
755And even if by chance and who can tell?
756The devil 's so very sly she should discover
757That all within was not so very well,
758And, if still free, that such or such a lover
759Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quel
760Such thoughts, and be the better when they 're
761And if the man should ask, 't is but denial:
762I recommend young ladies to make trial.
763And then there are such things as love divine,
764Bright and immaculate, unmix'd and pure,
765Such as the angels think so very fine,
766And matrons who would be no less secure,
767Platonic, perfect, 'just such love as mine;'
768Thus Julia said and thought so, to be sure;
769And so I 'd have her think, were I the man
770On whom her reveries celestial ran.
771Such love is innocent, and may exist
772Between young persons without any danger.
773A hand may first, and then a lip be kist;
774For my part, to such doings I 'm a stranger,
775But hear these freedoms form the utmost list
776Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger:
777If people go beyond, 't is quite a crime,
778But not my fault I tell them all in time.
779Love, then, but love within its proper limits,
780Was Julia's innocent determination
781In young Don Juan's favour, and to him its
782Exertion might be useful on occasion;
783And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its
784Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion
785He might be taught, by love and her together 
786I really don't know what, nor Julia either.
787Fraught with this fine intention, and well fen
788In mail of proof her purity of soul 
789She, for the future of her strength convinced.
790And that her honour was a rock, or mole,
791Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed
792With any kind of troublesome control;
793But whether Julia to the task was equal
794Is that which must be mention'd in the sequel.
795Her plan she deem'd both innocent and feasible
796And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen
797Not scandal's fangs could fix on much that 's 
798Or if they did so, satisfied to mean
799Nothing but what was good, her breast was peac
800A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
801Christians have burnt each other, quite persua
802That all the Apostles would have done as they 
803And if in the mean time her husband died,
804But Heaven forbid that such a thought should c
805Her brain, though in a dream! and then she sig
806Never could she survive that common loss;
807But just suppose that moment should betide,
808I only say suppose it inter nos.
809This should be entre nous, for Julia thought
810In French, but then the rhyme would go for nau
811I only say suppose this supposition:
812Juan being then grown up to man's estate
813Would fully suit a widow of condition,
814Even seven years hence it would not be too lat
815And in the interim to pursue this vision
816The mischief, after all, could not be great,
817For he would learn the rudiments of love,
818I mean the seraph way of those above.
819So much for Julia. Now we 'll turn to Juan.
820Poor little fellow! he had no idea
821Of his own case, and never hit the true one;
822In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea,
823He puzzled over what he found a new one,
824But not as yet imagined it could be
825Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming
826Which, with a little patience, might grow char
827Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,
828His home deserted for the lonely wood,
829Tormented with a wound he could not know,
830His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude:
831I 'm fond myself of solitude or so,
832But then, I beg it may be understood,
833By solitude I mean a sultan's, not
834A hermit's, with a haram for a grot.
835'Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,
836Where transport and security entwine,
837Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
838And here thou art a god indeed divine.'
839The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,
840With the exception of the second line,
841For that same twining 'transport and security'
842Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.
843The poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals
844To the good sense and senses of mankind,
845The very thing which every body feels,
846As all have found on trial, or may find,
847That no one likes to be disturb'd at meals
848Or love. I won't say more about 'entwined'
849Or 'transport,' as we knew all that before,
850But beg 'Security' will bolt the door.
851Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks,
852Thinking unutterable things; he threw
853Himself at length within the leafy nooks
854Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;
855There poets find materials for their books,
856And every now and then we read them through,
857So that their plan and prosody are eligible,
858Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintellig
859He, Juan and not Wordsworth, so pursued
860His self-communion with his own high soul,
861Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
862Had mitigated part, though not the whole
863Of its disease; he did the best he could
864With things not very subject to control,
865And turn'd, without perceiving his condition,
866Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.
867He thought about himself, and the whole earth
868Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,
869And how the deuce they ever could have birth;
870And then he thought of earthquakes, and of war
871How many miles the moon might have in girth,
872Of air-balloons, and of the many bars
873To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies; 
874And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.
875In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern
876Longings sublime, and aspirations high,
877Which some are born with, but the most part le
878To plague themselves withal, they know not why
879'T was strange that one so young should thus c
880His brain about the action of the sky;
881If you think 't was philosophy that this did,
882I can't help thinking puberty assisted.
883He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
884And heard a voice in all the winds; and then
885He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,
886And how the goddesses came down to men:
887He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours,
888And when he look'd upon his watch again,
889He found how much old Time had been a winner 
890He also found that he had lost his dinner.
891Sometimes he turn'd to gaze upon his book,
892Boscan, or Garcilasso; by the wind
893Even as the page is rustled while we look,
894So by the poesy of his own mind
895Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,
896As if 't were one whereon magicians bind
897Their spells, and give them to the passing gal
898According to some good old woman's tale.
899Thus would he while his lonely hours away
900Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted;
901Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay,
902Could yield his spirit that for which it pante
903A bosom whereon he his head might lay,
904And hear the heart beat with the love it grant
905With several other things, which I forget,
906Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.
907Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,
908Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes;
909She saw that Juan was not at his ease;
910But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,
911Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease
912Her only son with question or surmise:
913Whether it was she did not see, or would not,
914Or, like all very clever people, could not.
915This may seem strange, but yet 't is very comm
916For instance gentlemen, whose ladies take
917Leave to o'erstep the written rights of woman,
918And break the Which commandment is 't they bre
919I have forgot the number, and think no man
920Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.
921I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,
922They make some blunder, which their ladies tel
923A real husband always is suspicious,
924But still no less suspects in the wrong place,
925Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,
926Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace,
927By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicio
928The last indeed 's infallibly the case:
929And when the spouse and friend are gone off wh
930He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.
931Thus parents also are at times short-sighted;
932Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discov
933The while the wicked world beholds delighted,
934Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's love
935Till some confounded escapade has blighted
936The plan of twenty years, and all is over;
937And then the mother cries, the father swears,
938And wonders why the devil he got heirs.
939But Inez was so anxious, and so clear
940Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion,
941She had some other motive much more near
942For leaving Juan to this new temptation;
943But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here;
944Perhaps to finish Juan's education,
945Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes,
946In case he thought his wife too great a prize.
947It was upon a day, a summer's day;-
948Summer's indeed a very dangerous season,
949And so is spring about the end of May;
950The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason;
951But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say,
952And stand convicted of more truth than treason
953That there are months which nature grows more 
954March has its hares, and May must have its her
955'T was on a summer's day the sixth of June: 
956I like to be particular in dates,
957Not only of the age, and year, but moon;
958They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates
959Change horses, making history change its tune,
960Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states,
961Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
962Excepting the post-obits of theology.
963'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour
964Of half-past six perhaps still nearer seven 
965When Julia sate within as pretty a bower
966As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven
967Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,
968To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
969With all the trophies of triumphant song 
970He won them well, and may he wear them long!
971She sate, but not alone; I know not well
972How this same interview had taken place,
973And even if I knew, I should not tell 
974People should hold their tongues in any case;
975No matter how or why the thing befell,
976But there were she and Juan, face to face 
977When two such faces are so, 't would be wise,
978But very difficult, to shut their eyes.
979How beautiful she look'd! her conscious heart
980Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong
981O Love! how perfect is thy mystic art,
982Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the s
983How self-deceitful is the sagest part
984Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along 
985The precipice she stood on was immense,
986So was her creed in her own innocence.
987She thought of her own strength, and Juan's yo
988And of the folly of all prudish fears,
989Victorious virtue, and domestic truth,
990And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years:
991I wish these last had not occurr'd, in sooth,
992Because that number rarely much endears,
993And through all climes, the snowy and the sunn
994Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.
995When people say, 'I've told you fifty times,'
996They mean to scold, and very often do;
997When poets say, 'I've written fifty rhymes,'
998They make you dread that they 'll recite them 
999In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes
1000At fifty love for love is rare, 't is true,
1001But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,
1002A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.
1003Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love,
1004For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,
1005By all the vows below to powers above,
1006She never would disgrace the ring she wore,
1007Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove;
1008And while she ponder'd this, besides much more
1009One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown,
1010Quite by mistake she thought it was her own;
1011Unconsciously she lean'd upon the other,
1012Which play'd within the tangles of her hair:
1013And to contend with thoughts she could not smo
1014She seem'd by the distraction of her air.
1015'T was surely very wrong in Juan's mother
1016To leave together this imprudent pair,
1017She who for many years had watch'd her son so 
1018I 'm very certain mine would not have done so.
1019The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees
1020Gently, but palpably confirm'd its grasp,
1021As if it said, 'Detain me, if you please;'
1022Yet there 's no doubt she only meant to clasp
1023His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze:
1024She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp,
1025Had she imagined such a thing could rouse
1026A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.
1027I cannot know what Juan thought of this,
1028But what he did, is much what you would do;
1029His young lip thank'd it with a grateful kiss,
1030And then, abash'd at its own joy, withdrew
1031In deep despair, lest he had done amiss, 
1032Love is so very timid when 't is new:
1033She blush'd, and frown'd not, but she strove t
1034And held her tongue, her voice was grown so we
1035The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon:
1036The devil 's in the moon for mischief; they
1037Who call'd her CHASTE, methinks, began too soo
1038Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
1039The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
1040Sees half the business in a wicked way
1041On which three single hours of moonshine smile
1042And then she looks so modest all the while.
1043There is a dangerous silence in that hour,
1044A stillness, which leaves room for the full so
1045To open all itself, without the power
1046Of calling wholly back its self-control;
1047The silver light which, hallowing tree and tow
1048Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
1049Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
1050A loving languor, which is not repose.
1051And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced
1052And half retiring from the glowing arm,
1053Which trembled like the bosom where 't was pla
1054Yet still she must have thought there was no h
1055Or else 't were easy to withdraw her waist;
1056But then the situation had its charm,
1057And then God knows what next I can't go on;
1058I 'm almost sorry that I e'er begun.
1059O Plato! Plato! you have paved the way,
1060With your confounded fantasies, to more
1061Immoral conduct by the fancied sway
1062Your system feigns o'er the controulless core
1063Of human hearts, than all the long array
1064Of poets and romancers: You 're a bore,
1065A charlatan, a coxcomb and have been,
1066At best, no better than a go-between.
1067And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,
1068Until too late for useful conversation;
1069The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
1070I wish indeed they had not had occasion,
1071But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
1072Not that remorse did not oppose temptation;
1073A little still she strove, and much repented
1074And whispering 'I will ne'er consent' consente
1075'T is said that Xerxes offer'd a reward
1076To those who could invent him a new pleasure:
1077Methinks the requisition 's rather hard,
1078And must have cost his majesty a treasure:
1079For my part, I 'm a moderate-minded bard,
1080Fond of a little love which I call leisure;
1081I care not for new pleasures, as the old
1082Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.
1083O Pleasure! you are indeed a pleasant thing,
1084Although one must be damn'd for you, no doubt:
1085I make a resolution every spring
1086Of reformation, ere the year run out,
1087But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,
1088Yet still, I trust it may be kept throughout:
1089I 'm very sorry, very much ashamed,
1090And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim'd.
1091Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take 
1092Start not! still chaster reader she 'll be nic
1093Forward, and there is no great cause to quake;
1094This liberty is a poetic licence,
1095Which some irregularity may make
1096In the design, and as I have a high sense
1097Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit
1098To beg his pardon when I err a bit.
1099This licence is to hope the reader will
1100Suppose from June the sixth the fatal day,
1101Without whose epoch my poetic skill
1102For want of facts would all be thrown away,
1103But keeping Julia and Don Juan still
1104In sight, that several months have pass'd; we 
1105'T was in November, but I 'm not so sure
1106About the day the era 's more obscure.
1107We 'll talk of that anon. 'T is sweet to hear
1108At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
1109The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
1110By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
1111'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;
1112'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep
1113From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high
1114The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.
1115'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bar
1116Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;
1117'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
1118Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
1119'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,
1120Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum
1121Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds
1122The lisp of children, and their earliest words
1123Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grape
1124In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
1125Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
1126From civic revelry to rural mirth;
1127Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,
1128Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,
1129Sweet is revenge especially to women,
1130Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.
1131Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet
1132The unexpected death of some old lady
1133Or gentleman of seventy years complete,
1134Who 've made 'us youth' wait too too long alre
1135For an estate, or cash, or country seat,
1136Still breaking, but with stamina so steady
1137That all the Israelites are fit to mob its
1138Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits.
1139'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laure
1140By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
1141To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our q
1142Particularly with a tiresome friend:
1143Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;
1144Dear is the helpless creature we defend
1145Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
1146We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.
1147But sweeter still than this, than these, than 
1148Is first and passionate love it stands alone,
1149Like Adam's recollection of his fall;
1150The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd all 's 
1151And life yields nothing further to recall
1152Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
1153No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
1154Fire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heav
1155Man 's a strange animal, and makes strange use
1156Of his own nature, and the various arts,
1157And likes particularly to produce
1158Some new experiment to show his parts;
1159This is the age of oddities let loose,
1160Where different talents find their different m
1161You 'd best begin with truth, and when you 've
1162Labour, there 's a sure market for imposture.
1163What opposite discoveries we have seen!
1164Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.
1165One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
1166One breaks your bones, one sets them in their 
1167But vaccination certainly has been
1168A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets,
1169With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,
1170By borrowing a new one from an ox.
1171Bread has been made indifferent from potatoes;
1172And galvanism has set some corpses grinning,
1173But has not answer'd like the apparatus
1174Of the Humane Society's beginning
1175By which men are unsuffocated gratis:
1176What wondrous new machines have late been spin
1177I said the small-pox has gone out of late;
1178Perhaps it may be follow'd by the great.
1179'T is said the great came from America;
1180Perhaps it may set out on its return, 
1181The population there so spreads, they say
1182'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn,
1183With war, or plague, or famine, any way,
1184So that civilisation they may learn;
1185And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is
1186Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?
1187This is the patent-age of new inventions
1188For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
1189All propagated with the best intentions;
1190Sir Humphry Davy's lantern, by which coals
1191Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
1192Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
1193Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
1194Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.
1195Man 's a phenomenon, one knows not what,
1196And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
1197'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that
1198Pleasure 's a sin, and sometimes sin 's a plea
1199Few mortals know what end they would be at,
1200But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure
1201The path is through perplexing ways, and when
1202The goal is gain'd, we die, you know and then 
1203What then? I do not know, no more do you 
1204And so good night. Return we to our story:
1205'T was in November, when fine days are few,
1206And the far mountains wax a little hoary,
1207And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;
1208And the sea dashes round the promontory,
1209And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
1210And sober suns must set at five o'clock.
1211'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;
1212No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud
1213By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was brig
1214With the piled wood, round which the family cr
1215There 's something cheerful in that sort of li
1216Even as a summer sky 's without a cloud:
1217I 'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,
1218A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.
1219'T was midnight Donna Julia was in bed,
1220Sleeping, most probably, when at her door
1221Arose a clatter might awake the dead,
1222If they had never been awoke before,
1223And that they have been so we all have read,
1224And are to be so, at the least, once more; 
1225The door was fasten'd, but with voice and fist
1226First knocks were heard, then 'Madam Madam his
1227'For God's sake, Madam Madam here 's my master
1228With more than half the city at his back 
1229Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!
1230'T is not my fault I kept good watch Alack!
1231Do pray undo the bolt a little faster 
1232They 're on the stair just now, and in a crack
1233Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly 
1234Surely the window 's not so very high!'
1235By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,
1236With torches, friends, and servants in great n
1237The major part of them had long been wived,
1238And therefore paused not to disturb the slumbe
1239Of any wicked woman, who contrived
1240By stealth her husband's temples to encumber:
1241Examples of this kind are so contagious,
1242Were one not punish'd, all would be outrageous
1243I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion
1244Could enter into Don Alfonso's head;
1245But for a cavalier of his condition
1246It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
1247Without a word of previous admonition,
1248To hold a levee round his lady's bed,
1249And summon lackeys, arm'd with fire and sword,
1250To prove himself the thing he most abhorr'd.
1251Poor Donna Julia, starting as from sleep
1252Mind that I do not say she had not slept,
1253Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;
1254Her maid Antonia, who was an adept,
1255Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,
1256As if she had just now from out them crept:
1257I can't tell why she should take all this trou
1258To prove her mistress had been sleeping double
1259But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,
1260Appear'd like two poor harmless women, who
1261Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,
1262Had thought one man might be deterr'd by two,
1263And therefore side by side were gently laid,
1264Until the hours of absence should run through,
1265And truant husband should return, and say,
1266'My dear, I was the first who came away.'
1267Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,
1268'In heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mea
1269Has madness seized you? would that I had died
1270Ere such a monster's victim I had been!
1271What may this midnight violence betide,
1272A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?
1273Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would ki
1274Search, then, the room!' Alfonso said, 'I will
1275He search'd, they search'd, and rummaged every
1276Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-se
1277And found much linen, lace, and several pair
1278Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, comple
1279With other articles of ladies fair,
1280To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:
1281Arras they prick'd and curtains with their swo
1282And wounded several shutters, and some boards.
1283Under the bed they search'd, and there they fo
1284No matter what it was not that they sought;
1285They open'd windows, gazing if the ground
1286Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nou
1287And then they stared each other's faces round:
1288'T is odd, not one of all these seekers though
1289And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
1290Of looking in the bed as well as under.
1291During this inquisition, Julia's tongue
1292Was not asleep 'Yes, search and search,' she c
1293'Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
1294It was for this that I became a bride!
1295For this in silence I have suffer'd long
1296A husband like Alfonso at my side;
1297But now I 'll bear no more, nor here remain,
1298If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.
1299'Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,
1300If ever you indeed deserved the name,
1301Is 't worthy of your years? you have threescor
1302Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same 
1303Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore
1304For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?
1305Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,
1306How dare you think your lady would go on so?
1307'Is it for this I have disdain'd to hold
1308The common privileges of my sex?
1309That I have chosen a confessor so old
1310And deaf, that any other it would vex,
1311And never once he has had cause to scold,
1312But found my very innocence perplex
1313So much, he always doubted I was married 
1314How sorry you will be when I 've miscarried!
1315'Was it for this that no Cortejo e'er
1316I yet have chosen from out the youth of Sevill
1317Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,
1318Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and r
1319Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were,
1320I favor'd none nay, was almost uncivil?
1321Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly,
1322Who took Algiers, declares I used him vilely?
1323'Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani
1324Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?
1325Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,
1326Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?
1327Were there not also Russians, English, many?
1328The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,
1329And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,
1330Who kill'd himself for love with wine last yea
1331'Have I not had two bishops at my feet,
1332The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez?
1333And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?
1334I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:
1335I praise your vast forbearance not to beat
1336Me also, since the time so opportune is 
1337O, valiant man! with sword drawn and cock'd tr
1338Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?
1339'Was it for this you took your sudden journey.
1340Under pretence of business indispensable
1341With that sublime of rascals your attorney,
1342Whom I see standing there, and looking sensibl
1343Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn
1344Deserves the worst, his conduct 's less defens
1345Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee,
1346And not from any love to you nor me.
1347'If he comes here to take a deposition,
1348By all means let the gentleman proceed;
1349You 've made the apartment in a fit condition:
1350There 's pen and ink for you, sir, when you ne
1351Let every thing be noted with precision,
1352I would not you for nothing should be fee'd 
1353But, as my maid 's undrest, pray turn your spi
1354'Oh!' sobb'd Antonia, 'I could tear their eyes
1355'There is the closet, there the toilet, there
1356The antechamber search them under, over;
1357There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,
1358The chimney which would really hold a lover.
1359I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care
1360And make no further noise, till you discover
1361The secret cavern of this lurking treasure 
1362And when 't is found, let me, too, have that p
1363'And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown
1364Doubt upon me, confusion over all,
1365Pray have the courtesy to make it known
1366Who is the man you search for? how d' ye cal
1367Him? what 's his lineage? let him but be shown
1368I hope he 's young and handsome is he tall?
1369Tell me and be assured, that since you stain
1370My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.
1371'At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,
1372At that age he would be too old for slaughter,
1373Or for so young a husband's jealous fears
1374Antonia! let me have a glass of water.
1375I am ashamed of having shed these tears,
1376They are unworthy of my father's daughter;
1377My mother dream'd not in my natal hour
1378That I should fall into a monster's power.
1379'Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous,
1380You saw that she was sleeping by my side
1381When you broke in upon us with your fellows:
1382Look where you please we 've nothing, sir, to 
1383Only another time, I trust, you 'll tell us,
1384Or for the sake of decency abide
1385A moment at the door, that we may be
1386Drest to receive so much good company.
1387'And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;
1388The little I have said may serve to show
1389The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er
1390The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:
1391I leave you to your conscience as before,
1392'T will one day ask you why you used me so?
1393God grant you feel not then the bitterest grie
1394Antonia! where 's my pocket-handkerchief?'
1395She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale
1396She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their 
1397Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,
1398Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears
1399Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, bu
1400To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears
1401Its snow through all; her soft lips lie apart,
1402And louder than her breathing beats her heart.
1403The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
1404Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room,
1405And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
1406Her master and his myrmidons, of whom
1407Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
1408He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
1409So there were quarrels, cared not for the caus
1410Knowing they must be settled by the laws.
1411With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stoo
1412Following Antonia's motions here and there,
1413With much suspicion in his attitude;
1414For reputations he had little care;
1415So that a suit or action were made good,
1416Small pity had he for the young and fair,
1417And ne'er believed in negatives, till these
1418Were proved by competent false witnesses.
1419But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,
1420And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;
1421When, after searching in five hundred nooks,
1422And treating a young wife with so much rigour,
1423He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes,
1424Added to those his lady with such vigour
1425Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,
1426Quick, thick, and heavy as a thunder-shower.
1427At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
1428To which the sole reply was tears and sobs,
1429And indications of hysterics, whose
1430Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,
1431Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:
1432Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;
1433He saw too, in perspective, her relations,
1434And then he tried to muster all his patience.
1435He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,
1436But sage Antonia cut him short before
1437The anvil of his speech received the hammer,
1438With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no mo
1439Or madam dies.' Alfonso mutter'd, 'D n her,'
1440But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
1441He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
1442He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.
1443With him retired his 'posse comitatus,'
1444The attorney last, who linger'd near the door
1445Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
1446Antonia let him not a little sore
1447At this most strange and unexplain'd 'hiatus'
1448In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore
1449An awkward look; as he revolved the case,
1450The door was fasten'd in his legal face.
1451No sooner was it bolted, than Oh shame!
1452O sin! Oh sorrow! and oh womankind!
1453How can you do such things and keep your fame,
1454Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?
1455Nothing so dear as an unfilch'd good name!
1456But to proceed for there is more behind:
1457With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,
1458Young Juan slipp'd half-smother'd, from the be
1459He had been hid I don't pretend to say
1460How, nor can I indeed describe the where 
1461Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay,
1462No doubt, in little compass, round or square;
1463But pity him I neither must nor may
1464His suffocation by that pretty pair;
1465'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut
1466With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.
1467And, secondly, I pity not, because
1468He had no business to commit a sin,
1469Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws,
1470At least 't was rather early to begin;
1471But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws
1472So much as when we call our old debts in
1473At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,
1474And find a deuced balance with the devil.
1475Of his position I can give no notion:
1476'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,
1477How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,
1478Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,
1479When old King David's blood grew dull in motio
1480And that the medicine answer'd very well;
1481Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,
1482For David lived, but Juan nearly died.
1483What 's to be done? Alfonso will be back
1484The moment he has sent his fools away.
1485Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,
1486But no device could be brought into play 
1487And how to parry the renew'd attack?
1488Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:
1489Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,
1490But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.
1491He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand
1492Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair;
1493Even then their love they could not all comman
1494And half forgot their danger and despair:
1495Antonia's patience now was at a stand 
1496'Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling the
1497She whisper'd, in great wrath 'I must deposit
1498This pretty gentleman within the closet:
1499'Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier nig
1500Who can have put my master in this mood?
1501What will become on 't I 'm in such a fright,
1502The devil 's in the urchin, and no good 
1503Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?
1504Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?
1505You 'll lose your life, and I shall lose my pl
1506My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.
1507'Had it but been for a stout cavalier
1508Of twenty-five or thirty come, make haste 
1509But for a child, what piece of work is here!
1510I really, madam, wonder at your taste
1511Come, sir, get in my master must be near:
1512There, for the present, at the least, he's fas
1513And if we can but till the morning keep
1514Our counsel Juan, mind, you must not sleep.'
1515Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,
1516Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
1517She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone,
1518An order somewhat sullenly obey'd;
1519However, present remedy was none,
1520And no great good seem'd answer'd if she stay'
1521Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
1522She snuff'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew
1523Alfonso paused a minute then begun
1524Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;
1525He would not justify what he had done,
1526To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;
1527But there were ample reasons for it, none
1528Of which he specified in this his pleading:
1529His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
1530Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call 'rigmarole
1531Julia said nought; though all the while there 
1532A ready answer, which at once enables
1533A matron, who her husband's foible knows,
1534By a few timely words to turn the tables,
1535Which, if it does not silence, still must pose
1536Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;
1537'T is to retort with firmness, and when he
1538Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.
1539Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds, 
1540Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known,
1541But whether 't was that one's own guilt confou
1542But that can't be, as has been often shown,
1543A lady with apologies abounds; 
1544It might be that her silence sprang alone
1545From delicacy to Don Juan's ear,
1546To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.
1547There might be one more motive, which makes tw
1548Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded, 
1549Mention'd his jealousy but never who
1550Had been the happy lover, he concluded,
1551Conceal'd amongst his premises; 't is true,
1552His mind the more o'er this its mystery broode
1553To speak of Inez now were, one may say,
1554Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.
1555A hint, in tender cases, is enough;
1556Silence is best, besides there is a tact
1557That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,
1558But it will serve to keep my verse compact-
1559Which keeps, when push'd by questions rather r
1560A lady always distant from the fact:
1561The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
1562There 's nothing so becoming to the face.
1563They blush, and we believe them; at least I
1564Have always done so; 't is of no great use,
1565In any case, attempting a reply,
1566For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;
1567And when at length they 're out of breath, the
1568And cast their languid eyes down, and let loos
1569A tear or two, and then we make it up;
1570And then and then and then sit down and sup.
1571Alfonso closed his speech, and begg'd her pard
1572Which Julia half withheld, and then half grant
1573And laid conditions he thought very hard on,
1574Denying several little things he wanted:
1575He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,
1576With useless penitence perplex'd and haunted,
1577Beseeching she no further would refuse,
1578When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.
1579A pair of shoes! what then? not much, if they
1580Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these
1581No one can tell how much I grieve to say
1582Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,
1583Was but a moment's act. Ah! well-a-day!
1584My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze 
1585Alfonso first examined well their fashion,
1586And then flew out into another passion.
1587He left the room for his relinquish'd sword,
1588And Julia instant to the closet flew.
1589'Fly, Juan, fly! for heaven's sake not a word 
1590The door is open you may yet slip through
1591The passage you so often have explored 
1592Here is the garden-key Fly fly Adieu!
1593Haste haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet 
1594Day has not broke there 's no one in the stree
1595None can say that this was not good advice,
1596The only mischief was, it came too late;
1597Of all experience 't is the usual price,
1598A sort of income-tax laid on by fate:
1599Juan had reach'd the room-door in a. trice,
1600And might have done so by the garden-gate,
1601But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,
1602Who threaten'd death so Juan knock'd him down.
1603Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;
1604Antonia cried out 'Rape!' and Julia 'Fire!'
1605But not a servant stirr'd to aid the fight.
1606Alfonso, pommell'd to his heart's desire,
1607Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night;
1608And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;
1609His blood was up: though young, he was a Tarta
1610And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.
1611Alfonso's sword had dropp'd ere he could draw 
1612And they continued battling hand to hand,
1613For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it;
1614His temper not being under great command,
1615If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,
1616Alfonso's days had not been in the land
1617Much longer. Think of husbands', lovers' lives
1618And how ye may be doubly widows wives!
1619Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,
1620And Juan throttled him to get away,
1621And blood 't was from the nose began to flow;
1622At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,
1623Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,
1624And then his only garment quite gave way;
1625He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,
1626I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.
1627Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who
1628An awkward spectacle their eyes before;
1629Antonia in hysterics, Julia swoon'd,
1630Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;
1631Some half-torn drapery scatter'd on the ground
1632Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more
1633Juan the gate gain'd, turn'd the key about,
1634And liking not the inside, lock'd the out.
1635Here ends this canto. Need I sing, or say,
1636How Juan naked, favour'd by the night,
1637Who favours what she should not, found his way
1638And reach'd his home in an unseemly plight?
1639The pleasant scandal which arose next day,
1640The nine days' wonder which was brought to lig
1641And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,
1642Were in the English newspapers, of course.
1643If you would like to see the whole proceedings
1644The depositions, and the cause at full,
1645The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings
1646Of counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,
1647There 's more than one edition, and the readin
1648Are various, but they none of them are dull;
1649The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney
1650Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.
1651But Donna Inez, to divert the train
1652Of one of the most circulating scandals
1653That had for centuries been known in Spain,
1654At least since the retirement of the Vandals,
1655First vow'd and never had she vow'd in vain
1656To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;
1657And then, by the advice of some old ladies,
1658She sent her son to be shipp'd off from Cadiz.
1659She had resolved that he should travel through
1660All European climes, by land or sea,
1661To mend his former morals, and get new,
1662Especially in France and Italy
1663At least this is the thing most people do.
1664Julia was sent into a convent: she
1665Grieved, but, perhaps, her feelings may be bet
1666Shown in the following copy of her Letter: 
1667'They tell me 't is decided; you depart:
1668'T is wise 't is well, but not the less a pain
1669I have no further claim on your young heart,
1670Mine is the victim, and would be again;
1671To love too much has been the only art
1672I used; I write in haste, and if a stain
1673Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;
1674My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.
1675'I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
1676State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own este
1677And yet can not regret what it hath cost,
1678So dear is still the memory of that dream;
1679Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast,
1680None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:
1681I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest 
1682I 've nothing to reproach, or to request.
1683'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
1684'T is woman's whole existence; man may range
1685The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the m
1686Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
1687Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
1688And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
1689Men have all these resources, we but one,
1690To love again, and be again undone.
1691'You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,
1692Beloved and loving many; all is o'er
1693For me on earth, except some years to hide
1694My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core;
1695These I could bear, but cannot cast aside
1696The passion which still rages as before 
1697And so farewell forgive me, love me No,
1698That word is idle now but let it go.
1699'My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;
1700But still I think I can collect my mind;
1701My blood still rushes where my spirit 's set,
1702As roll the waves before the settled wind;
1703My heart is feminine, nor can forget 
1704To all, except one image, madly blind;
1705So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
1706As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul.
1707'I have no more to say, but linger still,
1708And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,
1709And yet I may as well the task fulfil,
1710My misery can scarce be more complete:
1711I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;
1712Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would
1713And I must even survive this last adieu,
1714And bear with life, to love and pray for you!'
1715This note was written upon gilt-edged paper
1716With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new:
1717Her small white hand could hardly reach the ta
1718It trembled as magnetic needles do,
1719And yet she did not let one tear escape her;
1720The seal a sun-flower; 'Elle vous suit partout
1721The motto cut upon a white cornelian;
1722The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.
1723This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but wheth
1724I shall proceed with his adventures is
1725Dependent on the public altogether;
1726We 'll see, however, what they say to this:
1727Their favour in an author's cap 's a feather,
1728And no great mischief 's done by their caprice
1729And if their approbation we experience,
1730Perhaps they 'll have some more about a year h
1731My poem 's epic, and is meant to be
1732Divided in twelve books; each book containing,
1733With love, and war, a heavy gale at sea,
1734A list of ships, and captains, and kings reign
1735New characters; the episodes are three:
1736A panoramic view of hell 's in training,
1737After the style of Virgil and of Homer,
1738So that my name of Epic 's no misnomer.
1739All these things will be specified in time,
1740With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,
1741The Vade Mecum of the true sublime,
1742Which makes so many poets, and some fools:
1743Prose poets like blank-verse, I 'm fond of rhy
1744Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
1745I 've got new mythological machinery,
1746And very handsome supernatural scenery.
1747There 's only one slight difference between
1748Me and my epic brethren gone before,
1749And here the advantage is my own, I ween
1750Not that I have not several merits more,
1751But this will more peculiarly be seen;
1752They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore
1753Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,
1754Whereas this story 's actually true.
1755If any person doubt it, I appeal
1756To history, tradition, and to facts,
1757To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,
1758To plays in five, and operas in three acts;
1759All these confirm my statement a good deal,
1760But that which more completely faith exacts
1761Is that myself, and several now in Seville,
1762Saw Juan's last elopement with the devil.
1763If ever I should condescend to prose,
1764I 'll write poetical commandments, which
1765Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
1766That went before; in these I shall enrich
1767My text with many things that no one knows,
1768And carry precept to the highest pitch:
1769I 'll call the work 'Longinus o'er a Bottle,
1770Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.'
1771Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
1772Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, S
1773Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
1774The second drunk, the third so quaint and mout
1775With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,
1776And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:
1777Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor
1778Commit flirtation with the muse of Moore.
1779Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,
1780His Pegasus, nor anything that 's his;
1781Thou shalt not bear false witness like 'the Bl
1782There 's one, at least, is very fond of this;
1783Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I cho
1784This is true criticism, and you may kiss 
1785Exactly as you please, or not, the rod;
1786If any person should presume to assert
1787This story is not moral, first, I pray,
1788That they will not cry out before they 're hur
1789Then that they 'll read it o'er again, and say
1790But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert
1791That this is not a moral tale, though gay;
1792Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show
1793The very place where wicked people go.
1794If, after all, there should be some so blind
1795To their own good this warning to despise,
1796Led by some tortuosity of mind,
1797Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
1798And cry that they 'the moral cannot find,'
1799I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
1800Should captains the remark, or critics, make,
1801They also lie too under a mistake.
1802The public approbation I expect,
1803And beg they 'll take my word about the moral,
1804Which I with their amusement will connect
1805So children cutting teeth receive a coral;
1806Meantime, they 'll doubtless please to recolle
1807My epical pretensions to the laurel:
1808For fear some prudish readers should grow skit
1809I 've bribed my grandmother's review the Briti
1810I sent it in a letter to the Editor,
1811Who thank'd me duly by return of post 
1812I 'm for a handsome article his creditor;
1813Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
1814And break a promise after having made it her,
1815Denying the receipt of what it cost,
1816And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
1817All I can say is that he had the money.
1818I think that with this holy new alliance
1819I may ensure the public, and defy
1820All other magazines of art or science,
1821Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I
1822Have not essay'd to multiply their clients,
1823Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,
1824And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly
1825Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.
1826'Non ego hoc ferrem calida juventa
1827Consule Planco,' Horace said, and so
1828Say I; by which quotation there is meant a
1829Hint that some six or seven good years ago
1830Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta
1831I was most ready to return a blow,
1832And would not brook at all this sort of thing
1833In my hot youth when George the Third was King
1834But now at thirty years my hair is grey
1835I wonder what it will be like at forty?
1836I thought of a peruke the other day 
1837My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
1838Have squander'd my whole summer while 't was M
1839And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
1840Have spent my life, both interest and principa
1841And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincibl
1842No more no more Oh! never more on me
1843The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
1844Which out of all the lovely things we see
1845Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
1846Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee:
1847Think'st thou the honey with those objects gre
1848Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
1849To double even the sweetness of a flower.
1850No more no more Oh! never more, my heart,
1851Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
1852Once all in all, but now a thing apart,
1853Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
1854The illusion 's gone for ever, and thou art
1855Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,
1856And in thy stead I 've got a deal of judgment,
1857Though heaven knows how it ever found a lodgme
1858My days of love are over; me no more
1859The charms of maid, wife, and still less of wi
1860Can make the fool of which they made before, 
1861In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
1862The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
1863The copious use of claret is forbid too,
1864So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
1865I think I must take up with avarice.
1866Ambition was my idol, which was broken
1867Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
1868And the two last have left me many a token
1869O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
1870Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I 've spo
1871'Time is, Time was, Time 's past:' a chymic tr
1872Is glittering youth, which I have spent betime
1873My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
1874What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill
1875A certain portion of uncertain paper:
1876Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
1877Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapou
1878For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes 
1879And bards burn what they call their 'midnight 
1880To have, when the original is dust,
1881A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
1882What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
1883Cheops erected the first pyramid
1884And largest, thinking it was just the thing
1885To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
1886But somebody or other rummaging,
1887Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
1888Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
1889Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.
1890But I being fond of true philosophy,
1891Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
1892All things that have been born were born to di
1893And flesh which Death mows down to hay is gras
1894You 've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
1895And if you had it o'er again 't would pass 
1896So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
1897And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.
1898But for the present, gentle reader! and
1899Still gentler purchaser! the bard that 's I 
1900Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,
1901And so 'Your humble servant, and good-b'ye!'
1902We meet again, if we should understand
1903Each other; and if not, I shall not try
1904Your patience further than by this short sampl
1905'T were well if others follow'd my example.
1906'Go, little book, from this my solitude!
1907I cast thee on the waters go thy ways!
1908And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
1909The world will find thee after many days.'
1910When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood
1911I can't help putting in my claim to praise 
1912The four first rhymes are Southey's every line
1913For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine
1914CANTO THE SECOND.
1915O ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations
1916Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
1917I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
1918It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
1919The best of mothers and of educations
1920In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
1921Since, in a way that 's rather of the oddest, 
1922Became divested of his native modesty.
1923Had he but been placed at a public school,
1924In the third form, or even in the fourth,
1925His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
1926At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
1927Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
1928But then exceptions always prove its worth 
1929A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
1930Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.
1931I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
1932If all things be consider'd: first, there was
1933His lady mother, mathematical,
1934A never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
1935A pretty woman that 's quite natural,
1936Or else the thing had hardly come to pass;
1937A husband rather old, not much in unity
1938With his young wife a time, and opportunity.
1939Well well, the world must turn upon its axis,
1940And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
1941And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
1942And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sail
1943The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us
1944The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
1945A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
1946Fighting, devotion, dust, perhaps a name.
1947I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz 
1948A pretty town, I recollect it well 
1949'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
1950Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel,
1951And such sweet girls I mean, such graceful lad
1952Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
1953I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
1954Nor liken it I never saw the like:
1955An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb
1956New broke, a cameleopard, a gazelle,
1957No none of these will do; and then their garb!
1958Their veil and petticoat Alas! to dwell
1959Upon such things would very near absorb
1960A canto then their feet and ankles, well,
1961Thank Heaven I 've got no metaphor quite ready
1962And so, my sober Muse come, let 's be steady 
1963Chaste Muse! well, if you must, you must the v
1964Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand,
1965While the o'erpowering eye, that turns you pal
1966Flashes into the heart: All sunny land
1967Of love! when I forget you, may I fail
1968To say my prayers but never was there plann'd
1969A dress through which the eyes give such a vol
1970Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.
1971But to our tale: the Donna Inez sent
1972Her son to Cadiz only to embark;
1973To stay there had not answer'd her intent,
1974But why? we leave the reader in the dark 
1975'T was for a voyage that the young man was mea
1976As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark,
1977To wean him from the wickedness of earth,
1978And send him like a dove of promise forth.
1979Don Juan bade his valet pack his things
1980According to direction, then received
1981A lecture and some money: for four springs
1982He was to travel; and though Inez grieved
1983As every kind of parting has its stings,
1984She hoped he would improve perhaps believed:
1985A letter, too, she gave he never read it
1986Of good advice and two or three of credit.
1987In the mean time, to pass her hours away,
1988Brave Inez now set up a Sunday school
1989For naughty children, who would rather play
1990Like truant rogues the devil, or the fool;
1991Infants of three years old were taught that da
1992Dunces were whipt, or set upon a stool:
1993The great success of Juan's education,
1994Spurr'd her to teach another generation.
1995Juan embark'd the ship got under way,
1996The wind was fair, the water passing rough:
1997A devil of a sea rolls in that bay,
1998As I, who 've cross'd it oft, know well enough
1999And, standing upon deck, the dashing spray
2000Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-toug
2001And there he stood to take, and take again,
2002His first perhaps his last farewell of Spain.
2003I can't but say it is an awkward sight
2004To see one's native land receding through
2005The growing waters; it unmans one quite,
2006Especially when life is rather new:
2007I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white,
2008But almost every other country 's blue,
2009When gazing on them, mystified by distance,
2010We enter on our nautical existence.
2011So Juan stood, bewilder'd on the deck:
2012The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors s
2013And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck,
2014From which away so fair and fast they bore.
2015The best of remedies is a beef-steak
2016Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before
2017You sneer, and I assure you this is true,
2018For I have found it answer so may you.
2019Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stern,
2020Beheld his native Spain receding far:
2021First partings form a lesson hard to learn,
2022Even nations feel this when they go to war;
2023There is a sort of unexprest concern,
2024A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar:
2025At leaving even the most unpleasant people
2026And places, one keeps looking at the steeple.
2027But Juan had got many things to leave,
2028His mother, and a mistress, and no wife,
2029So that he had much better cause to grieve
2030Than many persons more advanced in life;
2031And if we now and then a sigh must heave
2032At quitting even those we quit in strife,
2033No doubt we weep for those the heart endears 
2034That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.
2035So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews
2036By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion:
2037I 'd weep, but mine is not a weeping Muse,
2038And such light griefs are not a thing to die o
2039Young men should travel, if but to amuse
2040Themselves; and the next time their servants t
2041Behind their carriages their new portmanteau,
2042Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto.
2043And Juan wept, and much he sigh'd and thought,
2044While his salt tears dropp'd into the salt sea
2045'Sweets to the sweet' I like so much to quote;
2046You must excuse this extract, 't is where she,
2047The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought
2048Flowers to the grave; and, sobbing often, he
2049Reflected on his present situation,
2050And seriously resolved on reformation.
2051'Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!' he crie
2052'Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,
2053But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
2054Of its own thirst to see again thy shore:
2055Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide!
2056Farewell, my mother! and, since all is o'er,
2057Farewell, too, dearest Julia! Here he drew
2058Her letter out again, and read it through.
2059'And, oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear 
2060But that 's impossible, and cannot be 
2061Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air,
2062Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea,
2063Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!
2064Or think of any thing excepting thee;
2065A mind diseased no remedy can physic
2066Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-si
2067'Sooner shall heaven kiss earth here he fell s
2068O, Julia! what is every other wo?
2069For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;
2070Pedro, Battista, help me down below.
2071Julia, my love! you rascal, Pedro, quicker 
2072O, Julia! this curst vessel pitches so 
2073Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!'
2074Here he grew inarticulate with retching.
2075He felt that chilling heaviness of heart,
2076Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends,
2077Beyond the best apothecary's art,
2078The loss of love, the treachery of friends,
2079Or death of those we dote on, when a part
2080Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends:
2081No doubt he would have been much more pathetic
2082But the sea acted as a strong emetic. I
2083Love 's a capricious power: I 've known it hol
2084Out through a fever caused by its own heat,
2085But be much puzzled by a cough and cold,
2086And find a quincy very hard to treat;
2087Against all noble maladies he 's bold,
2088But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet,
2089Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh,
2090Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.
2091But worst of all is nausea, or a pain
2092About the lower region of the bowels;
2093Love, who heroically breathes a vein,
2094Shrinks from the application of hot towels,
2095And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,
2096Sea-sickness death: his love was perfect, how 
2097Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar,
2098Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before?
2099The ship, call'd the most holy 'Trinidada,'
2100Was steering duly for the port Leghorn;
2101For there the Spanish family Moncada
2102Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born:
2103They were relations, and for them he had a
2104Letter of introduction, which the morn
2105Of his departure had been sent him by
2106His Spanish friends for those in Italy.
2107His suite consisted of three servants and
2108A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,
2109Who several languages did understand,
2110But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow,
2111And rocking in his hammock, long'd for land,
2112His headache being increased by every billow;
2113And the waves oozing through the port-hole mad
2114His berth a little damp, and him afraid.
2115'T was not without some reason, for the wind
2116Increased at night, until it blew a gale;
2117And though 't was not much to a naval mind,
2118Some landsmen would have look'd a little pale,
2119For sailors are, in fact, a different kind:
2120At sunset they began to take in sail,
2121For the sky show'd it would come on to blow,
2122And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so.
2123At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift
2124Threw the ship right into the trough of the se
2125Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift
2126Started the stern-post, also shatter'd the
2127Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could l
2128Herself from out her present jeopardy,
2129The rudder tore away: 't was time to sound
2130The pumps, and there were four feet water foun
2131One gang of people instantly was put
2132Upon the pumps and the remainder set
2133To get up part of the cargo, and what not;
2134But they could not come at the leak as yet;
2135At last they did get at it really, but
2136Still their salvation was an even bet:
2137The water rush'd through in a way quite puzzli
2138While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bal
2139Into the opening; but all such ingredients
2140Would have been vain, and they must have gone 
2141Despite of all their efforts and expedients,
2142But for the pumps: I 'm glad to make them know
2143To all the brother tars who may have need henc
2144For fifty tons of water were upthrown
2145By them per hour, and they had all been undone
2146But for the maker, Mr. Mann, of London.
2147As day advanced the weather seem'd to abate,
2148And then the leak they reckon'd to reduce,
2149And keep the ship afloat, though three feet ye
2150Kept two hand and one chain-pump still in use.
2151The wind blew fresh again: as it grew late
2152A squall came on, and while some guns broke lo
2153A gust which all descriptive power transcends 
2154Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.
2155There she lay motionless, and seem'd upset;
2156The water left the hold, and wash'd the decks,
2157And made a scene men do not soon forget;
2158For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks,
2159Or any other thing that brings regret,
2160Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or
2161Thus drownings are much talk'd of by the diver
2162And swimmers, who may chance to be survivors.
2163Immediately the masts were cut away,
2164Both main and mizen; first the mizen went,
2165The main-mast follow'd: but the ship still lay
2166Like a mere log, and baffled our intent.
2167Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they
2168Eased her at last although we never meant
2169To part with all till every hope was blighted,
2170And then with violence the old ship righted.
2171It may be easily supposed, while this
2172Was going on, some people were unquiet,
2173That passengers would find it much amiss
2174To lose their lives, as well as spoil their di
2175That even the able seaman, deeming his
2176Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot,
2177As upon such occasions tars will ask
2178For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cas
2179There 's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit 
2180As rum and true religion: thus it was,
2181Some plunder'd, some drank spirits, some sung 
2182The high wind made the treble, and as bas
2183The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured
2184Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws:
2185Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion
2186Clamour'd in chorus to the roaring ocean.
2187Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for
2188Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years,
2189Got to the spirit-room, and stood before
2190It with a pair of pistols; and their fears,
2191As if Death were more dreadful by his door
2192Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears,
2193Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk,
2194Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.
2195'Give us more grog,' they cried, 'for it will 
2196All one an hour hence.' Juan answer'd, 'No!
2197'T is true that death awaits both you and me,
2198But let us die like men, not sink below
2199Like brutes;' and thus his dangerous post kept
2200And none liked to anticipate the blow;
2201And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor,
2202Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.
2203The good old gentleman was quite aghast,
2204And made a loud and pious lamentation;
2205Repented all his sins, and made a last
2206Irrevocable vow of reformation;
2207Nothing should tempt him more this peril past
2208To quit his academic occupation,
2209In cloisters of the classic Salamanca,
2210To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho Panca.
2211But now there came a flash of hope once more;
2212Day broke, and the wind lull'd: the masts were
2213The leak increased; shoals round her, but no s
2214The vessel swam, yet still she held her own.
2215They tried the pumps again, and though before
2216Their desperate efforts seem'd all useless gro
2217A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale 
2218The stronger pump'd, the weaker thrumm'd a sai
2219Under the vessel's keel the sail was past,
2220And for the moment it had some effect;
2221But with a leak, and not a stick of mast,
2222Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect?
2223But still 't is best to struggle to the last,
2224'T is never too late to be wholly wreck'd:
2225And though 't is true that man can only die on
2226'T is not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.
2227There winds and waves had hurl'd them, and fro
2228Without their will, they carried them away;
2229For they were forced with steering to dispense
2230And never had as yet a quiet day
2231On which they might repose, or even commence
2232A jurymast or rudder, or could say
2233The ship would swim an hour, which, by good lu
2234Still swam though not exactly like a duck.
2235The wind, in fact, perhaps was rather less,
2236But the ship labour'd so, they scarce could ho
2237To weather out much longer; the distress
2238Was also great with which they had to cope
2239For want of water, and their solid mess
2240Was scant enough: in vain the telescope
2241Was used nor sail nor shore appear'd in sight,
2242Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night.
2243Again the weather threaten'd, again blew
2244A gale, and in the fore and after hold
2245Water appear'd; yet, though the people knew
2246All this, the most were patient, and some bold
2247Until the chains and leathers were worn throug
2248Of all our pumps: a wreck complete she roll'd,
2249At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are
2250Like human beings during civil war.
2251Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears
2252In his rough eyes, and told the captain he
2253Could do no more: he was a man in years,
2254And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea
2255And if he wept at length, they were not fears
2256That made his eyelids as a woman's be,
2257But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children, 
2258Two things for dying people quite bewildering.
2259The ship was evidently settling now
2260Fast by the head; and, all distinction gone,
2261Some went to prayers again, and made a vow
2262Of candles to their saints but there were none
2263To pay them with; and some look'd o'er the bow
2264Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one
2265That begg'd Pedrillo for an absolution,
2266Who told him to be damn'd in his confusion.
2267Some lash'd them in their hammocks; some put o
2268Their best clothes, as if going to a fair;
2269Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun,
2270And gnash'd their teeth, and, howling, tore th
2271And others went on as they had begun,
2272Getting the boats out, being well aware
2273That a tight boat will live in a rough sea,
2274Unless with breakers close beneath her lee.
2275The worst of all was, that in their condition,
2276Having been several days in great distress,
2277'T was difficult to get out such provision
2278As now might render their long suffering less:
2279Men, even when dying, dislike inanition;
2280Their stock was damaged by the weather's stres
2281Two casks of biscuit and a keg of butter
2282Were all that could be thrown into the cutter.
2283But in the long-boat they contrived to stow
2284Some pounds of bread, though injured by the we
2285Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so;
2286Six flasks of wine; and they contrived to get
2287A portion of their beef up from below,
2288And with a piece of pork, moreover, met,
2289But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon
2290Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheo
2291The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had
2292Been stove in the beginning of the gale;
2293And the long-boat's condition was but bad,
2294As there were but two blankets for a sail,
2295And one oar for a mast, which a young lad
2296Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail;
2297And two boats could not hold, far less be stor
2298To save one half the people then on board.
2299'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down
2300Over the waste of waters; like a veil,
2301Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the fr
2302Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail,
2303Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was show
2304And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale,
2305And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fea
2306Been their familiar, and now Death was here.
2307Some trial had been making at a raft,
2308With little hope in such a rolling sea,
2309A sort of thing at which one would have laugh'
2310If any laughter at such times could be,
2311Unless with people who too much have quaff'd,
2312And have a kind of wild and horrid glee,
2313Half epileptical and half hysterical: 
2314Their preservation would have been a miracle.
2315At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, s
2316And all things, for a chance, had been cast lo
2317That still could keep afloat the struggling ta
2318For yet they strove, although of no great use:
2319There was no light in heaven but a few stars,
2320The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews
2321She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port,
2322And, going down head foremost sunk, in short.
2323Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell 
2324Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the b
2325Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,
2326As eager to anticipate their grave;
2327And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,
2328And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave
2329Like one who grapples with his enemy,
2330And strives to strangle him before he die.
2331And first one universal shriek there rush'd,
2332Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
2333Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd,
2334Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
2335Of billows; but at intervals there gush'd,
2336Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
2337A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
2338Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
2339The boats, as stated, had got off before,
2340And in them crowded several of the crew;
2341And yet their present hope was hardly more
2342Than what it had been, for so strong it blew
2343There was slight chance of reaching any shore;
2344And then they were too many, though so few 
2345Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat,
2346Were counted in them when they got afloat.
2347All the rest perish'd; near two hundred souls
2348Had left their bodies; and what 's worse, alas
2349When over Catholics the ocean rolls,
2350They must wait several weeks before a mass
2351Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,
2352Because, till people know what 's come to pass
2353They won't lay out their money on the dead 
2354It costs three francs for every mass that 's s
2355Juan got into the long-boat, and there
2356Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place;
2357It seem'd as if they had exchanged their care,
2358For Juan wore the magisterial face
2359Which courage gives, while poor Pedrillo's pai
2360Of eyes were crying for their owner's case:
2361Battista; though a name call'd shortly Tita,
2362Was lost by getting at some aqua-vita.
2363Pedro, his valet, too, he tried to save,
2364But the same cause, conducive to his loss,
2365Left him so drunk, he jump'd into the wave
2366As o'er the cutter's edge he tried to cross,
2367And so he found a wine-and-watery grave;
2368They could not rescue him although so close,
2369Because the sea ran higher every minute,
2370And for the boat the crew kept crowding in it.
2371A small old spaniel, which had been Don Jose's
2372His father's, whom he loved, as ye may think,
2373For on such things the memory reposes
2374With tenderness stood howling on the brink,
2375Knowing dogs have such intellectual noses!,
2376No doubt, the vessel was about to sink;
2377And Juan caught him up, and ere he stepp'd
2378Off, threw him in, then after him he leap'd.
2379He also stuff'd his money where he could
2380About his person, and Pedrillo's too,
2381Who let him do, in fact, whate'er he would,
2382Not knowing what himself to say, or do,
2383As every rising wave his dread renew'd;
2384But Juan, trusting they might still get throug
2385And deeming there were remedies for any ill,
2386Thus re-embark'd his tutor and his spaniel.
2387'T was a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet,
2388That the sail was becalm'd between the seas,
2389Though on the wave's high top too much to set,
2390They dared not take it in for all the breeze:
2391Each sea curl'd o'er the stern, and kept them 
2392And made them bale without a moment's ease,
2393So that themselves as well as hopes were damp'
2394And the poor little cutter quickly swamp'd.
2395Nine souls more went in her: the long-boat sti
2396Kept above water, with an oar for mast,
2397Two blankets stitch'd together, answering ill
2398Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast:
2399Though every wave roll'd menacing to fill,
2400And present peril all before surpass'd,
2401They grieved for those who perish'd with the c
2402And also for the biscuit-casks and butter.
2403The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sign
2404Of the continuance of the gale: to run
2405Before the sea until it should grow fine,
2406Was all that for the present could be done:
2407A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum and wine
2408Were served out to the people, who begun
2409To faint, and damaged bread wet through the ba
2410And most of them had little clothes but rags.
2411They counted thirty, crowded in a space
2412Which left scarce room for motion or exertion;
2413They did their best to modify their case,
2414One half sate up, though numb'd with the immer
2415While t'other half were laid down in their pla
2416At watch and watch; thus, shivering like the t
2417Ague in its cold fit, they fill'd their boat,
2418With nothing but the sky for a great coat.
2419'T is very certain the desire of life
2420Prolongs it: this is obvious to physicians,
2421When patients, neither plagued with friends no
2422Survive through very desperate conditions,
2423Because they still can hope, nor shines the kn
2424Nor shears of Atropos before their visions:
2425Despair of all recovery spoils longevity,
2426And makes men miseries miseries of alarming br
2427'T is said that persons living on annuities
2428Are longer lived than others, God knows why,
2429Unless to plague the grantors, yet so true it 
2430That some, I really think, do never die;
2431Of any creditors the worst a Jew it is,
2432And that 's their mode of furnishing supply:
2433In my young days they lent me cash that way,
2434Which I found very troublesome to pay.
2435'T is thus with people in an open boat,
2436They live upon the love of life, and bear
2437More than can be believed, or even thought,
2438And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and te
2439And hardship still has been the sailor's lot,
2440Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there;
2441She had a curious crew as well as cargo,
2442Like the first old Greek privateer, the Argo.
2443But man is a carnivorous production,
2444And must have meals, at least one meal a day;
2445He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
2446But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;
2447Although his anatomical construction
2448Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
2449Your labouring people think beyond all questio
2450Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.
2451And thus it was with this our hapless crew;
2452For on the third day there came on a calm,
2453And though at first their strength it might re
2454And lying on their weariness like balm,
2455Lull'd them like turtles sleeping on the blue
2456Of ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm,
2457And fell all ravenously on their provision,
2458Instead of hoarding it with due precision.
2459The consequence was easily foreseen 
2460They ate up all they had, and drank their wine
2461In spite of all remonstrances, and then
2462On what, in fact, next day were they to dine?
2463They hoped the wind would rise, these foolish 
2464And carry them to shore; these hopes were fine
2465But as they had but one oar, and that brittle,
2466It would have been more wise to save their vic
2467The fourth day came, but not a breath of air,
2468And Ocean slumber'd like an unwean'd child:
2469The fifth day, and their boat lay floating the
2470The sea and sky were blue, and clear, and mild
2471With their one oar I wish they had had a pair
2472What could they do? and hunger's rage grew wil
2473So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating,
2474Was kill'd and portion'd out for present eatin
2475On the sixth day they fed upon his hide,
2476And Juan, who had still refused, because
2477The creature was his father's dog that died,
2478Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws,
2479With some remorse received though first denied
2480As a great favour one of the fore-paws,
2481Which he divided with Pedrillo, who
2482Devour'd it, longing for the other too.
2483The seventh day, and no wind the burning sun
2484Blister'd and scorch'd, and, stagnant on the s
2485They lay like carcasses; and hope was none,
2486Save in the breeze that came not; savagely
2487They glared upon each other all was done,
2488Water, and wine, and food, and you might see
2489The longings of the cannibal arise
2490Although they spoke not in their wolfish eyes.
2491At length one whisper'd his companion, who
2492Whisper'd another, and thus it went round,
2493And then into a hoarser murmur grew,
2494An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;
2495And when his comrade's thought each sufferer k
2496'T was but his own, suppress'd till now, he fo
2497And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood
2498And who should die to be his fellow's food.
2499But ere they came to this, they that day share
2500Some leathern caps, and what remain'd of shoes
2501And then they look'd around them and despair'd
2502And none to be the sacrifice would choose;
2503At length the lots were torn up, and prepared,
2504But of materials that much shock the Muse 
2505Having no paper, for the want of better,
2506They took by force from Juan Julia's letter.
2507The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and
2508In silent horror, and their distribution
2509Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded,
2510Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution;
2511None in particular had sought or plann'd it,
2512'T was nature gnaw'd them to this resolution,
2513By which none were permitted to be neuter 
2514And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.
2515He but requested to be bled to death:
2516The surgeon had his instruments, and bled
2517Pedrillo, and so gently ebb'd his breath,
2518You hardly could perceive when he was dead.
2519He died as born, a Catholic in faith,
2520Like most in the belief in which they 're bred
2521And first a little crucifix he kiss'd,
2522And then held out his jugular and wrist.
2523The surgeon, as there was no other fee,
2524Had his first choice of morsels for his pains;
2525But being thirstiest at the moment, he
2526Preferr'd a draught from the fast-flowing vein
2527Part was divided, part thrown in the sea,
2528And such things as the entrails and the brains
2529Regaled two sharks, who follow'd o'er the bill
2530The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.
2531The sailors ate him, all save three or four,
2532Who were not quite so fond of animal food;
2533To these was added Juan, who, before
2534Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could
2535Feel now his appetite increased much more;
2536'T was not to be expected that he should,
2537Even in extremity of their disaster,
2538Dine with them on his pastor and his master.
2539'T was better that he did not; for, in fact,
2540The consequence was awful in the extreme;
2541For they, who were most ravenous in the act,
2542Went raging mad Lord! how they did blaspheme!
2543And foam and roll, with strange convulsions ra
2544Drinking salt water like a mountain-stream,
2545Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, sw
2546And, with hyaena-laughter, died despairing.
2547Their numbers were much thinn'd by this inflic
2548And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven know
2549And some of them had lost their recollection,
2550Happier than they who still perceived their wo
2551But others ponder'd on a new dissection,
2552As if not warn'd sufficiently by those
2553Who had already perish'd, suffering madly,
2554For having used their appetites so sadly.
2555And next they thought upon the master's mate,
2556As fattest; but he saved himself, because,
2557Besides being much averse from such a fate,
2558There were some other reasons: the first was,
2559He had been rather indisposed of late;
2560And that which chiefly proved his saving claus
2561Was a small present made to him at Cadiz,
2562By general subscription of the ladies.
2563Of poor Pedrillo something still remain'd,
2564But was used sparingly, some were afraid,
2565And others still their appetites constrain'd,
2566Or but at times a little supper made;
2567All except Juan, who throughout abstain'd,
2568Chewing a piece of bamboo and some lead:
2569At length they caught two boobies and a noddy,
2570And then they left off eating the dead body.
2571And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking be,
2572Remember Ugolino condescends
2573To eat the head of his arch-enemy
2574The moment after he politely ends
2575His tale: if foes be food in hell, at sea
2576'T is surely fair to dine upon our friends,
2577When shipwreck's short allowance grows too sca
2578Without being much more horrible than Dante.
2579And the same night there fell a shower of rain
2580For which their mouths gaped, like the cracks 
2581When dried to summer dust; till taught by pain
2582Men really know not what good water 's worth;
2583If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,
2584Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth,
2585Or in the desert heard the camel's bell,
2586You 'd wish yourself where Truth is in a well.
2587It pour'd down torrents, but they were no rich
2588Until they found a ragged piece of sheet,
2589Which served them as a sort of spongy pitcher,
2590And when they deem'd its moisture was complete
2591They wrung it out, and though a thirsty ditche
2592Might not have thought the scanty draught so s
2593As a full pot of porter, to their thinking
2594They ne'er till now had known the joys of drin
2595And their baked lips, with many a bloody crack
2596Suck'd in the moisture, which like nectar stre
2597Their throats were ovens, their swoln tongues 
2598As the rich man's in hell, who vainly scream'd
2599To beg the beggar, who could not rain back
2600A drop of dew, when every drop had seem'd
2601To taste of heaven If this be true, indeed
2602Some Christians have a comfortable creed.
2603There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,
2604And with them their two sons, of whom the one
2605Was more robust and hardy to the view,
2606But he died early; and when he was gone,
2607His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw
2608One glance at him, and said, 'Heaven's will be
2609I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrown
2610Into the deep without a tear or groan.
2611The other father had a weaklier child,
2612Of a soft cheek and aspect delicate;
2613But the boy bore up long, and with a mild
2614And patient spirit held aloof his fate;
2615Little he said, and now and then he smiled,
2616As if to win a part from off the weight
2617He saw increasing on his father's heart,
2618With the deep deadly thought that they must pa
2619And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised
2620His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam
2621From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,
2622And when the wish'd-for shower at length was c
2623And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half g
2624Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam,
2625He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain
2626Into his dying child's mouth but in vain.
2627The boy expired the father held the clay,
2628And look'd upon it long, and when at last
2629Death left no doubt, and the dead burthen lay
2630Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were pa
2631He watch'd it wistfully, until away
2632'T was borne by the rude wave wherein 't was c
2633Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shiveri
2634And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quive
2635Now overhead a rainbow, bursting through
2636The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dar
2637Resting its bright base on the quivering blue;
2638And all within its arch appear'd to be
2639Clearer than that without, and its wide hue
2640Wax'd broad and waving, like a banner free,
2641Then changed like to a bow that 's bent, and t
2642Forsook the dim eyes of these shipwreck'd men.
2643It changed, of course; a heavenly chameleon,
2644The airy child of vapour and the sun,
2645Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion,
2646Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun,
2647Glittering like crescents o'er a Turk's pavili
2648And blending every colour into one,
2649Just like a black eye in a recent scuffle
2650For sometimes we must box without the muffle.
2651Our shipwreck'd seamen thought it a good omen 
2652It is as well to think so, now and then;
2653'T was an old custom of the Greek and Roman,
2654And may become of great advantage when
2655Folks are discouraged; and most surely no men
2656Had greater need to nerve themselves again
2657Than these, and so this rainbow look'd like ho
2658Quite a celestial kaleidoscope.
2659About this time a beautiful white bird,
2660Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size
2661And plumage probably it might have err'd
2662Upon its course, pass'd oft before their eyes,
2663And tried to perch, although it saw and heard
2664The men within the boat, and in this guise
2665It came and went, and flutter'd round them til
2666Night fell: this seem'd a better omen still.
2667But in this case I also must remark,
2668'T was well this bird of promise did not perch
2669Because the tackle of our shatter'd bark
2670Was not so safe for roosting as a church;
2671And had it been the dove from Noah's ark,
2672Returning there from her successful search,
2673Which in their way that moment chanced to fall
2674They would have eat her, olive-branch and all.
2675With twilight it again came on to blow,
2676But not with violence; the stars shone out,
2677The boat made way; yet now they were so low,
2678They knew not where nor what they were about;
2679Some fancied they saw land, and some said 'No!
2680The frequent fog-banks gave them cause to doub
2681Some swore that they heard breakers, others gu
2682And all mistook about the latter once.
2683As morning broke, the light wind died away,
2684When he who had the watch sung out and swore,
2685If 't was not land that rose with the sun's ra
2686He wish'd that land he never might see more;
2687And the rest rubb'd their eyes and saw a bay,
2688Or thought they saw, and shaped their course f
2689For shore it was, and gradually grew
2690Distinct, and high, and palpable to view.
2691And then of these some part burst into tears,
2692And others, looking with a stupid stare,
2693Could not yet separate their hopes from fears,
2694And seem'd as if they had no further care;
2695While a few pray'd the first time for some yea
2696And at the bottom of the boat three were
2697Asleep: they shook them by the hand and head,
2698And tried to awaken them, but found them dead.
2699The day before, fast sleeping on the water,
2700They found a turtle of the hawk's-bill kind,
2701And by good fortune, gliding softly, caught he
2702Which yielded a day's life, and to their mind
2703Proved even still a more nutritious matter,
2704Because it left encouragement behind:
2705They thought that in such perils, more than ch
2706Had sent them this for their deliverance.
2707The land appear'd a high and rocky coast,
2708And higher grew the mountains as they drew,
2709Set by a current, toward it: they were lost
2710In various conjectures, for none knew
2711To what part of the earth they had been tost,
2712So changeable had been the winds that blew;
2713Some thought it was Mount AEtna, some the high
2714Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands.
2715Meantime the current, with a rising gale,
2716Still set them onwards to the welcome shore,
2717Like Charon's bark of spectres, dull and pale:
2718Their living freight was now reduced to four,
2719And three dead, whom their strength could not 
2720To heave into the deep with those before,
2721Though the two sharks still follow'd them, and
2722The spray into their faces as they splash'd.
2723Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had d
2724Their work on them by turns, and thinn'd them 
2725Such things a mother had not known her son
2726Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew;
2727By night chill'd, by day scorch'd, thus one by
2728They perish'd, until wither'd to these few,
2729But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter,
2730In washing down Pedrillo with salt water.
2731As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen
2732Unequal in its aspect here and there,
2733They felt the freshness of its growing green,
2734That waved in forest-tops, and smooth'd the ai
2735And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen
2736From glistening waves, and skies so hot and ba
2737Lovely seem'd any object that should sweep
2738Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.
2739The shore look'd wild, without a trace of man,
2740And girt by formidable waves; but they
2741Were mad for land, and thus their course they 
2742Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay:
2743A reef between them also now began
2744To show its boiling surf and bounding spray,
2745But finding no place for their landing better,
2746They ran the boat for shore, and overset her.
2747But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir,
2748Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont;
2749And having learnt to swim in that sweet river,
2750Had often turn'd the art to some account:
2751A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,
2752He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont,
2753As once a feat on which ourselves we prided
2754Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did.
2755So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark,
2756He buoy'd his boyish limbs, and strove to ply
2757With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark
2758The beach which lay before him, high and dry:
2759The greatest danger here was from a shark,
2760That carried off his neighbour by the thigh;
2761As for the other two, they could not swim,
2762So nobody arrived on shore but him.
2763Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar,
2764Which, providentially for him, was wash'd
2765Just as his feeble arms could strike no more,
2766And the hard wave o'erwhelm'd him as 't was da
2767Within his grasp; he clung to it, and sore
2768The waters beat while he thereto was lash'd;
2769At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he
2770Roll'd on the beach, half-senseless, from the 
2771There, breathless, with his digging nails he c
2772Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,
2773From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,
2774Should suck him back to her insatiate grave:
2775And there he lay, full length, where he was fl
2776Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave,
2777With just enough of life to feel its pain,
2778And deem that it was saved, perhaps in vain.
2779With slow and staggering effort he arose,
2780But sunk again upon his bleeding knee
2781And quivering hand; and then he look'd for tho
2782Who long had been his mates upon the sea;
2783But none of them appear'd to share his woes,
2784Save one, a corpse, from out the famish'd thre
2785Who died two days before, and now had found
2786An unknown barren beach for burial ground.
2787And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast,
2788And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand
2789Swam round and round, and all his senses pass'
2790He fell upon his side, and his stretch'd hand
2791Droop'd dripping on the oar their jurymast,
2792And, like a wither'd lily, on the land
2793His slender frame and pallid aspect lay,
2794As fair a thing as e'er was form'd of clay.
2795How long in his damp trance young Juan lay
2796He knew not, for the earth was gone for him,
2797And Time had nothing more of night nor day
2798For his congealing blood, and senses dim;
2799And how this heavy faintness pass'd away
2800He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb,
2801And tingling vein, seem'd throbbing back to li
2802For Death, though vanquish'd, still retired wi
2803His eyes he open'd, shut, again unclosed,
2804For all was doubt and dizziness; he thought
2805He still was in the boat and had but dozed,
2806And felt again with his despair o'erwrought,
2807And wish'd it death in which he had reposed;
2808And then once more his feelings back were brou
2809And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen
2810A lovely female face of seventeen.
2811'T was bending dose o'er his, and the small mo
2812Seem'd almost prying into his for breath;
2813And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth
2814Recall'd his answering spirits back from death
2815And, bathing his chill temples, tried to sooth
2816Each pulse to animation, till beneath
2817Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh
2818To these kind efforts made a low reply.
2819Then was the cordial pour'd, and mantle flung
2820Around his scarce-clad limbs; and the fair arm
2821Raised higher the faint head which o'er it hun
2822And her transparent cheek, all pure and warm,
2823Pillow'd his death-like forehead; then she wru
2824His dewy curls, long drench'd by every storm;
2825And watch'd with eagerness each throb that dre
2826A sigh from his heaved bosom and hers, too.
2827And lifting him with care into the cave,
2828The gentle girl and her attendant, one
2829Young, yet her elder, and of brow less grave,
2830And more robust of figure, then begun
2831To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave
2832Light to the rocks that roof'd them, which the
2833Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er
2834She was, appear'd distinct, and tall, and fair
2835Her brow was overhung with coins of gold,
2836That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair 
2837Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were r
2838In braids behind; and though her stature were
2839Even of the highest for a female mould,
2840They nearly reach'd her heel; and in her air
2841There was a something which bespoke command,
2842As one who was a lady in the land.
2843Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes
2844Were black as death, their lashes the same hue
2845Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies
2846Deepest attraction; for when to the view
2847Forth from its raven fringe the full glance fl
2848Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew;
2849'T is as the snake late coil'd, who pours his 
2850And hurls at once his venom and his strength.
2851Her brow was white and low, her cheek's pure d
2852Like twilight rosy still with the set sun;
2853Short upper lip sweet lips! that make us sigh
2854Ever to have seen such; for she was one
2855Fit for the model of a statuary
2856A race of mere impostors, when all 's done 
2857I 've seen much finer women, ripe and real,
2858Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal.
2859I 'll tell you why I say so, for 't is just
2860One should not rail without a decent cause:
2861There was an Irish lady, to whose bust
2862I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was
2863A frequent model; and if e'er she must
2864Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling law
2865They will destroy a face which mortal thought
2866Ne'er compass'd, nor less mortal chisel wrough
2867And such was she, the lady of the cave:
2868Her dress was very different from the Spanish,
2869Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave;
2870For, as you know, the Spanish women banish
2871Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while 
2872Around them what I hope will never vanish
2873The basquina and the mantilla, they
2874Seem at the same time mystical and gay.
2875But with our damsel this was not the case:
2876Her dress was many-colour'd, finely spun;
2877Her locks curl'd negligently round her face,
2878But through them gold and gems profusely shone
2879Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace
2880Flow'd in her veil, and many a precious stone
2881Flash'd on her little hand; but, what was shoc
2882Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stock
2883The other female's dress was not unlike,
2884But of inferior materials: she
2885Had not so many ornaments to strike,
2886Her hair had silver only, bound to be
2887Her dowry; and her veil, in form alike,
2888Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less fr
2889Her hair was thicker, but less long; her eyes
2890As black, but quicker, and of smaller size.
2891And these two tended him, and cheer'd him both
2892With food and raiment, and those soft attentio
2893Which are as I must own of female growth,
2894And have ten thousand delicate inventions:
2895They made a most superior mess of broth,
2896A thing which poesy but seldom mentions,
2897But the best dish that e'er was cook'd since H
2898Achilles ordered dinner for new comers.
2899I 'll tell you who they were, this female pair
2900Lest they should seem princesses in disguise;
2901Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air
2902Of clap-trap which your recent poets prize;
2903And so, in short, the girls they really were
2904They shall appear before your curious eyes,
2905Mistress and maid; the first was only daughter
2906Of an old man who lived upon the water.
2907A fisherman he had been in his youth,
2908And still a sort of fisherman was he;
2909But other speculations were, in sooth,
2910Added to his connection with the sea,
2911Perhaps not so respectable, in truth:
2912A little smuggling, and some piracy,
2913Left him, at last, the sole of many masters
2914Of an ill-gotten million of piastres.
2915A fisher, therefore, was he, though of men,
2916Like Peter the Apostle, and he fish'd
2917For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then,
2918And sometimes caught as many as he wish'd;
2919The cargoes he confiscated, and gain
2920He sought in the slave-market too, and dish'd
2921Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade,
2922By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made.
2923He was a Greek, and on his isle had built
2924One of the wild and smaller Cyclades
2925A very handsome house from out his guilt,
2926And there he lived exceedingly at ease;
2927Heaven knows what cash he got or blood he spil
2928A sad old fellow was he, if you please;
2929But this I know, it was a spacious building,
2930Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding.
2931He had an only daughter, call'd Haidee,
2932The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles;
2933Besides, so very beautiful was she,
2934Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles:
2935Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree
2936She grew to womanhood, and between whiles
2937Rejected several suitors, just to learn
2938How to accept a better in his turn.
2939And walking out upon the beach, below
2940The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she fou
2941Insensible, not dead, but nearly so, 
2942Don Juan, almost famish'd, and half drown'd;
2943But being naked, she was shock'd, you know,
2944Yet deem'd herself in common pity bound,
2945As far as in her lay, 'to take him in,
2946A stranger' dying, with so white a skin.
2947But taking him into her father's house
2948Was not exactly the best way to save,
2949But like conveying to the cat the mouse,
2950Or people in a trance into their grave;
2951Because the good old man had so much 'nous,'
2952Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave,
2953He would have hospitably cured the stranger,
2954And sold him instantly when out of danger.
2955And therefore, with her maid, she thought it b
2956A virgin always on her maid relies
2957To place him in the cave for present rest:
2958And when, at last, he open'd his black eyes,
2959Their charity increased about their guest;
2960And their compassion grew to such a size,
2961It open'd half the turnpike-gates to heaven
2962St. Paul says, 't is the toll which must be gi
2963They made a fire, but such a fire as they
2964Upon the moment could contrive with such
2965Materials as were cast up round the bay, 
2966Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touc
2967Were nearly tinder, since so long they lay
2968A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch;
2969But, by God's grace, here wrecks were in such 
2970That there was fuel to have furnish'd twenty.
2971He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,
2972For Haidee stripped her sables off to make
2973His couch; and, that he might be more at ease,
2974And warm, in case by chance he should awake,
2975They also gave a petticoat apiece,
2976She and her maid and promised by daybreak
2977To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish
2978For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fis
2979And thus they left him to his lone repose:
2980Juan slept like a top, or like the dead,
2981Who sleep at last, perhaps God only knows,
2982Just for the present; and in his lull'd head
2983Not even a vision of his former woes
2984Throbb'd in accursed dreams, which sometimes s
2985Unwelcome visions of our former years,
2986Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.
2987Young Juan slept all dreamless: but the maid,
2988Who smooth'd his pillow, as she left the den
2989Look'd back upon him, and a moment stay'd,
2990And turn'd, believing that he call'd again.
2991He slumber'd; yet she thought, at least she sa
2992The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pe
2993He had pronounced her name but she forgot
2994That at this moment Juan knew it not.
2995And pensive to her father's house she went,
2996Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who
2997Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant,
2998She being wiser by a year or two:
2999A year or two 's an age when rightly spent,
3000And Zoe spent hers, as most women do,
3001In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge
3002Which is acquired in Nature's good old college
3003The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering stil
3004Fast in his cave, and nothing clash'd upon
3005His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill
3006And the young beams of the excluded sun,
3007Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill;
3008And need he had of slumber yet, for none
3009Had suffer'd more his hardships were comparati
3010To those related in my grand-dad's 'Narrative.
3011Not so Haidee: she sadly toss'd and tumbled,
3012And started from her sleep, and, turning o'er
3013Dream'd of a thousand wrecks, o'er which she s
3014And handsome corpses strew'd upon the shore;
3015And woke her maid so early that she grumbled,
3016And call'd her father's old slaves up, who swo
3017In several oaths Armenian, Turk, and Greek 
3018They knew not what to think of such a freak.
3019But up she got, and up she made them get,
3020With some pretence about the sun, that makes
3021Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set;
3022And 't is, no doubt, a sight to see when break
3023Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are 
3024With mist, and every bird with him awakes,
3025And night is flung off like a mourning suit
3026Worn for a husband, or some other brute.
3027I say, the sun is a most glorious sight,
3028I 've seen him rise full oft, indeed of late
3029I have sat up on purpose all the night,
3030Which hastens, as physicians say, one's fate;
3031And so all ye, who would be in the right
3032In health and purse, begin your day to date
3033From daybreak, and when coffin'd at fourscore,
3034Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.
3035And Haidee met the morning face to face;
3036Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush
3037Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose rac
3038From heart to cheek is curb'd into a blush,
3039Like to a torrent which a mountain's base,
3040That overpowers some Alpine river's rush,
3041Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles sprea
3042Or the Red Sea but the sea is not red.
3043And down the cliff the island virgin came,
3044And near the cave her quick light footsteps dr
3045While the sun smiled on her with his first fla
3046And young Aurora kiss'd her lips with dew,
3047Taking her for a sister; just the same
3048Mistake you would have made on seeing the two,
3049Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,
3050Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.
3051And when into the cavern Haidee stepp'd
3052All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw
3053That like an infant Juan sweetly slept;
3054And then she stopp'd, and stood as if in awe
3055For sleep is awful, and on tiptoe crept
3056And wrapt him closer, lest the air, too raw,
3057Should reach his blood, then o'er him still as
3058Bent with hush'd lips, that drank his scarce-d
3059And thus like to an angel o'er the dying
3060Who die in righteousness, she lean'd; and ther
3061All tranquilly the shipwreck'd boy was lying,
3062As o'er him the calm and stirless air:
3063But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying,
3064Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair
3065Must breakfast and betimes, lest they should a
3066She drew out her provision from the basket.
3067She knew that the best feelings must have vict
3068And that a shipwreck'd youth would hungry be;
3069Besides, being less in love, she yawn'd a litt
3070And felt her veins chill'd by the neighbouring
3071And so, she cook'd their breakfast to a tittle
3072I can't say that she gave them any tea,
3073But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fis
3074With Scio wine, and all for love, not money.
3075And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and
3076The coffee made, would fain have waken'd Juan;
3077But Haidee stopp'd her with her quick small ha
3078And without word, a sign her finger drew on
3079Her lip, which Zoe needs must understand;
3080And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a ne
3081Because her mistress would not let her break
3082That sleep which seem'd as it would ne'er awak
3083For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek
3084A purple hectic play'd like dying day
3085On the snow-tops of distant hills; the streak
3086Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay,
3087Where the blue veins look'd shadowy, shrunk, a
3088And his black curls were dewy with the spray,
3089Which weigh'd upon them yet, all damp and salt
3090Mix'd with the stony vapours of the vault.
3091And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath,
3092Hush'd as the babe upon its mother's breast,
3093Droop'd as the willow when no winds can breath
3094Lull'd like the depth of ocean when at rest,
3095Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath,
3096Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest;
3097In short, he was a very pretty fellow,
3098Although his woes had turn'd him rather yellow
3099He woke and gazed, and would have slept again,
3100But the fair face which met his eyes forbade
3101Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain
3102Had further sleep a further pleasure made;
3103For woman's face was never form'd in vain
3104For Juan, so that even when he pray'd
3105He turn'd from grisly saints, and martyrs hair
3106To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary.
3107And thus upon his elbow he arose,
3108And look'd upon the lady, in whose cheek
3109The pale contended with the purple rose,
3110As with an effort she began to speak;
3111Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose,
3112Although she told him, in good modern Greek,
3113With an Ionian accent, low and sweet,
3114That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat.
3115Now Juan could not understand a word,
3116Being no Grecian; but he had an ear,
3117And her voice was the warble of a bird,
3118So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear,
3119That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;
3120The sort of sound we echo with a tear,
3121Without knowing why an overpowering tone,
3122Whence Melody descends as from a throne.
3123And Juan gazed as one who is awoke
3124By a distant organ, doubting if he be
3125Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke
3126By the watchman, or some such reality,
3127Or by one's early valet's cursed knock;
3128At least it is a heavy sound to me,
3129Who like a morning slumber for the night
3130Shows stars and women in a better light.
3131And Juan, too, was help'd out from his dream,
3132Or sleep, or whatso'er it was, by feeling
3133A most prodigious appetite: the steam
3134Of Zoe's cookery no doubt was stealing
3135Upon his senses, and the kindling beam
3136Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, kneeling
3137To stir her viands, made him quite awake
3138And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak.
3139But beef is rare within these oxless isles;
3140Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and 
3141And, when a holiday upon them smiles,
3142A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on
3143But this occurs but seldom, between whiles,
3144For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut 
3145Others are fair and fertile, among which
3146This, though not large, was one of the most ri
3147I say that beef is rare, and can't help thinki
3148That the old fable of the Minotaur 
3149From which our modern morals rightly shrinking
3150Condemn the royal lady's taste who wore
3151A cow's shape for a mask was only sinking
3152The allegory a mere type, no more,
3153That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle,
3154To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.
3155For we all know that English people are
3156Fed upon beef I won't say much of beer,
3157Because 't is liquor only, and being far
3158From this my subject, has no business here;
3159We know, too, they very fond of war,
3160A pleasure like all pleasures rather dear;
3161So were the Cretans from which I infer
3162That beef and battles both were owing to her.
3163But to resume. The languid Juan raised
3164His head upon his elbow, and he saw
3165A sight on which he had not lately gazed,
3166As all his latter meals had been quite raw,
3167Three or four things, for which the Lord he pr
3168And, feeling still the famish'd vulture gnaw,
3169He fell upon whate'er was offer'd, like
3170A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.
3171He ate, and he was well supplied: and she,
3172Who watch'd him like a mother, would have fed
3173Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see
3174Such appetite in one she had deem'd dead;
3175But Zoe, being older than Haidee,
3176Knew by tradition, for she ne'er had read
3177That famish'd people must be slowly nurst,
3178And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
3179And so she took the liberty to state,
3180Rather by deeds than words, because the case
3181Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate
3182Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace
3183The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his pla
3184Unless he wish'd to die upon the place 
3185She snatch'd it, and refused another morsel,
3186Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse i
3187Next they he being naked, save a tatter'd
3188Pair of scarce decent trowsers went to work,
3189And in the fire his recent rags they scatter'd
3190And dress'd him, for the present, like a Turk,
3191Or Greek that is, although it not much matter'
3192Omitting turban, slippers, pistols, dirk, 
3193They furnish'd him, entire, except some stitch
3194With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches
3195And then fair Haidee tried her tongue at speak
3196But not a word could Juan comprehend,
3197Although he listen'd so that the young Greek i
3198Her earnestness would ne'er have made an end;
3199And, as he interrupted not, went eking
3200Her speech out to her protege and friend,
3201Till pausing at the last her breath to take,
3202She saw he did not understand Romaic.
3203And then she had recourse to nods, and signs,
3204And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye,
3205And read the only book she could the lines
3206Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy,
3207The answer eloquent, where soul shines
3208And darts in one quick glance a long reply;
3209And thus in every look she saw exprest
3210A world of words, and things at which she gues
3211And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes,
3212And words repeated after her, he took
3213A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise,
3214No doubt, less of her language than her look:
3215As he who studies fervently the skies
3216Turns oftener to the stars than to his book,
3217Thus Juan learn'd his alpha beta better
3218From Haidee's glance than any graven letter.
3219'T is pleasing to be school'd in a strange ton
3220By female lips and eyes that is, I mean,
3221When both the teacher and the taught are young
3222As was the case, at least, where I have been;
3223They smile so when one 's right, and when one 
3224They smile still more, and then there interven
3225Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss;
3226I learn'd the little that I know by this:
3227That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Gree
3228Italian not at all, having no teachers;
3229Much English I cannot pretend to speak,
3230Learning that language chiefly from its preach
3231Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week
3232I study, also Blair, the highest reachers
3233Of eloquence in piety and prose 
3234I hate your poets, so read none of those.
3235As for the ladies, I have nought to say,
3236A wanderer from the British world of fashion,
3237Where I, like other 'dogs, have had my day,'
3238Like other men, too, may have had my passion 
3239But that, like other things, has pass'd away,
3240And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on
3241Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to m
3242But dreams of what has been, no more to be.
3243Return we to Don Juan. He begun
3244To hear new words, and to repeat them; but
3245Some feelings, universal as the sun,
3246Were such as could not in his breast be shut
3247More than within the bosom of a nun:
3248He was in love, as you would be, no doubt,
3249With a young benefactress, so was she,
3250Just in the way we very often see.
3251And every day by daybreak rather early
3252For Juan, who was somewhat fond of rest 
3253She came into the cave, but it was merely
3254To see her bird reposing in his nest;
3255And she would softly stir his locks so curly,
3256Without disturbing her yet slumbering guest,
3257Breathing all gently o'er his cheek and mouth,
3258As o'er a bed of roses the sweet south.
3259And every morn his colour freshlier came,
3260And every day help'd on his convalescence;
3261'T was well, because health in the human frame
3262Is pleasant, besides being true love's essence
3263For health and idleness to passion's flame
3264Are oil and gunpowder; and some good lessons
3265Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus,
3266Without whom Venus will not long attack us.
3267While Venus fills the heart without heart real
3268Love, though good always, is not quite so good
3269Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli, 
3270For love must be sustain'd like flesh and bloo
3271While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly
3272Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;
3273But who is their purveyor from above
3274Heaven knows, it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove.
3275When Juan woke he found some good things ready
3276A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes
3277That ever made a youthful heart less steady,
3278Besides her maid's as pretty for their size;
3279But I have spoken of all this already 
3280And repetition 's tiresome and unwise, 
3281Well Juan, after bathing in the sea,
3282Came always back to coffee and Haidee.
3283Both were so young, and one so innocent,
3284That bathing pass'd for nothing; Juan seem'd
3285To her, as 'twere, the kind of being sent,
3286Of whom these two years she had nightly dream'
3287A something to be loved, a creature meant
3288To be her happiness, and whom she deem'd
3289To render happy; all who joy would win
3290Must share it, Happiness was born a twin.
3291It was such pleasure to behold him, such
3292Enlargement of existence to partake
3293Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch,
3294To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake:
3295To live with him forever were too much;
3296But then the thought of parting made her quake
3297He was her own, her ocean-treasure, cast
3298Like a rich wreck her first love, and her last
3299And thus a moon roll'd on, and fair Haidee
3300Paid daily visits to her boy, and took
3301Such plentiful precautions, that still he
3302Remain'd unknown within his craggy nook;
3303At last her father's prows put out to sea
3304For certain merchantmen upon the look,
3305Not as of yore to carry off an Io,
3306But three Ragusan vessels, bound for Scio.
3307Then came her freedom, for she had no mother,
3308So that, her father being at sea, she was
3309Free as a married woman, or such other
3310Female, as where she likes may freely pass,
3311Without even the incumbrance of a brother,
3312The freest she that ever gazed on glass;
3313I speak of Christian lands in this comparison,
3314Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garr
3315Now she prolong'd her visits and her talk
3316For they must talk, and he had learnt to say
3317So much as to propose to take a walk, 
3318For little had he wander'd since the day
3319On which, like a young flower snapp'd from the
3320Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay, 
3321And thus they walk'd out in the afternoon,
3322And saw the sun set opposite the moon.
3323It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast,
3324With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore,
3325Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host,
3326With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore
3327A better welcome to the tempest-tost;
3328And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar,
3329Save on the dead long summer days, which make
3330The outstretch'd ocean glitter like a lake.
3331And the small ripple spilt upon the beach
3332Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagn
3333When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach
3334That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rai
3335Few things surpass old wine; and they may prea
3336Who please, the more because they preach in va
3337Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter
3338Sermons and soda-water the day after.
3339Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
3340The best of life is but intoxication:
3341Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sun
3342The hopes of all men, and of every nation;
3343Without their sap, how branchless were the tru
3344Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasio
3345But to return, Get very drunk; and when
3346You wake with headache, you shall see what the
3347Ring for your valet bid him quickly bring
3348Some hock and soda-water, then you 'll know
3349A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king;
3350For not the bless'd sherbet, sublimed with sno
3351Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring,
3352Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow,
3353After long travel, ennui, love, or slaughter,
3354Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water.
3355The coast I think it was the coast that
3356Was just describing Yes, it was the coast 
3357Lay at this period quiet as the sky,
3358The sands untumbled, the blue waves untost,
3359And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry
3360And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost
3361By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret
3362Against the boundary it scarcely wet.
3363And forth they wander'd, her sire being gone,
3364As I have said, upon an expedition;
3365And mother, brother, guardian, she had none,
3366Save Zoe, who, although with due precision
3367She waited on her lady with the sun,
3368Thought daily service was her only mission,
3369Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresse
3370And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.
3371It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded
3372Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,
3373Which then seems as if the whole earth it boun
3374Circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and stil
3375With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded
3376On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill
3377Upon the other, and the rosy sky,
3378With one star sparkling through it like an eye
3379And thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand
3380Over the shining pebbles and the shells,
3381Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand,
3382And in the worn and wild receptacles
3383Work'd by the storms, yet work'd as it were pl
3384In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,
3385They turn'd to rest; and, each clasp'd by an a
3386Yielded to the deep twilight's purple charm.
3387They look'd up to the sky, whose floating glow
3388Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright;
3389They gazed upon the glittering sea below,
3390Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight
3391They heard the wave's splash, and the wind so 
3392And saw each other's dark eyes darting light
3393Into each other and, beholding this,
3394Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;
3395A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
3396And beauty, all concentrating like rays
3397Into one focus, kindled from above;
3398Such kisses as belong to early days,
3399Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert m
3400And the blood 's lava, and the pulse a blaze,
3401Each kiss a heart-quake, for a kiss's strength
3402I think, it must be reckon'd by its length.
3403By length I mean duration; theirs endured
3404Heaven knows how long no doubt they never reck
3405And if they had, they could not have secured
3406The sum of their sensations to a second:
3407They had not spoken; but they felt allured,
3408As if their souls and lips each other beckon'd
3409Which, being join'd, like swarming bees they c
3410Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey
3411They were alone, but not alone as they
3412Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;
3413The silent ocean, and the starlight bay,
3414The twilight glow which momently grew less,
3415The voiceless sands and dropping caves, that l
3416Around them, made them to each other press,
3417As if there were no life beneath the sky
3418Save theirs, and that their life could never d
3419They fear'd no eyes nor ears on that lone beac
3420They felt no terrors from the night, they were
3421All in all to each other: though their speech
3422Was broken words, they thought a language ther
3423And all the burning tongues the passions teach
3424Found in one sigh the best interpreter
3425Of nature's oracle first love, that all
3426Which Eve has left her daughters since her fal
3427Haidde spoke not of scruples, ask'd no vows,
3428Nor offer'd any; she had never heard
3429Of plight and promises to be a spouse,
3430Or perils by a loving maid incurr'd;
3431She was all which pure ignorance allows,
3432And flew to her young mate like a young bird;
3433And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she
3434Had not one word to say of constancy.
3435She loved, and was beloved she adored,
3436And she was worshipp'd; after nature's fashion
3437Their intense souls, into each other pour'd,
3438If souls could die, had perish'd in that passi
3439But by degrees their senses were restored,
3440Again to be o'ercome, again to dash on;
3441And, beating 'gainst his bosom, Haidee's heart
3442Felt as if never more to beat apart.
3443Alas! they were so young, so beautiful,
3444So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour
3445Was that in which the heart is always full,
3446And, having o'er itself no further power,
3447Prompts deeds eternity can not annul,
3448But pays off moments in an endless shower
3449Of hell-fire all prepared for people giving
3450Pleasure or pain to one another living.
3451Alas! for Juan and Haidee! they were
3452So loving and so lovely till then never,
3453Excepting our first parents, such a pair
3454Had run the risk of being damn'd for ever;
3455And Haidee, being devout as well as fair,
3456Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river,
3457And hell and purgatory but forgot
3458Just in the very crisis she should not.
3459They look upon each other, and their eyes
3460Gleam in the moonlight; and her white arm clas
3461Round Juan's head, and his around her lies
3462Half buried in the tresses which it grasps;
3463She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs,
3464He hers, until they end in broken gasps;
3465And thus they form a group that 's quite antiq
3466Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek.
3467And when those deep and burning moments pass'd
3468And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms,
3469She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast,
3470Sustain'd his head upon her bosom's charms;
3471And now and then her eye to heaven is cast,
3472And then on the pale cheek her breast now warm
3473Pillow'd on her o'erflowing heart, which pants
3474With all it granted, and with all it grants.
3475An infant when it gazes on a light,
3476A child the moment when it drains the breast,
3477A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
3478An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
3479A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
3480A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
3481Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reapin
3482As they who watch o'er what they love while sl
3483For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved,
3484All that it hath of life with us is living;
3485So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved,
3486And all unconscious of the joy 't is giving;
3487All it hath felt, inflicted, pass'd, and prove
3488Hush'd into depths beyond the watcher's diving
3489There lies the thing we love with all its erro
3490And all its charms, like death without its ter
3491The lady watch'd her lover and that hour
3492Of Love's, and Night's, and Ocean's solitude,
3493O'erflow'd her soul with their united power;
3494Amidst the barren sand and rocks so rude
3495She and her wave-worn love had made their bowe
3496Where nought upon their passion could intrude,
3497And all the stars that crowded the blue space
3498Saw nothing happier than her glowing face.
3499Alas! the love of women! it is known
3500To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
3501For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
3502And if 't is lost, life hath no more to bring
3503To them but mockeries of the past alone,
3504And their revenge is as the tiger's spring,
3505Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real
3506Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel
3507They are right; for man, to man so oft unjust,
3508Is always so to women; one sole bond
3509Awaits them, treachery is all their trust;
3510Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despo
3511Over their idol, till some wealthier lust
3512Buys them in marriage and what rests beyond?
3513A thankless husband, next a faithless lover,
3514Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all 's ov
3515Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers,
3516Some mind their household, others dissipation,
3517Some run away, and but exchange their cares,
3518Losing the advantage of a virtuous station;
3519Few changes e'er can better their affairs,
3520Theirs being an unnatural situation,
3521From the dull palace to the dirty hovel:
3522Some play the devil, and then write a novel.
3523Haidee was Nature's bride, and knew not this;
3524Haidee was Passion's child, born where the sun
3525Showers triple light, and scorches even the ki
3526Of his gazelle-eyed daughters; she was one
3527Made but to love, to feel that she was his
3528Who was her chosen: what was said or done
3529Elsewhere was nothing. She had naught to fear,
3530Hope, care, nor love, beyond, her heart beat h
3531And oh! that quickening of the heart, that bea
3532How much it costs us! yet each rising throb
3533Is in its cause as its effect so sweet,
3534That Wisdom, ever on the watch to rob
3535Joy of its alchymy, and to repeat
3536Fine truths; even Conscience, too, has a tough
3537To make us understand each good old maxim,
3538So good I wonder Castlereagh don't tax 'em.
3539And now 't was done on the lone shore were pli
3540Their hearts; the stars, their nuptial torches
3541Beauty upon the beautiful they lighted:
3542Ocean their witness, and the cave their bed,
3543By their own feelings hallow'd and united,
3544Their priest was Solitude, and they were wed:
3545And they were happy, for to their young eyes
3546Each was an angel, and earth paradise.
3547O, Love! of whom great Caesar was the suitor,
3548Titus the master, Antony the slave,
3549Horace, Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor,
3550Sappho the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave
3551All those may leap who rather would be neuter
3552Leucadia's rock still overlooks the wave 
3553O, Love! thou art the very god of evil,
3554For, after all, we cannot call thee devil.
3555Thou mak'st the chaste connubial state precari
3556And jestest with the brows of mightiest men:
3557Caesar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius,
3558Have much employ'd the muse of history's pen;
3559Their lives and fortunes were extremely variou
3560Such worthies Time will never see again;
3561Yet to these four in three things the same luc
3562They all were heroes, conquerors, and cuckolds
3563Thou mak'st philosophers; there 's Epicurus
3564And Aristippus, a material crew!
3565Who to immoral courses would allure us
3566By theories quite practicable too;
3567If only from the devil they would insure us,
3568How pleasant were the maxim not quite new,
3569'Eat, drink, and love, what can the rest avail
3570So said the royal sage Sardanapalus.
3571But Juan! had he quite forgotten Julia?
3572And should he have forgotten her so soon?
3573I can't but say it seems to me most truly
3574Perplexing question; but, no doubt, the moon
3575Does these things for us, and whenever newly
3576Strong palpitation rises, 't is her boon,
3577Else how the devil is it that fresh features
3578Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?
3579I hate inconstancy I loathe, detest,
3580Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made
3581Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast
3582No permanent foundation can be laid;
3583Love, constant love, has been my constant gues
3584And yet last night, being at a masquerade,
3585I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan
3586Which gave me some sensations like a villain.
3587But soon Philosophy came to my aid,
3588And whisper'd, 'Think of every sacred tie!'
3589'I will, my dear Philosophy!' I said,
3590'But then her teeth, and then, oh, Heaven! her
3591I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid,
3592Or neither out of curiosity.'
3593'Stop!' cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian
3594Though she was masqued then as a fair Venetian
3595'Stop!' so I stopp'd. But to return: that whic
3596Men call inconstancy is nothing more
3597Than admiration due where nature's rich
3598Profusion with young beauty covers o'er
3599Some favour'd object; and as in the niche
3600A lovely statue we almost adore,
3601This sort of adoration of the real
3602Is but a heightening of the 'beau ideal.'
3603'T is the perception of the beautiful,
3604A fine extension of the faculties,
3605Platonic, universal, wonderful,
3606Drawn from the stars, and filter'd through the
3607Without which life would be extremely dull;
3608In short, it is the use of our own eyes,
3609With one or two small senses added, just
3610To hint that flesh is form'd of fiery dust.
3611Yet 't is a painful feeling, and unwilling,
3612For surely if we always could perceive
3613In the same object graces quite as killing
3614As when she rose upon us like an Eve,
3615'T would save us many a heartache, many a shil
3616For we must get them any how or grieve,
3617Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever,
3618How pleasant for the heart as well as liver!
3619The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven,
3620But changes night and day, too, like the sky;
3621Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven,
3622And darkness and destruction as on high:
3623But when it hath been scorch'd, and pierced, a
3624Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye
3625Pours forth at last the heart's blood turn'd t
3626Which make the English climate of our years.
3627The liver is the lazaret of bile,
3628But very rarely executes its function,
3629For the first passion stays there such a while
3630That all the rest creep in and form a junction
3631Life knots of vipers on a dunghill's soil, 
3632Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compuncti
3633So that all mischiefs spring up from this entr
3634Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call'd '
3635In the mean time, without proceeding more
3636In this anatomy, I 've finish'd now
3637Two hundred and odd stanzas as before,
3638That being about the number I 'll allow
3639Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four;
3640And, laying down my pen, I make my bow,
3641Leaving Don Juan and Haidee to plead
3642For them and theirs with all who deign to read
3643CANTO THE THIRD.
3644Hail, Muse! et cetera. We left Juan sleeping,
3645Pillow'd upon a fair and happy breast,
3646And watch'd by eyes that never yet knew weepin
3647And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest
3648To feel the poison through her spirit creeping
3649Or know who rested there, a foe to rest,
3650Had soil'd the current of her sinless years,
3651And turn'd her pure heart's purest blood to te
3652O, Love! what is it in this world of ours
3653Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah, why
3654With cypress branches hast thou Wreathed thy b
3655And made thy best interpreter a sigh?
3656As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers,
3657And place them on their breast but place to di
3658Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish
3659Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.
3660In her first passion woman loves her lover,
3661In all the others all she loves is love,
3662Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over,
3663And fits her loosely like an easy glove,
3664As you may find, whene'er you like to prove he
3665One man alone at first her heart can move;
3666She then prefers him in the plural number,
3667Not finding that the additions much encumber.
3668I know not if the fault be men's or theirs;
3669But one thing 's pretty sure; a woman planted
3670Unless at once she plunge for life in prayers
3671After a decent time must be gallanted;
3672Although, no doubt, her first of love affairs
3673Is that to which her heart is wholly granted;
3674Yet there are some, they say, who have had non
3675But those who have ne'er end with only one.
3676'T is melancholy, and a fearful sign
3677Of human frailty, folly, also crime,
3678That love and marriage rarely can combine,
3679Although they both are born in the same clime;
3680Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine 
3681A sad, sour, sober beverage by time
3682Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour
3683Down to a very homely household savour.
3684There 's something of antipathy, as 't were,
3685Between their present and their future state;
3686A kind of flattery that 's hardly fair
3687Is used until the truth arrives too late 
3688Yet what can people do, except despair?
3689The same things change their names at such a r
3690For instance passion in a lover 's glorious,
3691But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.
3692Men grow ashamed of being so very fond;
3693They sometimes also get a little tired
3694But that, of course, is rare, and then despond
3695The same things cannot always be admired,
3696Yet 't is 'so nominated in the bond,'
3697That both are tied till one shall have expired
3698Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorn
3699Our days, and put one's servants into mourning
3700There 's doubtless something in domestic doing
3701Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis;
3702Romances paint at full length people's wooings
3703But only give a bust of marriages;
3704For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,
3705There 's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss:
3706Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
3707He would have written sonnets all his life?
3708All tragedies are finish'd by a death,
3709All comedies are ended by a marriage;
3710The future states of both are left to faith,
3711For authors fear description might disparage
3712The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath,
3713And then both worlds would punish their miscar
3714So leaving each their priest and prayer-book r
3715They say no more of Death or of the Lady.
3716The only two that in my recollection
3717Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, are
3718Dante and Milton, and of both the affection
3719Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar
3720Of fault or temper ruin'd the connection
3721Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar
3722But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve
3723Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceiv
3724Some persons say that Dante meant theology
3725By Beatrice, and not a mistress I,
3726Although my opinion may require apology,
3727Deem this a commentator's fantasy,
3728Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he
3729Decided thus, and show'd good reason why;
3730I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics
3731Meant to personify the mathematics.
3732Haidee and Juan were not married, but
3733The fault was theirs, not mine; it is not fair
3734Chaste reader, then, in any way to put
3735The blame on me, unless you wish they were;
3736Then if you 'd have them wedded, please to shu
3737The book which treats of this erroneous pair,
3738Before the consequences grow too awful;
3739'T is dangerous to read of loves unlawful.
3740Yet they were happy, happy in the illicit
3741Indulgence of their innocent desires;
3742But more imprudent grown with every visit,
3743Haidee forgot the island was her sire's;
3744When we have what we like, 't is hard to miss 
3745At least in the beginning, ere one tires;
3746Thus she came often, not a moment losing,
3747Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.
3748Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange,
3749Although he fleeced the flags of every nation,
3750For into a prime minister but change
3751His title, and 't is nothing but taxation;
3752But he, more modest, took an humbler range
3753Of life, and in an honester vocation
3754Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey,
3755And merely practised as a sea-attorney.
3756The good old gentleman had been detain'd
3757By winds and waves, and some important capture
3758And, in the hope of more, at sea remain'd,
3759Although a squall or two had damp'd his raptur
3760By swamping one of the prizes; he had chain'd
3761His prisoners, dividing them like chapters
3762In number'd lots; they all had cuffs and colla
3763And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollar
3764Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan,
3765Among his friends the Mainots; some he sold
3766To his Tunis correspondents, save one man
3767Toss'd overboard unsaleable being old;
3768The rest save here and there some richer one,
3769Reserved for future ransom in the hold
3770Were link'd alike, as for the common people he
3771Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.
3772The merchandise was served in the same way,
3773Pieced out for different marts in the Levant;
3774Except some certain portions of the prey,
3775Light classic articles of female want,
3776French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, tea
3777Guitars and castanets from Alicant,
3778All which selected from the spoil he gathers,
3779Robb'd for his daughter by the best of fathers
3780A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,
3781Two parrots, with a Persian cat and kittens,
3782He chose from several animals he saw 
3783A terrier, too, which once had been a Briton's
3784Who dying on the coast of Ithaca,
3785The peasants gave the poor dumb thing a pittan
3786These to secure in this strong blowing weather
3787He caged in one huge hamper altogether.
3788Then having settled his marine affairs,
3789Despatching single cruisers here and there,
3790His vessel having need of some repairs,
3791He shaped his course to where his daughter fai
3792Continued still her hospitable cares;
3793But that part of the coast being shoal and bar
3794And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile
3795His port lay on the other side o' the isle.
3796And there he went ashore without delay,
3797Having no custom-house nor quarantine
3798To ask him awkward questions on the way
3799About the time and place where he had been:
3800He left his ship to be hove down next day,
3801With orders to the people to careen;
3802So that all hands were busy beyond measure,
3803In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treas
3804Arriving at the summit of a hill
3805Which overlook'd the white walls of his home,
3806He stopp'd. What singular emotions fill
3807Their bosoms who have been induced to roam!
3808With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill 
3809With love for many, and with fears for some;
3810All feelings which o'erleap the years long los
3811And bring our hearts back to their starting-po
3812The approach of home to husbands and to sires,
3813After long travelling by land or water,
3814Most naturally some small doubt inspires 
3815A female family 's a serious matter
3816None trusts the sex more, or so much admires 
3817But they hate flattery, so I never flatter;
3818Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler
3819And daughters sometimes run off with the butle
3820An honest gentleman at his return
3821May not have the good fortune of Ulysses;
3822Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn,
3823Or show the same dislike to suitors' kisses;
3824The odds are that he finds a handsome urn
3825To his memory and two or three young misses
3826Born to some friend, who holds his wife and ri
3827And that his Argus bites him by the breeches.
3828If single, probably his plighted fair
3829Has in his absence wedded some rich miser;
3830But all the better, for the happy pair
3831May quarrel, and the lady growing wiser,
3832He may resume his amatory care
3833As cavalier servente, or despise her;
3834And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one,
3835Write odes on the Inconstancy of Woman.
3836And oh! ye gentlemen who have already
3837Some chaste liaison of the kind I mean
3838An honest friendship with a married lady 
3839The only thing of this sort ever seen
3840To last of all connections the most steady,
3841And the true Hymen the first 's but a screen 
3842Yet for all that keep not too long away,
3843I 've known the absent wrong'd four times a da
3844Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had
3845Much less experience of dry land than ocean,
3846On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad;
3847But not knowing metaphysics, had no notion
3848Of the true reason of his not being sad,
3849Or that of any other strong emotion;
3850He loved his child, and would have wept the lo
3851But knew the cause no more than a philosopher.
3852He saw his white walls shining in the sun,
3853His garden trees all shadowy and green;
3854He heard his rivulet's light bubbling run,
3855The distant dog-bark; and perceived between
3856The umbrage of the wood so cool and dun
3857The moving figures, and the sparkling sheen
3858Of arms in the East all arm and various dyes
3859Of colour'd garbs, as bright as butterflies.
3860And as the spot where they appear he nears,
3861Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling,
3862He hears alas! no music of the spheres,
3863But an unhallow'd, earthly sound of fiddling!
3864A melody which made him doubt his ears,
3865The cause being past his guessing or unriddlin
3866A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after,
3867A most unoriental roar of laughter.
3868And still more nearly to the place advancing,
3869Descending rather quickly the declivity,
3870Through the waved branches o'er the greensward
3871'Midst other indications of festivity,
3872Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing
3873Like dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he
3874Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance so martial,
3875To which the Levantines are very partial.
3876And further on a group of Grecian girls,
3877The first and tallest her white kerchief wavin
3878Were strung together like a row of pearls,
3879Link'd hand in hand, and dancing; each too hav
3880Down her white neck long floating auburn curls
3881The least of which would set ten poets raving;
3882Their leader sang and bounded to her song,
3883With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.
3884And here, assembled cross-legg'd round their t
3885Small social parties just begun to dine;
3886Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze,
3887And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine,
3888And sherbet cooling in the porous vase;
3889Above them their dessert grew on its vine,
3890The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er
3891Dropp'd in their laps, scarce pluck'd, their m
3892A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
3893There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers
3894While peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
3895The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
3896His sober head, majestically tame,
3897Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
3898His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
3899Yielding to their small hands, draws back agai
3900Their classical profiles, and glittering dress
3901Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic chee
3902Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tres
3903The gesture which enchants, the eye that speak
3904The innocence which happy childhood blesses,
3905Made quite a picture of these little Greeks;
3906So that the philosophical beholder
3907Sigh'd for their sakes that they should e'er g
3908Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales
3909To a sedate grey circle of old smokers,
3910Of secret treasures found in hidden vales,
3911Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers,
3912Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails,
3913Of rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers,
3914Of magic ladies who, by one sole act,
3915Transform'd their lords to beasts but that 's 
3916Here was no lack of innocent diversion
3917For the imagination or the senses,
3918Song, dance, wine, music, stories from the Per
3919All pretty pastimes in which no offence is;
3920But Lambro saw all these things with aversion,
3921Perceiving in his absence such expenses,
3922Dreading that climax of all human ills,
3923The inflammation of his weekly bills.
3924Ah! what is man? what perils still environ
3925The happiest mortals even after dinner 
3926A day of gold from out an age of iron
3927Is all that life allows the luckiest sinner;
3928Pleasure whene'er she sings, at least 's a sir
3929That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner;
3930Lambro's reception at his people's banquet
3931Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket.
3932He being a man who seldom used a word
3933Too much, and wishing gladly to surprise
3934In general he surprised men with the sword
3935His daughter had not sent before to advise
3936Of his arrival, so that no one stirr'd;
3937And long he paused to re-assure his eyes
3938In fact much more astonish'd than delighted,
3939To find so much good company invited.
3940He did not know alas! how men will lie
3941That a report especially the Greeks
3942Avouch'd his death such people never die,
3943And put his house in mourning several weeks, 
3944But now their eyes and also lips were dry;
3945The bloom, too, had return'd to Haidee's cheek
3946Her tears, too, being return'd into their foun
3947She now kept house upon her own account.
3948Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and 
3949Which turn'd the isle into a place of pleasure
3950The servants all were getting drunk or idling,
3951A life which made them happy beyond measure.
3952Her father's hospitality seem'd middling,
3953Compared with what Haidee did with his treasur
3954'T was wonderful how things went on improving,
3955While she had not one hour to spare from lovin
3956Perhaps you think in stumbling on this feast
3957He flew into a passion, and in fact
3958There was no mighty reason to be pleased;
3959Perhaps you prophesy some sudden act,
3960The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the least,
3961To teach his people to be more exact,
3962And that, proceeding at a very high rate,
3963He show'd the royal penchants of a pirate.
3964You 're wrong. He was the mildest manner'd man
3965That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat:
3966With such true breeding of a gentleman,
3967You never could divine his real thought;
3968No courtier could, and scarcely woman can
3969Gird more deceit within a petticoat;
3970Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
3971He was so great a loss to good society.
3972Advancing to the nearest dinner tray,
3973Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest,
3974With a peculiar smile, which, by the way,
3975Boded no good, whatever it express'd,
3976He ask'd the meaning of this holiday;
3977The vinous Greek to whom he had address'd
3978His question, much too merry to divine
3979The questioner, fill'd up a glass of wine,
3980And without turning his facetious head,
3981Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air,
3982Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said,
3983'Talking 's dry work, I have no time to spare.
3984A second hiccup'd, 'Our old master 's dead,
3985You 'd better ask our mistress who 's his heir
3986'Our mistress!' quoth a third: 'Our mistress! 
3987You mean our master not the old, but new.'
3988These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom
3989They thus address'd and Lambro's visage fell 
3990And o'er his eye a momentary gloom
3991Pass'd, but he strove quite courteously to que
3992The expression, and endeavouring to resume
3993His smile, requested one of them to tell
3994The name and quality of his new patron,
3995Who seem'd to have turn'd Haidee into a matron
3996'I know not,' quoth the fellow, 'who or what
3997He is, nor whence he came and little care;
3998But this I know, that this roast capon 's fat,
3999And that good wine ne'er wash'd down better fa
4000And if you are not satisfied with that,
4001Direct your questions to my neighbour there;
4002He 'll answer all for better or for worse,
4003For none likes more to hear himself converse.'
4004I said that Lambro was a man of patience,
4005And certainly he show'd the best of breeding,
4006Which scarce even France, the paragon of natio
4007E'er saw her most polite of sons exceeding;
4008He bore these sneers against his near relation
4009His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding,
4010The insults, too, of every servile glutton,
4011Who all the time was eating up his mutton.
4012Now in a person used to much command 
4013To bid men come, and go, and come again 
4014To see his orders done, too, out of hand 
4015Whether the word was death, or but the chain 
4016It may seem strange to find his manners bland;
4017Yet such things are, which I can not explain,
4018Though doubtless he who can command himself
4019Is good to govern almost as a Guelf.
4020Not that he was not sometimes rash or so,
4021But never in his real and serious mood;
4022Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow,
4023He lay coil'd like the boa in the wood;
4024With him it never was a word and blow,
4025His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood,
4026But in his silence there was much to rue,
4027And his one blow left little work for two.
4028He ask'd no further questions, and proceeded
4029On to the house, but by a private way,
4030So that the few who met him hardly heeded,
4031So little they expected him that day;
4032If love paternal in his bosom pleaded
4033For Haidee's sake, is more than I can say,
4034But certainly to one deem'd dead, returning,
4035This revel seem'd a curious mode of mourning.
4036If all the dead could now return to life
4037Which God forbid! or some, or a great many,
4038For instance, if a husband or his wife
4039Nuptial examples are as good as any,
4040No doubt whate'er might be their former strife
4041The present weather would be much more rainy 
4042Tears shed into the grave of the connection
4043Would share most probably its resurrection.
4044He enter'd in the house no more his home,
4045A thing to human feelings the most trying,
4046And harder for the heart to overcome,
4047Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;
4048To find our hearthstone turn'd into a tomb,
4049And round its once warm precincts palely lying
4050The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief,
4051Beyond a single gentleman's belief.
4052He enter'd in the house his home no more,
4053For without hearts there is no home; and felt
4054The solitude of passing his own door
4055Without a welcome; there he long had dwelt,
4056There his few peaceful days Time had swept o'e
4057There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt
4058Over the innocence of that sweet child,
4059His only shrine of feelings undefiled.
4060He was a man of a strange temperament,
4061Of mild demeanour though of savage mood,
4062Moderate in all his habits, and content
4063With temperance in pleasure, as in food,
4064Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and mea
4065For something better, if not wholly good;
4066His country's wrongs and his despair to save h
4067Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.
4068The love of power, and rapid gain of gold,
4069The hardness by long habitude produced,
4070The dangerous life in which he had grown old,
4071The mercy he had granted oft abused,
4072The sights he was accustom'd to behold,
4073The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruis
4074Had cost his enemies a long repentance,
4075And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintan
4076But something of the spirit of old Greece
4077Flash'd o'er his soul a few heroic rays,
4078Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece
4079His predecessors in the Colchian days;
4080T is true he had no ardent love for peace 
4081Alas! his country show'd no path to praise:
4082Hate to the world and war with every nation
4083He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.
4084Still o'er his mind the influence of the clime
4085Shed its Ionian elegance, which show'd
4086Its power unconsciously full many a time, 
4087A taste seen in the choice of his abode,
4088A love of music and of scenes sublime,
4089A pleasure in the gentle stream that flow'd
4090Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,
4091Bedew'd his spirit in his calmer hours.
4092But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed
4093On that beloved daughter; she had been
4094The only thing which kept his heart unclosed
4095Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen;
4096A lonely pure affection unopposed:
4097There wanted but the loss of this to wean
4098His feelings from all milk of human kindness,
4099And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindne
4100The cubless tigress in her jungle raging
4101Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;
4102The ocean when its yeasty war is waging
4103Is awful to the vessel near the rock;
4104But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,
4105Their fury being spent by its own shock,
4106Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire
4107Of a strong human heart, and in a sire.
4108It is a hard although a common case
4109To find our children running restive they
4110In whom our brightest days we would retrace,
4111Our little selves re-form'd in finer clay,
4112Just as old age is creeping on apace,
4113And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day,
4114They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,
4115But in good company the gout or stone.
4116Yet a fine family is a fine thing
4117Provided they don't come in after dinner;
4118'T is beautiful to see a matron bring
4119Her children up if nursing them don't thin her
4120Like cherubs round an altar-piece they cling
4121To the fire-side a sight to touch a sinner.
4122A lady with her daughters or her nieces
4123Shines like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces
4124Old Lambro pass'd unseen a private gate,
4125And stood within his hall at eventide;
4126Meantime the lady and her lover sate
4127At wassail in their beauty and their pride:
4128An ivory inlaid table spread with state
4129Before them, and fair slaves on every side;
4130Gems, gold, and silver, form'd the service mos
4131Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.
4132The dinner made about a hundred dishes;
4133Lamb and pistachio nuts in short, all meats,
4134And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fi
4135Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets,
4136Drest to a Sybarite's most pamper'd wishes;
4137The beverage was various sherbets
4138Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice,
4139Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best
4140These were ranged round, each in its crystal e
4141And fruits, and date-bread loaves closed the r
4142And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure,
4143In small fine China cups, came in at last;
4144Gold cups of filigree made to secure
4145The hand from burning underneath them placed,
4146Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boil'd
4147Up with the coffee, which I think they spoil'd
4148The hangings of the room were tapestry, made
4149Of velvet panels, each of different hue,
4150And thick with damask flowers of silk inlaid;
4151And round them ran a yellow border too;
4152The upper border, richly wrought, display'd,
4153Embroider'd delicately o'er with blue,
4154Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters,
4155From poets, or the moralists their betters.
4156These Oriental writings on the wall,
4157Quite common in those countries, are a kind
4158Of monitors adapted to recall,
4159Like skulls at Memphian banquets, to the mind
4160The words which shook Belshazzar in his hall,
4161And took his kingdom from him: You will find,
4162Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treas
4163There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.
4164A beauty at the season's close grown hectic,
4165A genius who has drunk himself to death,
4166A rake turn'd methodistic, or Eclectic
4167For that 's the name they like to pray beneath
4168But most, an alderman struck apoplectic,
4169Are things that really take away the breath, 
4170And show that late hours, wine, and love are a
4171To do not much less damage than the table.
4172Haidee and Juan carpeted their feet
4173On crimson satin, border'd with pale blue;
4174Their sofa occupied three parts complete
4175Of the apartment and appear'd quite new;
4176The velvet cushions for a throne more meet
4177Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew
4178A sun emboss'd in gold, whose rays of tissue,
4179Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.
4180Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,
4181Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats
4182And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to s
4183Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats
4184And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, t
4185Their bread as ministers and favourites that '
4186To say, by degradation mingled there
4187As plentiful as in a court, or fair.
4188There was no want of lofty mirrors, and
4189The tables, most of ebony inlaid
4190With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand,
4191Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made,
4192Fretted with gold or silver: by command,
4193The greater part of these were ready spread
4194With viands and sherbets in ice and wine 
4195Kept for all comers at all hours to dine.
4196Of all the dresses I select Haidee's:
4197She wore two jelicks one was of pale yellow;
4198Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise 
4199'Neath which her breast heaved like a little b
4200With buttons form'd of pearls as large as peas
4201All gold and crimson shone her jelick's fellow
4202And the striped white gauze baracan that bound
4203Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flow'd roun
4204One large gold bracelet clasp'd each lovely ar
4205Lockless so pliable from the pure gold
4206That the hand stretch'd and shut it without ha
4207The limb which it adorn'd its only mould;
4208So beautiful its very shape would charm;
4209And, clinging as if loath to lose its hold,
4210The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin
4211That e'er by precious metal was held in.
4212Around, as princess of her father's land,
4213A like gold bar above her instep roll'd
4214Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her h
4215Her hair was starr'd with gems; her veil's fin
4216Below her breast was fasten'd with a band
4217Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be 
4218Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furl'd
4219About the prettiest ankle in the world.
4220Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel
4221Flow'd like an Alpine torrent which the sun
4222Dyes with his morning light, and would conceal
4223Her person if allow'd at large to run,
4224And still they seem resentfully to feel
4225The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun
4226Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr caught began
4227To offer his young pinion as her fan.
4228Round her she made an atmosphere of life,
4229The very air seem'd lighter from her eyes,
4230They were so soft and beautiful, and rife
4231With all we can imagine of the skies,
4232And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife 
4233Too pure even for the purest human ties;
4234Her overpowering presence made you feel
4235It would not be idolatry to kneel.
4236Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were ting
4237It is the country's custom, but in vain;
4238For those large black eyes were so blackly fri
4239The glossy rebels mock'd the jetty stain,
4240And in their native beauty stood avenged:
4241Her nails were touch'd with henna; but again
4242The power of art was turn'd to nothing, for
4243They could not look more rosy than before.
4244The henna should be deeply dyed to make
4245The skin relieved appear more fairly fair;
4246She had no need of this, day ne'er will break
4247On mountain tops more heavenly white than her:
4248The eye might doubt if it were well awake,
4249She was so like a vision; I might err,
4250But Shakspeare also says, 't is very silly
4251'To gild refined gold, or paint the lily'
4252Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,
4253But a white baracan, and so transparent
4254The sparkling gems beneath you might behold,
4255Like small stars through the milky way apparen
4256His turban, furl'd in many a graceful fold,
4257An emerald aigrette with Haidee's hair in 't
4258Surmounted as its clasp a glowing crescent,
4259Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant
4260And now they were diverted by their suite,
4261Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a po
4262Which made their new establishment complete;
4263The last was of great fame, and liked to show 
4264His verses rarely wanted their due feet;
4265And for his theme he seldom sung below it,
4266He being paid to satirize or flatter,
4267As the psalm says, 'inditing a good matter.'
4268He praised the present, and abused the past,
4269Reversing the good custom of old days,
4270An Eastern anti-jacobin at last
4271He turn'd, preferring pudding to no praise 
4272For some few years his lot had been o'ercast
4273By his seeming independent in his lays,
4274But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha
4275With truth like Southey, and with verse like C
4276He was a man who had seen many changes,
4277And always changed as true as any needle;
4278His polar star being one which rather ranges,
4279And not the fix'd he knew the way to wheedle:
4280So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges;
4281And being fluent save indeed when fee'd ill,
4282He lied with such a fervour of intention 
4283There was no doubt he earn'd his laureate pens
4284But he had genius, when a turncoat has it,
4285The 'Vates irritabilis' takes care
4286That without notice few full moons shall pass 
4287Even good men like to make the public stare: 
4288But to my subject let me see what was it?-
4289O! the third canto and the pretty pair 
4290Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress,
4291Of living in their insular abode.
4292Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less
4293In company a very pleasant fellow,
4294Had been the favourite of full many a mess
4295Of men, and made them speeches when half mello
4296And though his meaning they could rarely guess
4297Yet still they deign'd to hiccup or to bellow
4298The glorious meed of popular applause,
4299Of which the first ne'er knows the second caus
4300But now being lifted into high society,
4301And having pick'd up several odds and ends
4302Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,
4303He deem'd, being in a lone isle, among friends
4304That, without any danger of a riot, he
4305Might for long lying make himself amends;
4306And, singing as he sung in his warm youth,
4307Agree to a short armistice with truth.
4308He had travell'd 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and
4309And knew the self-loves of the different natio
4310And having lived with people of all ranks,
4311Had something ready upon most occasions 
4312Which got him a few presents and some thanks.
4313He varied with some skill his adulations;
4314To 'do at Rome as Romans do,' a piece
4315Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.
4316Thus, usually, when he was ask'd to sing,
4317He gave the different nations something nation
4318'T was all the same to him 'God save the king,
4319Or 'Ca ira,' according to the fashion all:
4320His muse made increment of any thing,
4321From the high lyric down to the low rational:
4322If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
4323Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?
4324In France, for instance, he would write a chan
4325In England a six canto quarto tale;
4326In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on
4327The last war much the same in Portugal;
4328In Germany, the Pegasus he 'd prance on
4329Would be old Goethe's see what says De Stael;
4330In Italy he 'd ape the 'Trecentisti;'
4331In Greece, he sing some sort of hymn like this
4332 THE ISLES OF GREECE.
4333 The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
4334 Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
4335 Where grew the arts of war and peace,
4336 Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
4337 Eternal summer gilds them yet,
4338 But all, except their sun, is set.
4339 The Scian and the Teian muse,
4340 The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
4341 Have found the fame your shores refuse;
4342 Their place of birth alone is mute
4343 To sounds which echo further west
4344 Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'
4345 The mountains look on Marathon 
4346 And Marathon looks on the sea;
4347 And musing there an hour alone,
4348 I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
4349 For standing on the Persians' grave,
4350 I could not deem myself a slave.
4351 A king sate on the rocky brow
4352 Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
4353 And ships, by thousands, lay below,
4354 And men in nations; all were his!
4355 He counted them at break of day 
4356 And when the sun set where were they?
4357 And where are they? and where art thou,
4358 My country? On thy voiceless shore
4359 The heroic lay is tuneless now 
4360 The heroic bosom beats no more!
4361 And must thy lyre, so long divine,
4362 Degenerate into hands like mine?
4363 'T is something, in the dearth of fame,
4364 Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
4365 To feel at least a patriot's shame,
4366 Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
4367 For what is left the poet here?
4368 For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear.
4369 Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
4370 Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
4371 Earth! render back from out thy breast
4372 A remnant of our Spartan dead!
4373 Of the three hundred grant but three,
4374 To make a new Thermopylae!
4375 What, silent still? and silent all?
4376 Ah! no; the voices of the dead
4377 Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
4378 And answer, 'Let one living head,
4379 But one arise, we come, we come!'
4380 'T is but the living who are dumb.
4381 In vain in vain: strike other chords;
4382 Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
4383 Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
4384 And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
4385 Hark! rising to the ignoble call 
4386 How answers each bold Bacchanal!
4387 You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
4388 Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
4389 Of two such lessons, why forget
4390 The nobler and the manlier one?
4391 You have the letters Cadmus gave 
4392 Think ye he meant them for a slave?
4393 Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
4394 We will not think of themes like these!
4395 It made Anacreon's song divine:
4396 He served but served Polycrates 
4397 A tyrant; but our masters then
4398 Were still, at least, our countrymen.
4399 The tyrant of the Chersonese
4400 Was freedom's best and bravest friend;
4401 That tyrant was Miltiades!
4402 O! that the present hour would lend
4403 Another despot of the kind!
4404 Such chains as his were sure to bind.
4405 Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
4406 On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
4407 Exists the remnant of a line
4408 Such as the Doric mothers bore;
4409 And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
4410 The Heracleidan blood might own.
4411 Trust not for freedom to the Franks 
4412 They have a king who buys and sells;
4413 In native swords, and native ranks,
4414 The only hope of courage dwells;
4415 But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
4416 Would break your shield, however broad.
4417 Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
4418 Our virgins dance beneath the shade 
4419 I see their glorious black eyes shine;
4420 But gazing on each glowing maid,
4421 My own the burning tear-drop laves,
4422 To think such breasts must suckle slaves
4423 Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
4424 Where nothing, save the waves and I,
4425 May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
4426 There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
4427 A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine 
4428 Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
4429Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have 
4430The modern Greek, in tolerable verse;
4431If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was you
4432Yet in these times he might have done much wor
4433His strain display'd some feeling right or wro
4434And feeling, in a poet, is the source
4435Of others' feeling; but they are such liars,
4436And take all colours like the hands of dyers.
4437But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
4438Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
4439That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, 
4440'T is strange, the shortest letter which man u
4441Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
4442Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
4443Frail man, when paper even a rag like this,
4444Survives himself, his tomb, and all that 's hi
4445And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank
4446His station, generation, even his nation,
4447Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank
4448In chronological commemoration,
4449Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank,
4450Or graven stone found in a barrack's station
4451In digging the foundation of a closet,
4452May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.
4453And glory long has made the sages smile;
4454'T is something, nothing, words, illusion, win
4455Depending more upon the historian's style
4456Than on the name a person leaves behind:
4457Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:
4458The present century was growing blind
4459To the great Marlborough's skill in giving kno
4460Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe.
4461Milton 's the prince of poets so we say;
4462A little heavy, but no less divine:
4463An independent being in his day 
4464Learn'd, pious, temperate in love and wine;
4465But, his life falling into Johnson's way,
4466We 're told this great high priest of all the 
4467Was whipt at college a harsh sire odd spouse,
4468For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.
4469All these are, certes, entertaining facts,
4470Like Shakspeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's 
4471Like Titus' youth, and Caesar's earliest acts;
4472Like Burns whom Doctor Currie well describes;
4473Like Cromwell's pranks; but although truth exa
4474These amiable descriptions from the scribes,
4475As most essential to their hero's story,
4476They do not much contribute to his glory.
4477All are not moralists, like Southey, when
4478He prated to the world of 'Pantisocracy;'
4479Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then
4480Season'd his pedlar poems with democracy;
4481Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen
4482Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;
4483When he and Southey, following the same path,
4484Espoused two partners milliners of Bath.
4485Such names at present cut a convict figure,
4486The very Botany Bay in moral geography;
4487Their loyal treason, renegado rigour,
4488Are good manure for their more bare biography.
4489Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigge
4490Than any since the birthday of typography;
4491A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the 'Excursion.'
4492Writ in a manner which is my aversion.
4493He there builds up a formidable dyke
4494Between his own and others' intellect;
4495But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like
4496Joanna Southcote's Shiloh, and her sect,
4497Are things which in this century don't strike
4498The public mind, so few are the elect;
4499And the new births of both their stale virgini
4500Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities
4501But let me to my story: I must own,
4502If I have any fault, it is digression 
4503Leaving my people to proceed alone,
4504While I soliloquize beyond expression;
4505But these are my addresses from the throne,
4506Which put off business to the ensuing session:
4507Forgetting each omission is a loss to
4508The world, not quite so great as Ariosto.
4509I know that what our neighbours call 'longueur
4510We 've not so good a word, but have the thing
4511In that complete perfection which ensures
4512An epic from Bob Southey every spring,
4513Form not the true temptation which allures
4514The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring
4515Some fine examples of the epopee,
4516To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.
4517We learn from Horace, 'Homer sometimes sleeps;
4518We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wake
4519To show with what complacency he creeps,
4520With his dear 'Waggoners,' around his lakes.
4521He wishes for 'a boat' to sail the deeps 
4522Of ocean? No, of air; and then he makes
4523Another outcry for 'a little boat,'
4524And drivels seas to set it well afloat.
4525If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain,
4526And Pegasus runs restive in his 'Waggon,'
4527Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain?
4528Or pray Medea for a single dragon?
4529Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,
4530He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on,
4531And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,
4532Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?
4533'Pedlars,' and 'Boats,' and 'Waggons!' Oh! ye 
4534Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?
4535That trash of such sort not alone evades
4536Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss
4537Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cade
4538Of sense and song above your graves may hiss 
4539The 'little boatman' and his 'Peter Bell'
4540Can sneer at him who drew 'Achitophel'!
4541T' our tale. The feast was over, the slaves go
4542The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;
4543The Arab lore and poet's song were done,
4544And every sound of revelry expired;
4545The lady and her lover, left alone,
4546The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired; 
4547Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,
4548That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest t
4549Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!
4550The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
4551Have felt that moment in its fullest power
4552Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,
4553While swung the deep bell in the distant tower
4554Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
4555And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
4556And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with 
4557Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer!
4558Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love!
4559Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
4560Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!
4561Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!
4562Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove 
4563What though 't is but a pictured image? strike
4564That painting is no idol, 't is too like.
4565Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,
4566In nameless print that I have no devotion;
4567But set those persons down with me to pray,
4568And you shall see who has the properest notion
4569Of getting into heaven the shortest way;
4570My altars are the mountains and the ocean,
4571Earth, air, stars, all that springs from the g
4572Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.
4573Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude
4574Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
4575Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
4576Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,
4577To where the last Caesarean fortress stood,
4578Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore
4579And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
4580How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!
4581The shrill cicadas, people of the pine,
4582Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,
4583Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine
4584And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along;
4585The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,
4586His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair t
4587Which learn'd from this example not to fly
4588From a true lover, shadow'd my mind's eye.
4589O, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things 
4590Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
4591To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
4592The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer;
4593Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings
4594Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
4595Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest;
4596Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's 
4597Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the 
4598Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
4599When they from their sweet friends are torn ap
4600Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way
4601As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
4602Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
4603Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
4604Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!
4605When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
4606Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
4607Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,
4608Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
4609Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tom
4610Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
4611Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
4612Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.
4613But I 'm digressing; what on earth has Nero,
4614Or any such like sovereign buffoons,
4615To do with the transactions of my hero,
4616More than such madmen's fellow man the moon's?
4617Sure my invention must be down at zero,
4618And I grown one of many 'wooden spoons'
4619Of verse the name with which we Cantabs please
4620To dub the last of honours in degrees.
4621I feel this tediousness will never do 
4622'T is being too epic, and I must cut down
4623In copying this long canto into two;
4624They 'll never find it out, unless I own
4625The fact, excepting some experienced few;
4626And then as an improvement 't will be shown:
4627I 'll prove that such the opinion of the criti
4628From Aristotle passim. See poietikes.
4629CANTO THE FOURTH.
4630Nothing so difficult as a beginning
4631In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
4632For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
4633The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
4634Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinni
4635Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
4636Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too 
4637Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
4638But Time, which brings all beings to their lev
4639And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
4640Man, and, as we would hope, perhaps the devil,
4641That neither of their intellects are vast:
4642While youth's hot wishes in our red veins reve
4643We know not this the blood flows on too fast;
4644But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
4645We ponder deeply on each past emotion.
4646As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
4647And wish'd that others held the same opinion;
4648They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
4649And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
4650Now my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow
4651Leaf,' and Imagination droops her pinion,
4652And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
4653Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
4654And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
4655'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,
4656'T is that our nature cannot always bring
4657Itself to apathy, for we must steep
4658Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spri
4659Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
4660Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
4661A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.
4662Some have accused me of a strange design
4663Against the creed and morals of the land,
4664And trace it in this poem every line:
4665I don't pretend that I quite understand
4666My own meaning when I would be very fine;
4667But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
4668Unless it were to be a moment merry,
4669A novel word in my vocabulary.
4670To the kind reader of our sober clime
4671This way of writing will appear exotic;
4672Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,
4673Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic,
4674And revell'd in the fancies of the time,
4675True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings
4676But all these, save the last, being obsolete,
4677I chose a modern subject as more meet.
4678How I have treated it, I do not know;
4679Perhaps no better than they have treated me
4680Who have imputed such designs as show
4681Not what they saw, but what they wish'd to see
4682But if it gives them pleasure, be it so;
4683This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free:
4684Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear,
4685And tells me to resume my story here.
4686Young Juan and his lady-love were left
4687To their own hearts' most sweet society;
4688Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft
4689With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he
4690Sigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft,
4691Though foe to love; and yet they could not be
4692Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring,
4693Before one charm or hope had taken wing.
4694Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their
4695Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to 
4696The blank grey was not made to blast their hai
4697But like the climes that know nor snow nor hai
4698They were all summer: lightning might assail
4699And shiver them to ashes, but to trail
4700A long and snake-like life of dull decay
4701Was not for them they had too little day.
4702They were alone once more; for them to be
4703Thus was another Eden; they were never
4704Weary, unless when separate: the tree
4705Cut from its forest root of years the river
4706Damm'd from its fountain the child from the kn
4707And breast maternal wean'd at once for ever, 
4708Would wither less than these two torn apart;
4709Alas! there is no instinct like the heart 
4710The heart which may be broken: happy they!
4711Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
4712The precious porcelain of human clay,
4713Break with the first fall: they can ne'er beho
4714The long year link'd with heavy day on day,
4715And all which must be borne, and never told;
4716While life's strange principle will often lie
4717Deepest in those who long the most to die.
4718'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yo
4719And many deaths do they escape by this:
4720The death of friends, and that which slays eve
4721The death of friendship, love, youth, all that
4722Except mere breath; and since the silent shore
4723Awaits at last even those who longest miss
4724The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early gra
4725Which men weep over may be meant to save.
4726Haidee and Juan thought not of the dead 
4727The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made f
4728They found no fault with Time, save that he fl
4729They saw not in themselves aught to condemn:
4730Each was the other's mirror, and but read
4731Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem,
4732And knew such brightness was but the reflectio
4733Of their exchanging glances of affection.
4734The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch,
4735The least glance better understood than words,
4736Which still said all, and ne'er could say too 
4737A language, too, but like to that of birds,
4738Known but to them, at least appearing such
4739As but to lovers a true sense affords;
4740Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd
4741To those who have ceased to hear such, or ne'e
4742All these were theirs, for they were children 
4743And children still they should have ever been;
4744They were not made in the real world to fill
4745A busy character in the dull scene,
4746But like two beings born from out a rill,
4747A nymph and her beloved, all unseen
4748To pass their lives in fountains and on flower
4749And never know the weight of human hours.
4750Moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless f
4751Those their bright rise had lighted to such jo
4752As rarely they beheld throughout their round;
4753And these were not of the vain kind which cloy
4754For theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound
4755By the mere senses; and that which destroys
4756Most love, possession, unto them appear'd
4757A thing which each endearment more endear'd.
4758O beautiful! and rare as beautiful
4759But theirs was love in which the mind delights
4760To lose itself when the old world grows dull,
4761And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights,
4762Intrigues, adventures of the common school,
4763Its petty passions, marriages, and flights,
4764Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet mo
4765Whose husband only knows her not a wh re.
4766Hard words; harsh truth; a truth which many kn
4767Enough. The faithful and the fairy pair,
4768Who never found a single hour too slow,
4769What was it made them thus exempt from care?
4770Young innate feelings all have felt below,
4771Which perish in the rest, but in them were
4772Inherent what we mortals call romantic,
4773And always envy, though we deem it frantic.
4774This is in others a factitious state,
4775An opium dream of too much youth and reading,
4776But was in them their nature or their fate:
4777No novels e'er had set their young hearts blee
4778For Haidee's knowledge was by no means great,
4779And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding;
4780So that there was no reason for their loves
4781More than for those of nightingales or doves.
4782They gazed upon the sunset; 't is an hour
4783Dear unto all, but dearest to their eyes,
4784For it had made them what they were: the power
4785Of love had first o'erwhelm'd them from such s
4786When happiness had been their only dower,
4787And twilight saw them link'd in passion's ties
4788Charm'd with each other, all things charm'd th
4789The past still welcome as the present thought.
4790I know not why, but in that hour to-night,
4791Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor came,
4792And swept, as 't were, across their hearts' de
4793Like the wind o'er a harp-string, or a flame,
4794When one is shook in sound, and one in sight;
4795And thus some boding flash'd through either fr
4796And call'd from Juan's breast a faint low sigh
4797While one new tear arose in Haidee's eye.
4798That large black prophet eye seem'd to dilate
4799And follow far the disappearing sun,
4800As if their last day! of a happy date
4801With his broad, bright, and dropping orb were 
4802Juan gazed on her as to ask his fate 
4803He felt a grief, but knowing cause for none,
4804His glance inquired of hers for some excuse
4805For feelings causeless, or at least abstruse.
4806She turn'd to him, and smiled, but in that sor
4807Which makes not others smile; then turn'd asid
4808Whatever feeling shook her, it seem'd short,
4809And master'd by her wisdom or her pride;
4810When Juan spoke, too it might be in sport 
4811Of this their mutual feeling, she replied 
4812'If it should be so, but it cannot be 
4813Or I at least shall not survive to see.'
4814Juan would question further, but she press'd
4815His lip to hers, and silenced him with this,
4816And then dismiss'd the omen from her breast,
4817Defying augury with that fond kiss;
4818And no doubt of all methods 't is the best:
4819Some people prefer wine 't is not amiss;
4820I have tried both; so those who would a part t
4821May choose between the headache and the hearta
4822One of the two, according to your choice,
4823Woman or wine, you 'll have to undergo;
4824Both maladies are taxes on our joys:
4825But which to choose, I really hardly know;
4826And if I had to give a casting voice,
4827For both sides I could many reasons show,
4828And then decide, without great wrong to either
4829It were much better to have both than neither.
4830Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other
4831With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
4832Which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover
4833All that the best can mingle and express
4834When two pure hearts are pour'd in one another
4835And love too much, and yet can not love less;
4836But almost sanctify the sweet excess
4837By the immortal wish and power to bless.
4838Mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart
4839Why did they not then die? they had lived too 
4840Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart;
4841Years could but bring them cruel things or wro
4842The world was not for them, nor the world's ar
4843For beings passionate as Sappho's song;
4844Love was born with them, in them, so intense,
4845It was their very spirit not a sense.
4846They should have lived together deep in woods,
4847Unseen as sings the nightingale; they were
4848Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes
4849Call'd social, haunts of Hate, and Vice, and C
4850How lonely every freeborn creature broods!
4851The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair;
4852The eagle soars alone; the gull and crow
4853Flock o'er their carrion, just like men below.
4854Now pillow'd cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,
4855Haidee and Juan their siesta took,
4856A gentle slumber, but it was not deep,
4857For ever and anon a something shook
4858Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame would cree
4859And Haidee's sweet lips murmur'd like a brook
4860A wordless music, and her face so fair
4861Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with th
4862Or as the stirring of a deep dear stream
4863Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind
4864Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the dream,
4865The mystical usurper of the mind 
4866O'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem
4867Good to the soul which we no more can bind;
4868Strange state of being! for 't is still to be
4869Senseless to feel, and with seal'd eyes to see
4870She dream'd of being alone on the sea-shore,
4871Chain'd to a rock; she knew not how, but stir
4872She could not from the spot, and the loud roar
4873Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening 
4874And o'er her upper lip they seem'd to pour,
4875Until she sobb'd for breath, and soon they wer
4876Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high
4877Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die
4878Anon she was released, and then she stray'd
4879O'er the sharp shingles with her bleeding feet
4880And stumbled almost every step she made;
4881And something roll'd before her in a sheet,
4882Which she must still pursue howe'er afraid:
4883'T was white and indistinct, nor stopp'd to me
4884Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed, and
4885And ran, but it escaped her as she clasp'd.
4886The dream changed: in a cave she stood, its wa
4887Were hung with marble icicles, the work
4888Of ages on its water-fretted halls,
4889Where waves might wash, and seals might breed 
4890Her hair was dripping, and the very balls
4891Of her black eyes seem'd turn'd to tears, and 
4892The sharp rocks look'd below each drop they ca
4893Which froze to marble as it fell, she thought.
4894And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet,
4895Pale as the foam that froth'd on his dead brow
4896Which she essay'd in vain to clear how sweet
4897Were once her cares, how idle seem'd they now!
4898Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat
4899Of his quench'd heart; and the sea dirges low
4900Rang in her sad ears like a mermaid's song,
4901And that brief dream appear'd a life too long.
4902And gazing on the dead, she thought his face
4903Faded, or alter'd into something new 
4904Like to her father's features, till each trace
4905More like and like to Lambro's aspect grew 
4906With all his keen worn look and Grecian grace;
4907And starting, she awoke, and what to view?
4908O! Powers of Heaven! what dark eye meets she t
4909'T is 't is her father's fix'd upon the pair!
4910Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking fell,
4911With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see
4912Him whom she deem'd a habitant where dwell
4913The ocean-buried, risen from death, to be
4914Perchance the death of one she loved too well:
4915Dear as her father had been to Haidee,
4916It was a moment of that awful kind 
4917I have seen such but must not call to mind.
4918Up Juan sprung to Haidee's bitter shriek,
4919And caught her falling, and from off the wall
4920Snatch'd down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak
4921Vengeance on him who was the cause of all:
4922Then Lambro, who till now forbore to speak,
4923Smiled scornfully, and said, 'Within my call,
4924A thousand scimitars await the word;
4925Put up, young man, put up your silly sword.'
4926And Haidee clung around him; 'Juan, 't is 
4927'T is Lambro 't is my father! Kneel with me 
4928He will forgive us yes it must be yes.
4929O! dearest father, in this agony
4930Of pleasure and of pain even while I kiss
4931Thy garment's hem with transport, can it be
4932That doubt should mingle with my filial joy?
4933Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy.
4934High and inscrutable the old man stood,
4935Calm in his voice, and calm within his eye 
4936Not always signs with him of calmest mood:
4937He look'd upon her, but gave no reply;
4938Then turn'd to Juan, in whose cheek the blood
4939Oft came and went, as there resolved to die;
4940In arms, at least, he stood, in act to spring
4941On the first foe whom Lambro's call might brin
4942'Young man, your sword;' so Lambro once more s
4943Juan replied, 'Not while this arm is free.'
4944The old man's cheek grew pale, but not with dr
4945And drawing from his belt a pistol, he
4946Replied, 'Your blood be then on your own head.
4947Then look'd dose at the flint, as if to see
4948'T was fresh for he had lately used the lock 
4949And next proceeded quietly to cock.
4950It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,
4951That cocking of a pistol, when you know
4952A moment more will bring the sight to bear
4953Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so;
4954A gentlemanly distance, not too near,
4955If you have got a former friend for foe;
4956But after being fired at once or twice,
4957The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
4958Lambro presented, and one instant more
4959Had stopp'd this Canto, and Don Juan's breath,
4960When Haidee threw herself her boy before;
4961Stern as her sire: 'On me,' she cried, 'let de
4962Descend the fault is mine; this fatal shore
4963He found but sought not. I have pledged my fai
4964I love him I will die with him: I knew
4965Your nature's firmness know your daughter's to
4966A minute past, and she had been all tears,
4967And tenderness, and infancy; but now
4968She stood as one who champion'd human fears 
4969Pale, statue-like, and stern, she woo'd the bl
4970And tall beyond her sex, and their compeers,
4971She drew up to her height, as if to show
4972A fairer mark; and with a fix'd eye scann'd
4973Her father's face but never stopp'd his hand.
4974He gazed on her, and she on him; 't was strang
4975How like they look'd! the expression was the s
4976Serenely savage, with a little change
4977In the large dark eye's mutual-darted flame;
4978For she, too, was as one who could avenge,
4979If cause should be a lioness, though tame.
4980Her father's blood before her father's face
4981Boil'd up, and proved her truly of his race.
4982I said they were alike, their features and
4983Their stature, differing but in sex and years;
4984Even to the delicacy of their hand
4985There was resemblance, such as true blood wear
4986And now to see them, thus divided, stand
4987In fix'd ferocity, when joyous tears
4988And sweet sensations should have welcomed both
4989Show what the passions are in their full growt
4990The father paused a moment, then withdrew
4991His weapon, and replaced it; but stood still,
4992And looking on her, as to look her through,
4993'Not I,' he said, 'have sought this stranger's
4994Not I have made this desolation: few
4995Would bear such outrage, and forbear to kill;
4996But I must do my duty how thou hast
4997Done thine, the present vouches for the past.
4998'Let him disarm; or, by my father's head,
4999His own shall roll before you like a ball!'
5000He raised his whistle, as the word he said,
5001And blew; another answer'd to the call,
5002And rushing in disorderly, though led,
5003And arm'd from boot to turban, one and all,
5004Some twenty of his train came, rank on rank;
5005He gave the word, 'Arrest or slay the Frank.'
5006Then, with a sudden movement, he withdrew
5007His daughter; while compress'd within his clas
5008'Twixt her and Juan interposed the crew;
5009In vain she struggled in her father's grasp 
5010His arms were like a serpent's coil: then flew
5011Upon their prey, as darts an angry asp,
5012The file of pirates; save the foremost, who
5013Had fallen, with his right shoulder half cut t
5014The second had his cheek laid open; but
5015The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took
5016The blows upon his cutlass, and then put
5017His own well in; so well, ere you could look,
5018His man was floor'd, and helpless at his foot,
5019With the blood running like a little brook
5020From two smart sabre gashes, deep and red 
5021One on the arm, the other on the head.
5022And then they bound him where he fell, and bor
5023Juan from the apartment: with a sign
5024Old Lambro bade them take him to the shore,
5025Where lay some ships which were to sail at nin
5026They laid him in a boat, and plied the oar
5027Until they reach'd some galliots, placed in li
5028On board of one of these, and under hatches,
5029They stow'd him, with strict orders to the wat
5030The world is full of strange vicissitudes,
5031And here was one exceedingly unpleasant:
5032A gentleman so rich in the world's goods,
5033Handsome and young, enjoying all the present,
5034Just at the very time when he least broods
5035On such a thing is suddenly to sea sent,
5036Wounded and chain'd, so that he cannot move,
5037And all because a lady fell in love.
5038Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic,
5039Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea
5040Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic;
5041For if my pure libations exceed three,
5042I feel my heart become so sympathetic,
5043That I must have recourse to black Bohea:
5044'T is pity wine should be so deleterious,
5045For tea and coffee leave us much more serious,
5046Unless when qualified with thee, Cogniac!
5047Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill!
5048Ah! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,
5049And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?
5050I would take refuge in weak punch, but rack
5051In each sense of the word, whene'er I fill
5052My mild and midnight beakers to the brim,
5053Wakes me next morning with its synonym.
5054I leave Don Juan for the present, safe 
5055Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded;
5056Yet could his corporal pangs amount to half
5057Of those with which his Haidee's bosom bounded
5058She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe,
5059And then give way, subdued because surrounded;
5060Her mother was a Moorish maid, from Fez,
5061Where all is Eden, or a wilderness.
5062There the large olive rains its amber store
5063In marble fonts; there grain, and flower, and 
5064Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er;
5065But there, too, many a poison-tree has root,
5066And midnight listens to the lion's roar,
5067And long, long deserts scorch the camel's foot
5068Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan;
5069And as the soil is, so the heart of man.
5070Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth
5071Her human day is kindled; full of power
5072For good or evil, burning from its birth,
5073The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour,
5074And like the soil beneath it will bring forth:
5075Beauty and love were Haidee's mother's dower;
5076But her large dark eye show'd deep Passion's f
5077Though sleeping like a lion near a source.
5078Her daughter, temper'd with a milder ray,
5079Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fa
5080Till slowly charged with thunder they display
5081Terror to earth, and tempest to the air,
5082Had held till now her soft and milky way;
5083But overwrought with passion and despair,
5084The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,
5085Even as the Simoom sweeps the blasted plains.
5086The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore,
5087And he himself o'ermaster'd and cut down;
5088His blood was running on the very floor
5089Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own;
5090Thus much she view'd an instant and no more, 
5091Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan
5092On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held
5093Her writhing, fell she like a cedar fell'd.
5094A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dye
5095Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'e
5096And her head droop'd as when the lily lies
5097O'ercharged with rain: her summon'd handmaids 
5098Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes;
5099Of herbs and cordials they produced their stor
5100But she defied all means they could employ,
5101Like one life could not hold, nor death destro
5102Days lay she in that state unchanged, though c
5103With nothing livid, still her lips were red;
5104She had no pulse, but death seem'd absent stil
5105No hideous sign proclaim'd her surely dead;
5106Corruption came not in each mind to kill
5107All hope; to look upon her sweet face bred
5108New thoughts of life, for it seem'd full of so
5109She had so much, earth could not claim the who
5110The ruling passion, such as marble shows
5111When exquisitely chisell'd, still lay there,
5112But fix'd as marble's unchanged aspect throws
5113O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair;
5114O'er the Laocoon's all eternal throes,
5115And ever-dying Gladiator's air,
5116Their energy like life forms all their fame,
5117Yet looks not life, for they are still the sam
5118She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake,
5119Rather the dead, for life seem'd something new
5120A strange sensation which she must partake
5121Perforce, since whatsoever met her view
5122Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache
5123Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still tr
5124Brought back the sense of pain without the cau
5125For, for a while, the furies made a pause.
5126She look'd on many a face with vacant eye,
5127On many a token without knowing what;
5128She saw them watch her without asking why,
5129And reck'd not who around her pillow sat;
5130Not speechless, though she spoke not; not a si
5131Relieved her thoughts; dull silence and quick 
5132Were tried in vain by those who served; she ga
5133No sign, save breath, of having left the grave
5134Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;
5135Her father watch'd, she turn'd her eyes away;
5136She recognized no being, and no spot,
5137However dear or cherish'd in their day;
5138They changed from room to room but all forgot 
5139Gentle, but without memory she lay;
5140At length those eyes, which they would fain be
5141Back to old thoughts, wax'd full of fearful me
5142And then a slave bethought her of a harp;
5143The harper came, and tuned his instrument;
5144At the first notes, irregular and sharp,
5145On him her flashing eyes a moment bent,
5146Then to the wall she turn'd as if to warp
5147Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-
5148And he begun a long low island song
5149Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong.
5150Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall
5151In time to his old tune; he changed the theme,
5152And sung of love; the fierce name struck throu
5153Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream
5154Of what she was, and is, if ye could call
5155To be so being; in a gushing stream
5156The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded br
5157Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rai
5158Short solace, vain relief! thought came too qu
5159And whirl'd her brain to madness; she arose
5160As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick,
5161And flew at all she met, as on her foes;
5162But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
5163Although her paroxysm drew towards its dose; 
5164Hers was a phrensy which disdain'd to rave,
5165Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.
5166Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense;
5167Nothing could make her meet her father's face,
5168Though on all other things with looks intense
5169She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;
5170Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence
5171Avail'd for either; neither change of place,
5172Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give he
5173Senses to sleep the power seem'd gone for ever
5174Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at l
5175Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show
5176A parting pang, the spirit from her past:
5177And they who watch'd her nearest could not kno
5178The very instant, till the change that cast
5179Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,
5180Glazed o'er her eyes the beautiful, the black 
5181O! to possess such lustre and then lack!
5182She died, but not alone; she held within
5183A second principle of life, which might
5184Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin;
5185But closed its little being without light,
5186And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
5187Blossom and bough lie wither'd with one blight
5188In vain the dews of Heaven descend above
5189The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.
5190Thus lived thus died she; never more on her
5191Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
5192Through years or moons the inner weight to bea
5193Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
5194By age in earth: her days and pleasures were
5195Brief, but delightful such as had not staid
5196Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well
5197By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.
5198That isle is now all desolate and bare,
5199Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away;
5200None but her own and father's grave is there,
5201And nothing outward tells of human clay;
5202Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,
5203No stone is there to show, no tongue to say
5204What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea's,
5205Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades.
5206But many a Greek maid in a loving song
5207Sighs o'er her name; and many an islander
5208With her sire's story makes the night less lon
5209Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her:
5210If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong 
5211A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
5212In some shape; let none think to fly the dange
5213For soon or late Love is his own avenger.
5214But let me change this theme which grows too s
5215And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf;
5216I don't much like describing people mad,
5217For fear of seeming rather touch'd myself 
5218Besides, I 've no more on this head to add;
5219And as my Muse is a capricious elf,
5220We 'll put about, and try another tack
5221With Juan, left half-kill'd some stanzas back.
5222Wounded and fetter'd, 'cabin'd, cribb'd, confi
5223Some days and nights elapsed before that he
5224Could altogether call the past to mind;
5225And when he did, he found himself at sea,
5226Sailing six knots an hour before the wind;
5227The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee 
5228Another time he might have liked to see 'em,
5229But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigaeum
5230There, on the green and village-cotted hill, i
5231Flank'd by the Hellespont and by the sea
5232Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles;
5233They say so Bryant says the contrary:
5234And further downward, tall and towering still,
5235The tumulus of whom? Heaven knows! 't may be
5236Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus 
5237All heroes, who if living still would slay us.
5238High barrows, without marble or a name,
5239A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain,
5240And Ida in the distance, still the same,
5241And old Scamander if 't is he remain;
5242The situation seems still form'd for fame 
5243A hundred thousand men might fight again
5244With case; but where I sought for Ilion's wall
5245The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls
5246Troops of untended horses; here and there
5247Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth;
5248Some shepherds unlike Paris led to stare
5249A moment at the European youth
5250Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bea
5251A turk, with beads in hand and pipe in mouth,
5252Extremely taken with his own religion,
5253Are what I found there but the devil a Phrygia
5254Don Juan, here permitted to emerge
5255From his dull cabin, found himself a slave;
5256Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge,
5257O'ershadow'd there by many a hero's grave;
5258Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could
5259A few brief questions; and the answers gave
5260No very satisfactory information
5261About his past or present situation.
5262He saw some fellow captives, who appear'd
5263To be Italians, as they were in fact;
5264From them, at least, their destiny he heard,
5265Which was an odd one; a troop going to act
5266In Sicily all singers, duly rear'd
5267In their vocation had not been attack'd
5268In sailing from Livorno by the pirate,
5269But sold by the impresario at no high rate.
5270By one of these, the buffo of the party,
5271Juan was told about their curious case;
5272For although destined to the Turkish mart, he
5273Still kept his spirits up at least his face;
5274The little fellow really look'd quite hearty,
5275And bore him with some gaiety and grace,
5276Showing a much more reconciled demeanour,
5277Than did the prima donna and the tenor.
5278In a few words he told their hapless story,
5279Saying, 'Our Machiavellian impresario,
5280Making a signal off some promontory,
5281Hail'd a strange brig Corpo di Caio Mario!
5282We were transferr'd on board her in a hurry,
5283Without a Single scudo of salario;
5284But if the Sultan has a taste for song,
5285We will revive our fortunes before long.
5286'The prima donna, though a little old,
5287And haggard with a dissipated life,
5288And subject, when the house is thin, to cold,
5289Has some good notes; and then the tenor's wife
5290With no great voice, is pleasing to behold;
5291Last carnival she made a deal of strife
5292By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna
5293From an old Roman princess at Bologna.
5294'And then there are the dancers; there 's the 
5295With more than one profession, gains by all;
5296Then there 's that laughing slut the Pelegrini
5297She, too, was fortunate last carnival,
5298And made at least five hundred good zecchini,
5299But spends so fast, she has not now a paul;
5300And then there 's the Grotesca such a dancer!
5301Where men have souls or bodies she must answer
5302'As for the figuranti, they are like
5303The rest of all that tribe; with here and ther
5304A pretty person, which perhaps may strike,
5305The rest are hardly fitted for a fair;
5306There 's one, though tall and stiffer than a p
5307Yet has a sentimental kind of air
5308Which might go far, but she don't dance with v
5309The more 's the pity, with her face and figure
5310'As for the men, they are a middling set;
5311The musico is but a crack'd old basin,
5312But being qualified in one way yet,
5313May the seraglio do to set his face in,
5314And as a servant some preferment get;
5315His singing I no further trust can place in:
5316From all the Pope makes yearly 't would perple
5317To find three perfect pipes of the third sex.
5318'The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation,
5319And for the bass, the beast can only bellow;
5320In fact, he had no singing education,
5321An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fell
5322But being the prima donna's near relation,
5323Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow,
5324They hired him, though to hear him you 'd beli
5325An ass was practising recitative.
5326''T would not become myself to dwell upon
5327My own merits, and though young I see, Sir you
5328Have got a travell'd air, which speaks you one
5329To whom the opera is by no means new:
5330You 've heard of Raucocanti? I 'm the man;
5331The time may come when you may hear me too;
5332You was not last year at the fair of Lugo,
5333But next, when I 'm engaged to sing there do g
5334'Our baritone I almost had forgot,
5335A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit;
5336With graceful action, science not a jot,
5337A voice of no great compass, and not sweet,
5338He always is complaining of his lot,
5339Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street
5340In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe,
5341Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth.'
5342Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital
5343Was interrupted by the pirate crew,
5344Who came at stated moments to invite all
5345The captives back to their sad berths; each th
5346A rueful glance upon the waves which bright al
5347From the blue skies derived a double blue,
5348Dancing all free and happy in the sun,
5349And then went down the hatchway one by one.
5350They heard next day that in the Dardanelles,
5351Waiting for his Sublimity's firman,
5352The most imperative of sovereign spells,
5353Which every body does without who can,
5354More to secure them in their naval cells,
5355Lady to lady, well as man to man,
5356Were to be chain'd and lotted out per couple,
5357For the slave market of Constantinople.
5358It seems when this allotment was made out,
5359There chanced to be an odd male, and odd femal
5360Who after some discussion and some doubt,
5361If the soprano might be deem'd to be male,
5362They placed him o'er the women as a scout
5363Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male
5364Was Juan, who, an awkward thing at his age,
5365Pair'd off with a Bacchante blooming visage.
5366With Raucocanti lucklessly was chain'd
5367The tenor; these two hated with a hate
5368Found only on the stage, and each more pain'd
5369With this his tuneful neighbour than his fate;
5370Sad strife arose, for they were so cross-grain
5371Instead of bearing up without debate,
5372That each pull'd different ways with many an o
5373'Arcades ambo,' id est blackguards both.
5374Juan's companion was a Romagnole,
5375But bred within the March of old Ancona,
5376With eyes that look'd into the very soul
5377And other chief points of a 'bella donna',
5378Bright and as black and burning as a coal;
5379And through her dear brunette complexion shone
5380Great wish to please a most attractive dower,
5381Especially when added to the power.
5382But all that power was wasted upon him,
5383For sorrow o'er each sense held stern command;
5384Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim;
5385And though thus chain'd, as natural her hand
5386Touch'd his, nor that nor any handsome limb
5387And she had some not easy to withstand
5388Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel b
5389Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little.
5390No matter; we should ne'er too much enquire,
5391But facts are facts: no knight could be more t
5392And firmer faith no ladye love desire;
5393We will omit the proofs, save one or two:
5394'T is said no one in hand 'can hold a fire
5395By thought of frosty Caucasus;' but few,
5396I really think; yet Juan's then ordeal
5397Was more triumphant, and not much less real.
5398Here I might enter on a chaste description,
5399Having withstood temptation in my youth,
5400But hear that several people take exception
5401At the first two books having too much truth;
5402Therefore I 'll make Don Juan leave the ship s
5403Because the publisher declares, in sooth,
5404Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel 
5405To pass, than those two cantos into families.
5406'T is all the same to me; I 'm fond of yieldin
5407And therefore leave them to the purer page
5408Of Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding,
5409Who say strange things for so correct an age;
5410I once had great alacrity in wielding
5411My pen, and liked poetic war to wage,
5412And recollect the time when all this cant
5413Would have provoked remarks which now it shan'
5414As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble
5415But at this hour I wish to part in peace,
5416Leaving such to the literary rabble:
5417Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease
5418While the right hand which wrote it still is a
5419Or of some centuries to take a lease,
5420The grass upon my grave will grow as long,
5421And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song.
5422Of poets who come down to us through distance
5423Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame,
5424Life seems the smallest portion of existence;
5425Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,
5426'T is as a snowball which derives assistance
5427From every flake, and yet rolls on the same,
5428Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow;
5429But, after all, 't is nothing but cold snow.
5430And so great names are nothing more than nomin
5431And love of glory 's but an airy lust,
5432Too often in its fury overcoming all
5433Who would as 't were identify their dust
5434From out the wide destruction, which, entombin
5435Leaves nothing till 'the coming of the just'-
5436Save change: I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
5437And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rom
5438The very generations of the dead
5439Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,
5440Until the memory of an age is fled,
5441And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doo
5442Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?
5443Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom
5444Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath,
5445And lose their own in universal death.
5446I canter by the spot each afternoon
5447Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy,
5448Who lived too long for men, but died too soon
5449For human vanity, the young De Foix!
5450A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn,
5451But which neglect is hastening to destroy,
5452Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,
5453While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.
5454I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
5455A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
5456Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid
5457To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's colu
5458The time must come, when both alike decay'd,
5459The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume,
5460Will sink where lie the songs and wars of eart
5461Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.
5462With human blood that column was cemented,
5463With human filth that column is defiled,
5464As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vente
5465To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd:
5466Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented
5467Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose 
5468Instinct of gore and glory earth has known
5469Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.
5470Yet there will still be bards: though fame is 
5471Its fumes are frankincense to human thought;
5472And the unquiet feelings, which first woke
5473Song in the world, will seek what then they so
5474As on the beach the waves at last are broke,
5475Thus to their extreme verge the passions broug
5476Dash into poetry, which is but passion,
5477Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.
5478If in the course of such a life as was
5479At once adventurous and contemplative,
5480Men, who partake all passions as they pass,
5481Acquire the deep and bitter power to give
5482Their images again as in a glass,
5483And in such colours that they seem to live;
5484You may do right forbidding them to show 'em,
5485But spoil I think a very pretty poem.
5486O! ye, who make the fortunes of all books!
5487Benign Ceruleans of the second sex!
5488Who advertise new poems by your looks,
5489Your 'imprimatur' will ye not annex?
5490What! must I go to the oblivious cooks,
5491Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks?
5492Ah! must I then the only minstrel be,
5493Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea!
5494What! can I prove 'a lion' then no more?
5495A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darlin
5496To bear the compliments of many a bore,
5497And sigh, 'I can't get out,' like Yorick's sta
5498Why then I 'll swear, as poet Wordy swore
5499Because the world won't read him, always snarl
5500That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery
5501Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.
5502O! 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,'
5503As some one somewhere sings about the sky,
5504And I, ye learned ladies, say of you;
5505They say your stockings are so Heaven knows wh
5506I have examined few pair of that hue;
5507Blue as the garters which serenely lie
5508Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn
5509The festal midnight, and the levee morn.
5510Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures 
5511But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover,
5512You read my stanzas, and I read your features:
5513And but no matter, all those things are over;
5514Still I have no dislike to learned natures,
5515For sometimes such a world of virtues cover;
5516I knew one woman of that purple school,
5517The loveliest, chastest, best, but quite a foo
5518Humboldt, 'the first of travellers,' but not
5519The last, if late accounts be accurate,
5520Invented, by some name I have forgot,
5521As well as the sublime discovery's date,
5522An airy instrument, with which he sought
5523To ascertain the atmospheric state,
5524By measuring 'the intensity of blue:'
5525O, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!
5526But to the narrative: The vessel bound
5527With slaves to sell off in the capital,
5528After the usual process, might be found
5529At anchor under the seraglio wall;
5530Her cargo, from the plague being safe and soun
5531Were landed in the market, one and all,
5532And there with Georgians, Russians, and Circas
5533Bought up for different purposes and passions.
5534Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars
5535For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
5536Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours
5537Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven:
5538Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
5539Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven;
5540But when the offer went beyond, they knew
5541'T was for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.
5542Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price
5543Which the West Indian market scarce would brin
5544Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice
5545What 't was ere Abolition; and the thing
5546Need not seem very wonderful, for vice
5547Is always much more splendid than a king:
5548The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity,
5549Are saving vice spares nothing for a rarity.
5550But for the destiny of this young troop,
5551How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews,
5552How some to burdens were obliged to stoop,
5553And others rose to the command of crews
5554As renegadoes; while in hapless group,
5555Hoping no very old vizier might choose,
5556The females stood, as one by one they pick'd '
5557To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:
5558All this must be reserved for further song;
5559Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant
5560Because this Canto has become too long,
5561Must be postponed discreetly for the present;
5562I 'm sensible redundancy is wrong,
5563But could not for the muse of me put less in '
5564And now delay the progress of Don Juan,
5565Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Juan.
5566CANTO THE FIFTH.
5567When amatory poets sing their loves
5568In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
5569And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves
5570They little think what mischief is in hand;
5571The greater their success the worse it proves,
5572As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
5573Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due sever
5574Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.
5575I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
5576Except in such a way as not to attract;
5577Plain simple short, and by no means inviting,
5578But with a moral to each error tack'd,
5579Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
5580And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
5581Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
5582This poem will become a moral model.
5583The European with the Asian shore
5584Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
5585Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
5586Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
5587The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
5588The twelve isles, and the more than I could dr
5589Far less describe, present the very view
5590Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.
5591I have a passion for the name of 'Mary,'
5592For once it was a magic sound to me;
5593And still it half calls up the realms of fairy
5594Where I beheld what never was to be;
5595All feelings changed, but this was last to var
5596A spell from which even yet I am not quite fre
5597But I grow sad and let a tale grow cold,
5598Which must not be pathetically told.
5599The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
5600Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
5601'T is a grand sight from off 'the Giant's Grav
5602To watch the progress of those rolling seas
5603Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
5604Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
5605There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in
5606Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxi
5607'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,
5608When nights are equal, but not so the days;
5609The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
5610Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise
5611The waters, and repentance for past sinning
5612In all, who o'er the great deep take their way
5613They vow to amend their lives, and yet they do
5614Because if drown'd, they can't if spared, they
5615A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,
5616And age, and sex, were in the market ranged;
5617Each bevy with the merchant in his station:
5618Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly ch
5619All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation
5620From friends, and home, and freedom far estran
5621The negroes more philosophy display'd, 
5622Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd
5623Juan was juvenile, and thus was full,
5624As most at his age are, of hope and health;
5625Yet I must own he looked a little dull,
5626And now and then a tear stole down by stealth;
5627Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull
5628His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth,
5629A mistress, and such comfortable quarters,
5630To be put up for auction amongst Tartars,
5631Were things to shake a stoic; ne'ertheless,
5632Upon the whole his carriage was serene:
5633His figure, and the splendour of his dress,
5634Of which some gilded remnants still were seen,
5635Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess
5636He was above the vulgar by his mien;
5637And then, though pale, he was so very handsome
5638And then they calculated on his ransom.
5639Like a backgammon board the place was dotted
5640With whites and blacks, in groups on show for 
5641Though rather more irregularly spotted:
5642Some bought the jet, while others chose the pa
5643It chanced amongst the other people lotted,
5644A man of thirty rather stout and hale,
5645With resolution in his dark grey eye,
5646Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy
5647He had an English look; that is, was square
5648In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,
5649Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hai
5650And, it might be from thought or toil or study
5651An open brow a little mark'd with care:
5652One arm had on a bandage rather bloody;
5653And there he stood with such sang-froid, that 
5654Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator
5655But seeing at his elbow a mere lad,
5656Of a high spirit evidently, though
5657At present weigh'd down by a doom which had
5658O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show
5659A kind of blunt compassion for the sad
5660Lot of so young a partner in the woe,
5661Which for himself he seem'd to deem no worse
5662Than any other scrape, a thing of course.
5663'My boy!' said he, 'amidst this motley crew
5664Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and what not,
5665All ragamuffins differing but in hue,
5666With whom it is our luck to cast our lot,
5667The only gentlemen seem I and you;
5668So let us be acquainted, as we ought:
5669If I could yield you any consolation,
5670'T would give me pleasure. Pray, what is your 
5671When Juan answer'd 'Spanish!' he replied,
5672'I thought, in fact, you could not be a Greek;
5673Those servile dogs are not so proudly eyed:
5674Fortune has play'd you here a pretty freak,
5675But that 's her way with all men, till they 'r
5676But never mind, she 'll turn, perhaps, next we
5677She has served me also much the same as you,
5678Except that I have found it nothing new.'
5679'Pray, sir,' said Juan, 'if I may presume,
5680What brought you here?' 'Oh! nothing very rare
5681Six Tartars and a drag-chain.' 'To this doom
5682But what conducted, if the question's fair,
5683Is that which I would learn.' 'I served for so
5684Months with the Russian army here and there,
5685And taking lately, by Suwarrow's bidding,
5686A town, was ta'en myself instead of Widdin.'
5687'Have you no friends?' 'I had but, by God's bl
5688Have not been troubled with them lately. Now
5689I have answer'd all your questions without pre
5690And you an equal courtesy should show.'
5691'Alas!' said Juan, ''t were a tale distressing
5692And long besides.' 'Oh! if 't is really so,
5693You 're right on both accounts to hold your to
5694A sad tale saddens doubly, when 't is long.
5695'But droop not: Fortune at your time of life,
5696Although a female moderately fickle,
5697Will hardly leave you as she 's not your wife
5698For any length of days in such a pickle.
5699To strive, too, with our fate were such a stri
5700As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle:
5701Men are the sport of circumstances, when
5702The circumstances seem the sport of men.'
5703''T is not,' said Juan, 'for my present doom
5704I mourn, but for the past; I loved a maid:'-
5705He paused, and his dark eye grew full of gloom
5706A single tear upon his eyelash staid
5707A moment, and then dropp'd; 'but to resume,
5708'T is not my present lot, as I have said,
5709Which I deplore so much; for I have borne
5710Hardships which have the hardiest overworn,
5711'On the rough deep. But this last blow-' and h
5712He stopp'd again, and turn'd away his face.
5713'Ay,' quoth his friend, 'I thought it would ap
5714That there had been a lady in the case;
5715And these are things which ask a tender tear,
5716Such as I, too, would shed if in your place:
5717I cried upon my first wife's dying day,
5718And also when my second ran away:
5719'My third-' 'Your third!' quoth Juan, turning 
5720'You scarcely can be thirty: have you three?'
5721'No only two at present above ground:
5722Surely 't is nothing wonderful to see
5723One person thrice in holy wedlock bound!'
5724'Well, then, your third,' said Juan; 'what did
5725She did not run away, too, did she, sir?'
5726'No, faith.' 'What then?' 'I ran away from her
5727'You take things coolly, sir,' said Juan. 'Why
5728Replied the other, 'what can a man do?
5729There still are many rainbows in your sky,
5730But mine have vanish'd. All, when life is new,
5731Commence with feelings warm, and prospects hig
5732But time strips our illusions of their hue,
5733And one by one in turn, some grand mistake
5734Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snak
5735''T is true, it gets another bright and fresh,
5736Or fresher, brighter; but the year gone throug
5737This skin must go the way, too, of all flesh,
5738Or sometimes only wear a week or two; 
5739Love 's the first net which spreads its deadly
5740Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue
5741The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,
5742Where still we flutter on for pence or praise.
5743'All this is very fine, and may be true,'
5744Said Juan; 'but I really don't see how
5745It betters present times with me or you.'
5746'No?' quoth the other; 'yet you will allow
5747By setting things in their right point of view
5748Knowledge, at least, is gain'd; for instance, 
5749We know what slavery is, and our disasters
5750May teach us better to behave when masters.'
5751'Would we were masters now, if but to try
5752Their present lessons on our Pagan friends her
5753Said Juan, swallowing a heart-burning sigh:
5754'Heaven help the scholar whom his fortune send
5755'Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by,'
5756Rejoin'd the other, when our bad luck mends he
5757Meantime yon old black eunuch seems to eye us
5758'But after all, what is our present state?
5759'T is bad, and may be better all men's lot:
5760Most men are slaves, none more so than the gre
5761To their own whims and passions, and what not;
5762Society itself, which should create
5763Kindness, destroys what little we had got:
5764To feel for none is the true social art
5765Of the world's stoics men without a heart.'
5766Just now a black old neutral personage
5767Of the third sex stept up, and peering over
5768The captives, seem'd to mark their looks and a
5769And capabilities, as to discover
5770If they were fitted for the purposed cage:
5771No lady e'er is ogled by a lover,
5772Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,
5773Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor,
5774As is a slave by his intended bidder.
5775'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures
5776And all are to be sold, if you consider
5777Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by fea
5778Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,
5779Some by a place as tend their years or natures
5780The most by ready cash but all have prices,
5781From crowns to kicks, according to their vices
5782The eunuch, having eyed them o'er with care,
5783Turn'd to the merchant, and begun to bid
5784First but for one, and after for the pair;
5785They haggled, wrangled, swore, too so they did
5786As though they were in a mere Christian fair
5787Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid;
5788So that their bargain sounded like a battle
5789For this superior yoke of human cattle.
5790At last they settled into simple grumbling,
5791And pulling out reluctant purses, and
5792Turning each piece of silver o'er, and tumblin
5793Some down, and weighing others in their hand,
5794And by mistake sequins with paras jumbling,
5795Until the sum was accurately scann'd,
5796And then the merchant giving change, and signi
5797Receipts in full, began to think of dining.
5798I wonder if his appetite was good?
5799Or, if it were, if also his digestion?
5800Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intr
5801And conscience ask a curious sort of question,
5802About the right divine how far we should
5803Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest 
5804I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
5805Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.
5806Voltaire says 'No:' he tells you that Candide
5807Found life most tolerable after meals;
5808He 's wrong unless man were a pig, indeed,
5809Repletion rather adds to what he feels,
5810Unless he 's drunk, and then no doubt he 's fr
5811From his own brain's oppression while it reels
5812Of food I think with Philip's son, or rather
5813Ammon's ill pleased with one world and one fat
5814I think with Alexander, that the act
5815Of eating, with another act or two,
5816Makes us feel our mortality in fact
5817Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout,
5818And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd
5819Can give us either pain or pleasure, who
5820Would pique himself on intellects, whose use
5821Depends so much upon the gastric juice?
5822The other evening 't was on Friday last 
5823This is a fact and no poetic fable 
5824Just as my great coat was about me cast,
5825My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
5826I heard a shot 't was eight o'clock scarce pas
5827And, running out as fast as I was able,
5828I found the military commandant
5829Stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pa
5830Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,
5831They had slain him with five slugs; and left h
5832To perish on the pavement: so I had
5833Him borne into the house and up the stair,
5834And stripp'd and look'd to But why should I ad
5835More circumstances? vain was every care;
5836The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel
5837Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.
5838I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;
5839And though I have seen many corpses, never
5840Saw one, whom such an accident befell,
5841So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart
5842He seem'd to sleep, for you could scarcely tel
5843As he bled inwardly, no hideous river
5844Of gore divulged the cause that he was dead:
5845So as I gazed on him, I thought or said 
5846'Can this be death? then what is life or death
5847Speak!' but he spoke not: 'Wake!' but still he
5848'But yesterday and who had mightier breath?
5849A thousand warriors by his word were kept
5850In awe: he said, as the centurion saith,
5851"Go," and he goeth; "come," and forth he stepp
5852The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb 
5853And now nought left him but the muffled drum.'
5854And they who waited once and worshipp'd they
5855With their rough faces throng'd about the bed
5856To gaze once more on the commanding clay
5857Which for the last, though not the first, time
5858And such an end! that he who many a day
5859Had faced Napoleon's foes until they fled, 
5860The foremost in the charge or in the sally,
5861Should now be butcher'd in a civic alley.
5862The scars of his old wounds were near his new,
5863Those honourable scars which brought him fame;
5864And horrid was the contrast to the view 
5865But let me quit the theme; as such things clai
5866Perhaps even more attention than is due
5867From me: I gazed as oft I have gazed the same
5868To try if I could wrench aught out of death
5869Which should confirm, or shake, or make a fait
5870But it was all a mystery. Here we are,
5871And there we go: but where? five bits of lead,
5872Or three, or two, or one, send very far!
5873And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed
5874Can every element our elements mar?
5875And air earth water fire live and we dead?
5876We whose minds comprehend all things? No more;
5877But let us to the story as before.
5878The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance
5879Bore off his bargains to a gilded boat,
5880Embark'd himself and them, and off they went t
5881As fast as oars could pull and water float;
5882They look'd like persons being led to sentence
5883Wondering what next, till the caique was broug
5884Up in a little creek below a wall
5885O'ertopp'd with cypresses, dark-green and tall
5886Here their conductor tapping at the wicket
5887Of a small iron door, 't was open'd, and
5888He led them onward, first through a low thicke
5889Flank'd by large groves, which tower'd on eith
5890They almost lost their way, and had to pick it
5891For night was dosing ere they came to land.
5892The eunuch made a sign to those on board,
5893Who row'd off, leaving them without a word.
5894As they were plodding on their winding way
5895Through orange bowers, and jasmine, and so for
5896Of which I might have a good deal to say,
5897There being no such profusion in the North
5898Of oriental plants, 'et cetera,'
5899But that of late your scribblers think it wort
5900Their while to rear whole hotbeds in their wor
5901Because one poet travell'd 'mongst the Turks 
5902As they were threading on their way, there cam
5903Into Don Juan's head a thought, which he
5904Whisper'd to his companion: 't was the same
5905Which might have then occurr'd to you or me.
5906'Methinks,' said he, 'it would be no great sha
5907If we should strike a stroke to set us free;
5908Let 's knock that old black fellow on the head
5909And march away 't were easier done than said.'