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diff --git a/18762-h/18762-h.htm b/18762-h/18762-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f81abf5 --- /dev/null +++ b/18762-h/18762-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,36250 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. VI. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + hr { /* default rule, width overridden often */ + width: 33%; + margin: 2em auto 2em auto; + clear: both; + } + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .fnanchor { /* define look of footnote anchor in body text */ + vertical-align: super; font-size: 9px; + text-decoration: none; /* no underline, blue color is enuff */ + letter-spacing: 0; /* don't space-out in spaced-out headings */ + } + .footnotes { /* division defining a block of footnotes */ + border: solid #808080 1px; 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padding-left:3em;} + .poem .i18 {margin-left: 13em; padding-left:3em;} + /* + * after many poems quoted in notes, there is a paragraph of attribution + * which in the original is smaller and right-aligned + */ + p.attrib { + line-height:1em; + margin-top:0; + text-align:right; } + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line to hide visible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + width:2.25em; /* this is required to avoid a bug in IE6 (barf) */ + right:0.5em; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } + .center { + text-align: center; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; + } + body { + margin-left: 2em; /* modest left margin */ + margin-right: 3em; /* right larger to ensure room for visible page # */ + } + p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.75em; /* first-line indent used in prefaces... */ + } + h1+p, h2+p, h3+p { /* ... except, not after a heading */ + text-indent: 0; + } + h1, h2, h3, h4 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; + clear: both; /* drop below floating items if any */ + font-weight: normal; /* no headings boldened */ + } + /* + * The h2 and h3 headings are the same in all parts + * h2 is chapter titles: PREFACE, CANTO, etc. + * h3 is for roman-numeral stanza numbers. + * Typography of original heads is very loose, both Ho. and Ve. + */ + h2 { + letter-spacing: 2px; + line-height: 2em; + } + h3 { + margin-top: 1em; /* space down from preceding stanza */ + letter-spacing: 2px; + font-size:smaller; + } + /* + * The following are used to display variant text in footnotes + * when there are multiple variant phrases within a line, see + * for example #Footnote_K. + */ + table.variant { + margin: 0 0 0 0; + padding: 0 0 0 0; + border-collapse: collapse; + border-spacing: 0; + } + .variant td {text-align:center; vertical-align:middle;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6, by Lord Byron + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 + +Author: Lord Byron + +Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge + +Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18762] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, VOLUME 6 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Cortesi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div id="titlepage"> + +<h1 style="letter-spacing:2px;"> +The Works<br /> +<span style="font-size:x-small">OF</span><br /> +<span style="font-size:larger;letter-spacing:4px;">LORD BYRON.</span><br /> +</h1> +<h3 style="font-size:smaller;margin-top:70px;"> +A NEW, REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION,<br /> +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. +</h3> +<h1 style="letter-spacing:3px;margin-top:70px;"> + Poetry. Vol. VI. +</h1> +<h3 style="line-height:1.75em;"> +<span style="font-size:x-small">EDITED BY</span><br /> +ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A.,<br /> +<span style="font-size:x-small">HON. F.R.S.L.</span> +</h3> +<h4 style="letter-spacing:2px;line-height:1.75em;margin-top:70px;"> +<span style="font-size:smaller;">LONDON:</span><br /> +JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.<br /> +<span style="font-size:smaller;">NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.</span> +</h4> +<h4 style="font-size:smaller">1903.</h4> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3 style="letter-spacing:2px;line-height:2.5em;"> THIS EDITION<br /> +<span style="font-size:smaller">OF A GREAT POEM<br /> + IS DEDICATED<br /> + WITH HIS PERMISSION<br /><br /> + + TO<br /><br /></span> + + ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.<br /> +<span style="font-size:smaller">MDCCCCII.</span> +</h3> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES" id="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES"></a> +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES +</h2> + +<p>This etext contains a few phrases or lines of Greek text, for example: +<span title="nous">νους</span>. If the mouse is held still over Greek text, a +transliteration in Beta-code appears.</p> + +<p>An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnote +numbers are shown as small, superscript, bracketed codes in the text. +Each such code is a link to the footnote text. Footnotes indexed with arabic +numbers are informational. Note text in square brackets is the work of +editor E.H. Coleridge, and is unique to this edition. Note text not in brackets +is from earlier editions and is by a preceding editor or Byron himself.</p> + +<p>Footnotes indexed with letters document variant forms +of the text from manuscripts and other sources.</p> + +<p>In the original, footnotes were printed at the foot of the page on which +they were referenced, and their indices started over on each page. In +this etext, footnotes have been collected at the ends of each preface or +Canto, and have been numbered consecutively throughout. However, in the +blocks of footnotes are numbers in braces: {495}. These represent the +page number on which following footnotes originally appeared. The same +page numbers are also preserved as HTML anchors of the form <i>Note_495</i>. +Thus when the Preface refers to "a note (pp 495-497)," you can locate +that note either by searching the text for {495}, or by +appending <i>#Note_495</i> to the document URL.</p> + +<p>Page numbers are shown as small bracketed numbers in the right margin. +These are the page numbers of the text as printed in the original work. +The page numbers are also preserved as anchors of the form <i>Page_123</i>. +Thus you can link or jump to the text from page 123 by appending <i>#Page_123</i> to +the document URL.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_THE_SIXTH_VOLUME" id="PREFACE_TO_THE_SIXTH_VOLUME"></a> +PREFACE TO<br />THE SIXTH VOLUME. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<p style="text-indent:0;">The text of this edition of <i>Don Juan</i> has been collated with original +MSS. in the possession of the Lady Dorchester and Mr. John Murray. The +fragment of a Seventeenth Canto, consisting of fourteen stanzas, is now +printed and published for the first time.</p> + +<p>I have collated with the original authorities, and in many instances +retranscribed, the numerous quotations from Sir G. Dalzell's <i>Shipwrecks +and Disasters at Sea</i> (1812, 8vo) [Canto II. stanzas xxiv.-civ. pp. +87-112], and from a work entitled <i>Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et +Moderne de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau +(1827, 8vo) [Canto VII. stanzas ix.—liii. pp. 304-320, and Canto VIII. +stanzas vi.—cxxvii. pp. 331-368], which were first included in the +notes to the fifteenth and sixteenth volumes of the edition of 1833, and +have been reprinted in subsequent issues of Lord Byron's <i>Poetical +Works</i>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +A note (pp. 495-497) illustrative of the famous description of Newstead +Abbey (Canto XIII. stanzas lv.-lxxii.) contains particulars not hitherto +published. My thanks and acknowledgments are due to Lady Chermside and +Miss Ethel Webb, for the opportunity afforded me of visiting Newstead +Abbey, and for invaluable assistance in the preparation of this and +other notes.</p> + +<p>The proof-sheets of this volume have been read by Mr. Frank E. Taylor. I +am indebted to his care and knowledge for many important corrections and +emendations.</p> + +<p>I must once more record my gratitude to Dr. Garnett, C.B., for the +generous manner in which he has devoted time and attention to the +solution of difficulties submitted to his consideration.</p> + +<p>I am also indebted, for valuable information, to the Earl of Rosebery, +K.G.; to Mr. J. Willis Clark, Registrar of the University of Cambridge; +to Mr. W.P. Courtney; to my friend Mr. Thomas Hutchinson; to Miss Emily +Jackson, of Hucknall Torkard; and to Mr. T.E. Page, of the Charterhouse.</p> + +<p>On behalf of the publisher, I beg to acknowledge the kindness of the +Lady Frances Trevanion, Sir J.G. Tollemache Sinclair, Bart., and Baron +Dimsdale, in permitting the originals of portraits and drawings in their +possession to be reproduced in this volume.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> + +<h3><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a> +NOTE. +</h3> + +<p> +It was intended that the whole of Lord Byron's Poetical Works should be +included in six volumes, corresponding to the six volumes of the +Letters, and announcements to this effect have been made; but this has +been found to be impracticable. The great mass of new material +incorporated in the Introductions, notes, and variants, has already +expanded several of the published volumes to a disproportionate size, +and <i>Don Juan</i> itself occupies 612 pages.</p> + +<p>Volume Seven, which will complete the work, will contain Occasional +Poems, Epigrams, etc., a Bibliography more complete than has ever +hitherto been published, and an exhaustive Index.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_VI" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_VI"></a> +CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="" style="margin-left:3em;width:85%"> +<tr><td style='width:80%'>Dedication</td><td align="right" style='width:20%'><a href="#Page_v"><i>v</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Preface to Vol. VI. of the Poems</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_vii"><i>vii</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Introduction to DON JUAN</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_xv"><i>xv</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Dedication to Robert Southey, Esq.</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>DON JUAN—</td><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto I</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto II</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto III</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto IV</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto V</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto VI</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto VII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto VIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto IX</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_373">373</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto X</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_400">400</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XI</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_455">455</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_481">481</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XIV</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_516">516</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XV</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_544">544</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XVI</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_572">572</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> Canto XVII</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_608">608</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<table> +<tr> +<td style="width:66%"><span class='smcap'> +1. Portrait of Lord Byron, from a Drawing from the +Life by J. Holmes, Formerly the Property of the +late Hugh Charles Trevanion, Esq.</span> +</td> +<td style="width:25%;text-align:right;"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>2. William Wordsworth, from the Portrait by H.w. +Pickersgill, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery</span> +</td> +<td style="text-align:right;"><i>To face p.</i> 4</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>3. Ninon de Lenclos, from a Miniature in the +Possession of Sir J.G. Tollemache Sinclair, Bart.</span> +</td> +<td style="text-align:right;">246</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>4. Fountain at Newstead Abbey</span></td> +<td style="text-align:right;">500</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION_TO_DON_JUAN" id="INTRODUCTION_TO_DON_JUAN"></a> +INTRODUCTION TO <i>DON JUAN</i> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<p style="text-indent:0;"> +Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. His <i>Tales</i> were +thrown off at lightning speed, and even his dramas were thought out and +worked through with unhesitating energy and rapid achievement. +Nevertheless, the composition of his two great poems was all but +coextensive with his poetical life. He began the first canto of <i>Childe +Harold</i> in the autumn of 1809, and he did not complete the fourth canto +till the spring of 1818. He began the first canto of <i>Don Juan</i> in the +autumn of 1818, and he was still at work on a seventeenth canto in the +spring of 1823. Both poems were issued in parts, and with long intervals +of unequal duration between the parts; but the same result was brought +about by different causes and produced a dissimilar effect. <i>Childe +Harold</i> consists of three distinct poems descriptive of three successive +travels or journeys in foreign lands. The adventures of the hero are but +the pretext for the shifting of the diorama; whereas in <i>Don Juan</i> the +story is continuous, and the scenery is exhibited as a background for +the dramatic evolution of the personality of the hero. <i>Childe Harold</i> +came out at intervals, because there were periods when the author was +stationary; but the interruptions in the composition and publication of +<i>Don Juan</i> were due to the disapproval and discouragement of friends, +and the very natural hesitation and procrastination of the publisher. +Canto I. was written in September, 1818; Canto II. in December-January, +1818-1819. Both cantos were published on July 15, 1819. Cantos III., IV. +were written in the winter of 1819-1820; Canto V., after an interval of +nine months, in October-November, 1820, but the publication of Cantos +III., IV., V. was delayed till August 8, 1821. The next interval was +longer still, but it was the last. In June, 1822, Byron began to work at +a sixth, and by the end of March, 1823, he had completed a sixteenth +canto. But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span> publication of these later cantos, which had been +declined by Murray, and were finally entrusted to John Hunt, was spread +over a period of several months. Cantos VI., VII., VIII., with a +Preface, were published July 15; Cantos IX., X., XI, August 29; Cantos +XII., XIII., XIV., December 17, 1823; and, finally, Cantos XV., XVI., +March 26, 1824. The composition of <i>Don Juan</i>, considered as a whole, +synchronized with the composition of all the dramas (except <i>Manfred</i>) +and the following poems: <i>The Prophecy of Dante</i>, (the translation of) +<i>The Morgante Maggiore, The Vision of Judgment, The Age of Bronze</i>, and +<i>The Island</i>.</p> + +<p>There is little to be said with regard to the "Sources" of <i>Don Juan</i>. +Frere's <i>Whistlecraft</i> had suggested <i>Beppo</i>, and, at the same time, had +prompted and provoked a sympathetic study of Frere's Italian models, +Berni and Pulci (see "Introduction to <i>Beppo</i>," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, +iv. 155-158; and "Introduction to <i>The Morgante Maggiore</i>" ibid., pp. +279-281); and, again, the success of <i>Beppo</i>, and, still more, a sense +of inspiration and the conviction that he had found the path to +excellence, suggested another essay of the <i>ottava rima</i>, a humorous +poem "<i>à la Beppo</i>" on a larger and more important scale. If Byron +possessed more than a superficial knowledge of the legendary "Don Juan," +he was irresponsive and unimpressed. He speaks (letter to Murray, +February 16, 1821) of "the Spanish tradition;" but there is nothing to +show that he had read or heard of Tirso de Molina's (Gabriel Tellez) <i>El +Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra</i> (<i>The Deceiver of Seville and +the Stone Guest</i>), 1626, which dramatized the "ower true tale" of the +actual Don Juan Tenorio; or that he was acquainted with any of the +Italian (e.g. <i>Convitato di Pietra</i>, del Dottor Giacinto Andrea +Cicognini, Fiorentino [see L. Allacci <i>Dramaturgia</i>, 1755, 4º, p. 862]) +or French adaptations of the legend (<i>e.g</i>. <i>Le Festin de Pierre, ou le +fils criminel</i>, Tragi-comédie de De Villiers, 1659; and Molière's <i>Dom +Juan, ou Le Festin de Pierre</i>, 1665). He had seen (<i>vide post</i>, <a href="#Footnote_15">p. 11, +note 2</a>) Delpini's pantomime, which was based on Shadwell's <i>Libertine</i>, +and he may have witnessed, at Milan or Venice, a performance of Mozart's +<i>Don Giovanni</i>; but in taking Don Juan for his "hero," he took the name +only, and disregarded the "terrible figure" "of the Titan of embodied +evil, the likeness of sin made flesh" (see <i>Selections from the Works of +Lord Byron</i>, by A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. xxvi.), "as something to his +purpose nothing"!</p> + +<p>Why, then, did he choose the name, and what was the scheme or motif of +his poem? Something is to be gathered from his own remarks and +reflections; but it must be borne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span> in mind that he is on the defensive, +and that his half-humorous paradoxes were provoked by advice and +opposition. Writing to Moore (September 19, 1818), he says, "I have +finished the first canto ... of a poem in the style and manner of +<i>Beppo</i>, encouraged by the good success of the same. It is ... meant to +be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it +is not—at least as far as it has gone—too free for these very modest +days." The critics before and after publication thought that <i>Don Juan</i> +<i>was</i> "too free," and, a month after the two first cantos had been +issued, he writes to Murray (August 12, 1819), "You ask me for the plan +of Donny Johnny; I <i>have</i> no plan—I <i>had</i> no plan; but I had or have +materials.... You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended +to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to +giggle and make giggle?—a playful satire, with as little poetry as +could be helped, was what I meant." Again, after the completion but +before the publication of Cantos III., IV., V., in a letter to Murray +(February 16, 1821), he writes, "The Fifth is so far from being the last +of <i>Don Juan</i>, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to take him the +tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, +and to make him finish as Anacharsis Cloots in the French Revolution.... +I meant to have made him a <i>Cavalier Servente</i> in Italy, and a cause for +a divorce in England, and a Sentimental 'Werther-faced' man in Germany, +so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of these +countries, and to have displayed him gradually <i>gâté</i> and <i>blasé</i>, as he +grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him +end in Hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the +severest."</p> + +<p>Byron meant what he said, but he kept back the larger truth. Great +works, in which the poet speaks <i>ex animo</i>, and the man lays bare the +very pulse of the machine, are not conceived or composed unconsciously +and at haphazard. Byron did not "whistle" <i>Don Juan</i> "for want of +thought." He had found a thing to say, and he meant to make the world +listen. He had read with angry disapproval, but he had read, Coleridge's +<i>Critique on</i> [Maturin's] <i>Bertram</i> (<i>vide post</i>, <a href="#Footnote_2">p. 4, note 1</a>), and, it +may be, had caught an inspiration from one brilliant sentence which +depicts the Don Juan of the legend somewhat after the likeness of Childe +Harold, if not of Lord Byron: "Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired +knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous +health, ... all these advantages, elevated by the habits and sympathies +of noble birth and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span>natural character, are ... combined in Don Juan, so +as to give him the means of carrying into all its practical consequences +the doctrine of a godless nature ... Obedience to nature is the only +virtue." Again, "It is not the wickedness of Don Juan ... which +constitutes the character an abstraction, ... but the rapid succession +of the correspondent acts and incidents, his intellectual superiority, +and the splendid accumulation of his gifts and desirable qualities as +coexistent with entire wickedness in one and the same person." Here was +at once a suggestion and a challenge.</p> + +<p>Would it not be possible to conceive and to depict an ideal character, +gifted, gracious, and delightful, who should "carry into all its +practical consequences" the doctrine of a mundane, if not godless +doctrine, and, at the same time, retain the charities and virtues of +uncelestial but not devilish manhood? In defiance of monition and in +spite of resolution, the primrose path is trodden by all sorts and +conditions of men, sinners no doubt, but not necessarily abstractions of +sin, and to assert the contrary makes for cant and not for +righteousness. The form and substance of the poem were due to the +compulsion of Genius and the determination of Art, but the argument is a +vindication of the natural man. It is Byron's "criticism of life." <i>Don +Juan</i> was <i>taboo</i> from the first. The earlier issues of the first five +cantos were doubly anonymous. Neither author nor publisher subscribed +their names on the title-page. The book was a monster, and, as its maker +had foreseen, "all the world" shuddered. Immoral, in the sense that it +advocates immoral tenets, or prefers evil to good, it is not, but it is +unquestionably a dangerous book, which (to quote Kingsley's words used +in another connection) "the young and innocent will do well to leave +altogether unread." It is dangerous because it ignores resistance and +presumes submission to passion; it is dangerous because, as Byron +admitted, it is "now and then voluptuous;" and it is dangerous, in a +lesser degree, because, here and there, the purport of the quips and +allusions is gross and offensive. No one can take up the book without +being struck and arrested by these violations of modesty and decorum; +but no one can master its contents and become possessed of it as a whole +without perceiving that the mirror is held up to nature, that it +reflects spots and blemishes which, on a survey of the vast and various +orb, dwindle into <i>natural</i> and so comparative insignificance. Byron was +under no delusion as to the grossness of <i>Don Juan</i>. His plea or +pretence, that he was sheltered by the superior grossness of Ariosto and +La Fontaine, of Prior and of Fielding, is <i>nihil ad rem</i>, if it is not +insincere. When Murray (May 3, 1819) charges him with "approximations to +indelicacy,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span> he laughs himself away at the euphemism, but when Hobhouse +and "the Zoili of Albemarle Street" talked to him "about morality," he +flames out, "I maintain that it is the most moral of poems." He looked +upon his great work as a whole, and he knew that the "<i>raison d'être</i> of +his song" was not only to celebrate, but, by the white light of truth, +to represent and exhibit the great things of the world—Love and War, +and Death by sea and land, and Man, half-angel, half-demon—the comedy +of his fortunes, and the tragedy of his passions and his fate.</p> + +<p><i>Don Juan</i> has won great praise from the great. Sir Walter Scott +(<i>Edinburgh Weekly Journal</i>, May 19, 1824) maintained that its creator +"has embraced every topic of human life, and sounded every string of the +divine harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and +heart-astounding tones." Goethe (<i>Kunst und Alterthum</i>, 1821 [ed. +Weimar, iii. 197, and <i>Sämmtliche Werke</i>, xiii. 637]) described <i>Don +Juan</i> as "a work of boundless genius." Shelley (letter to Byron, October +21, 1821), on the receipt of Cantos III., IV., V., bore testimony to his +"wonder and delight:" "This poem carries with it at once the stamp of +originality and defiance of imitation. Nothing has ever been written +like it in English, nor, if I may venture to prophesy, will there be, +unless carrying upon it the mark of a secondary and borrowed light.... +You are building up a drama," he adds, "such as England has not yet +seen, and the task is sufficiently noble and worthy of you." Again, of +the fifth canto he writes (Shelley's <i>Prose Works</i>, ed. H. Buxton +Forman, iv. 219), "Every word has the stamp of immortality.... It +fulfils, in a certain degree, what I have long preached of +producing—something wholly new and relative to the age, and yet +surpassingly beautiful." Finally, a living poet, neither a disciple nor +encomiast of Byron, pays eloquent tribute to the strength and splendour +of <i>Don Juan</i>: "Across the stanzas ... we swim forward as over the +'broad backs of the sea;' they break and glitter, hiss and laugh, murmur +and move like waves that sound or that subside. There is in them a +delicious resistance, an elastic motion, which salt water has and fresh +water has not. There is about them a wide wholesome air, full of vivid +light and constant wind, which is only felt at sea. Life undulates and +Death palpitates in the splendid verse.... This gift of life and variety +is the supreme quality of Byron's chief poem" (<i>A Selection, etc.</i>, by +A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. x.).</p> + +<p>Cantos I., II. of <i>Don Juan</i> were reviewed in <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh +Magazine</i>, August, 1819, vol. v. pp. 512-518; Cantos III., IV., V., +August, 1821, vol. x. pp. 107-115; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span> Cantos VI., VII., VIII., July, +1823, vol. xiv. pp. 88-92: in the <i>British Critic</i>, Cantos I., II. were +reviewed August, 1819, vol. xii. pp. 195-205; and Cantos III., IV., V., +September, 1821, vol. xvi. pp. 251-256: in the <i>British Review</i>, Cantos +I., II. were reviewed August, 1819, vol. xiv. pp. 266-268; and Cantos +III., IV., V., December, 1821, vol. xviii. pp. 245-265: in the +<i>Examiner</i>, Cantos I., II. were reviewed October 31, 1819; Cantos III., +IV., V., August 26, 1821; and Cantos XV., XVI., March 14 and 21, 1824: +in the <i>Literary Gazette</i>, Cantos I., II. were reviewed July 17 and 24, +1819; Cantos III., IV., V., August 11 and 18, 1821; Cantos VI., VII., +VIII., July 19, 1823; Cantos IX., X., XL, September 6, 1823; Cantos +XII., XIII., XIV., December 6, 1823; and Cantos XV., XVI., April 3, +1824: in the <i>Monthly Review</i>., Cantos I., II. were reviewed July, 1819, +Enlarged Series, vol. 89, p. 309; Cantos III., IV., V., August, 1821, +vol. 95, p. 418; Cantos VI., VII., VIII., July, 1823, vol. 101, p. 316; +Cantos IX., X., XI., October, 1823, vol. 102, p. 217; Cantos XII., +XIII., XIV., vol. 103, p. 212; and Cantos XV., XVI., April, 1824, vol. +103, p. 434: in the <i>New Monthly Magazine</i>, Cantos I., II. were reviewed +August, 1819, vol. xii. p. 75. See, too, an article on the "Morality of +<i>Don Juan</i>," <i>Dublin University Magazine</i>, May, 1875, vol. lxxxv. pp. +630-637.</p> + +<p>Neither the <i>Quarterly</i> nor the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> devoted separate +articles to <i>Don Juan</i>; but Heber, in the <i>Quarterly Review</i> (Lord +Byron's <i>Dramas</i>), July, 1822, vol. xxvii. p. 477, and Jeffrey, in the +<i>Edinburgh Review</i> (Lord Byron's <i>Tragedies</i>), February, 1822, vol. 36, +pp. 446-450, took occasion to pass judgment on the poem and its author.</p> + +<p>For the history of the legend, see <i>History of Spanish Literature</i>, by +George Ticknor, 1888, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381; and <i>Das Kloster</i>, von J. +Scheible, 1846, vol. iii. pp. 663-765. See, too, <i>Notes sur le Don +Juanisme</i>, par Henri de Bruchard, <i>Mercure de France</i>, Avril, 1898, vol. +xxvi. pp. 58-73; and <i>Don Juan</i>, par Gustave Kahn, <i>Revue +Encyclopédique</i>, 1898, tom. viii. pp. 326-329.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1 style="margin-top:8em;margin-bottom:8em;letter-spacing:3px;">DON JUAN.</h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="FRAGMENT" id="FRAGMENT"></a> +FRAGMENT<br /> +<span style="font-size:smaller">ON THE BACK OF THE MS. OF CANTO I.</span> +</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">I would</span> to Heaven that I were so much clay,</p> +<p class="i2">As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—</p> +<p>Because at least the past were passed away,</p> +<p class="i2">And for the future—(but I write this reeling,</p> +<p>Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,</p> +<p class="i2">So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)</p> +<p>I say—the future is a serious matter—</p> +<p>And so—for God's sake—hock and soda-water!</p> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="DEDICATION" id="DEDICATION"></a> +DEDICATION.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">Bob Southey</span>! You're a poet—Poet-laureate,</p> +<p class="i2">And representative of all the race;</p> +<p>Although 't is true that you turned out a Tory at</p> +<p class="i2">Last,—yours has lately been a common case;</p> +<p>And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?</p> +<p class="i2">With all the Lakers, in and out of place?</p> +<p>A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye</p> +<p>Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Which pye being opened they began to sing,"</p> +<p class="i2">(This old song and new simile holds good),</p> +<p>"A dainty dish to set before the King,"</p> +<p class="i2">Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;—</p> +<p>And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,</p> +<p class="i2">But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,—</p> +<p>Explaining Metaphysics to the nation—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> +<p>I wish he would explain his Explanation.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,</p> +<p class="i2">At being disappointed in your wish</p> +<p>To supersede all warblers here below,</p> +<p class="i2">And be the only Blackbird in the dish;</p> +<p>And then you overstrain yourself, or so,</p> +<p class="i2">And tumble downward like the flying fish</p> +<p>Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,</p> +<p>And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob!<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion,"</p> +<p class="i2">(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),</p> +<p>Has given a sample from the vasty version</p> +<p class="i2">Of his new system<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> to perplex the sages;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> +<p>'T is poetry-at least by his assertion,</p> +<p class="i2">And may appear so when the dog-star rages—</p> +<p>And he who understands it would be able</p> +<p>To add a story to the Tower of Babel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You—Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion</p> +<p class="i2">From better company, have kept your own</p> +<p>At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion</p> +<p class="i2">Of one another's minds, at last have grown</p> +<p>To deem as a most logical conclusion,</p> +<p class="i2">That Poesy has wreaths for you alone:</p> +<p>There is a narrowness in such a notion,</p> +<p>Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I would not imitate the petty thought,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,</p> +<p>For all the glory your conversion brought,</p> +<p class="i2">Since gold alone should not have been its price.</p> +<p>You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought?</p> +<p class="i2">And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> +<p>You're shabby fellows—true—but poets still,</p> +<p>And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows—</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps some virtuous blushes;—let them go—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> +<p>To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs—</p> +<p class="i2">And for the fame you would engross below,</p> +<p>The field is universal, and allows</p> +<p class="i2">Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow:</p> +<p>Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try</p> +<p>'Gainst you the question with posterity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses,</p> +<p class="i2">Contend not with you on the wingéd steed,</p> +<p>I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses,</p> +<p class="i2">The fame you envy, and the skill you need;</p> +<p>And, recollect, a poet nothing loses</p> +<p class="i2">In giving to his brethren their full meed</p> +<p>Of merit—and complaint of present days</p> +<p>Is not the certain path to future praise.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He that reserves his laurels for posterity</p> +<p class="i2">(Who does not often claim the bright reversion)</p> +<p>Has generally no great crop to spare it, he</p> +<p class="i2">Being only injured by his own assertion;</p> +<p>And although here and there some glorious rarity</p> +<p class="i2">Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion,</p> +<p>The major part of such appellants go</p> +<p>To—God knows where—for no one else can know.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Milton appealed to the Avenger, Time,</p> +<p>If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs,</p> +<p class="i2">And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "<i>Sublime</i>,"</p> +<p><i>He</i> deigned not to belie his soul in songs,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor turn his very talent to a crime;</p> +<p><i>He</i> did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son,</p> +<p>But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Think'st thou, could he—the blind Old Man—arise</p> +<p class="i2">Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> +<p>The blood of monarchs with his prophecies,</p> +<p class="i2">Or be alive again—again all hoar</p> +<p>With time and trials, and those helpless eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And heartless daughters—worn—and pale<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>—and poor;</p> +<p>Would <i>he</i> adore a sultan? <i>he</i> obey</p> +<p>The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant!</p> +<p class="i2">Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore,</p> +<p>And thus for wider carnage taught to pant,</p> +<p class="i2">Transferred to gorge upon a sister shore,</p> +<p>The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,</p> +<p class="i2">With just enough of talent, and no more,</p> +<p>To lengthen fetters by another fixed,</p> +<p>And offer poison long already mixed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An orator of such set trash of phrase</p> +<p class="i2">Ineffably—legitimately vile,</p> +<p>That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile,—</p> +<p>Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze</p> +<p class="i2">From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> +<p>That turns and turns to give the world a notion</p> +<p>Of endless torments and perpetual motion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A bungler even in its disgusting trade,</p> +<p class="i2">And botching, patching, leaving still behind</p> +<p>Something of which its masters are afraid—</p> +<p class="i2">States to be curbed, and thoughts to be confined,</p> +<p>Conspiracy or Congress to be made—</p> +<p class="i2">Cobbling at manacles for all mankind—</p> +<p>A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,</p> +<p>With God and Man's abhorrence for its gains.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If we may judge of matter by the mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Emasculated to the marrow <i>It</i></p> +<p>Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind,</p> +<p class="i2">Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit,</p> +<p>Eutropius of its many masters,<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>—blind</p> +<p class="i2">To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit,</p> +<p>Fearless—because <i>no</i> feeling dwells in ice,</p> +<p>Its very courage stagnates to a vice.<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Where shall I turn me not to <i>view</i> its bonds,</p> +<p class="i2">For I will never <i>feel</i> them?—Italy!</p> +<p>Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o'er thee<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></a></p> +<p>Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds,</p> +<p class="i2">Have voices—tongues to cry aloud for me.</p> +<p>Europe has slaves—allies—kings—armies still—</p> +<p>And Southey lives to sing them very ill.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate,</p> +<p class="i2">In honest simple verse, this song to you.</p> +<p>And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is that I still retain my "buff and blue;"<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> +<p>My politics as yet are all to educate:</p> +<p class="i2">Apostasy's so fashionable, too,</p> +<p>To keep <i>one</i> creed's a task grown quite Herculean;</p> +<p>Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p>Venice, Sept. 16, 1818.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <a name="Note_3" id="Note_3"></a>{3}["As the Poem is to be published anonymously, <i>omit</i> the +Dedication. I won't attack the dog in the dark. Such things are for +scoundrels and renegadoes like himself" [<i>Revise</i>]. See, too, letter to +Murray, May 6, 1819 (<i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 294); and Southey's letter to +Bedford, July 31, 1819 (<i>Selections from the Letters, etc.</i>, 1856, in. +137, 138). According to the editor of the <i>Works of Lord Byron</i>, 1833 +(xv. 101), the existence of the Dedication "became notorious" in +consequence of Hobhouse's article in the <i>Westminster Review</i>, 1824. He +adds, for Southey's consolation and encouragement, that "for several +years the verses have been selling in the streets as a broadside," and +that "it would serve no purpose to exclude them on the present +occasion." But Southey was not appeased. He tells Allan Cunningham (June +3, 1833) that "the new edition of Byron's works is ... one of the very +worst symptoms of these bad times" (<i>Life and Correspondence</i>, 1850, vi. +217).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <a name="Note_4" id="Note_4"></a>{4}[In the "Critique on <i>Bertram</i>," which Coleridge +contributed to the <i>Courier</i>, in 1816, and republished in the +<i>Biographia Literaria</i>, in 1817 (chap, xxiii.), he gives a detailed +analysis of "the old Spanish play, entitled <i>Atheista Fulminato</i> [<i>vide +ante</i>, the '<a href="#INTRODUCTION_TO_DON_JUAN">Introduction to <i>Don Juan</i></a>'] ... which under various names +(<i>Don Juan</i>, the <i>Libertine</i>, etc.) has had its day of favour in every +country throughout Europe ... Rank, fortune, wit, talent, acquired +knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with beauty of person, vigorous +health, and constitutional hardihood,—all these advantages, elevated by +the habits and sympathies of noble birth and national character, are +supposed to have combined in Don Juan, so as to give him the means of +carrying into all its practical consequences the doctrine of a godless +nature, as the sole ground and efficient cause not only of all things, +events, and appearances, but likewise of all our thoughts, sensations, +impulses, and actions. Obedience to nature is the only virtue." It is +possible that Byron traced his own lineaments in this too life-like +portraiture, and at the same time conceived the possibility of a new Don +Juan, "made up" after his own likeness. His extreme resentment at +Coleridge's just, though unwise and uncalled-for, attack on Maturin +stands in need of some explanation. See letter to Murray, September 17, +1817 (<i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 172).] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> ["Have you heard that <i>Don Juan</i> came over with a +dedication to me, in which Lord Castlereagh and I (being hand in glove +intimates) were coupled together for abuse as 'the two Roberts'? A fear +of persecution (<i>sic</i>) from the <i>one</i> Robert is supposed to be the +reason why it has been suppressed" (Southey to Rev. H. Hill, August 13, +1819, <i>Selections from the Letters, etc.</i>, 1856, iii. 142). For "Quarrel +between Byron and Southey," see Introduction to <i>The Vision of +Judgment</i>, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 475-480; and <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. +377-399 (Appendix I.).] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> [The reference must be to the detailed enumeration of "the +powers requisite for the production of poetry," and the subsequent +antithesis of Imagination and Fancy contained in the Preface to the +collected <i>Poems of William Wordsworth</i>, published in 1815. In the +Preface to the <i>Excursion</i> (1814) it is expressly stated that "it is not +the author's intention formally to announce a system."] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <a name="Note_5" id="Note_5"></a>{5}Wordsworth's place may be in the Customs—it is, I +think, in that or the Excise—besides another at Lord Lonsdale's table, +where this poetical charlatan and political parasite licks up the crumbs +with a hardened alacrity; the converted Jacobin having long subsided +into the clownish sycophant [<i>despised retainer</i>,—<i>MS. erased</i>] of the +worst prejudices of the aristocracy. +</p><p> +[Wordsworth obtained his appointment as Distributor of Stamps for the +county of Westmoreland in March, 1813, through Lord Lonsdale's +"patronage" (see his letter, March 6, 1813). <i>The Excursion</i> was +dedicated to Lord Lonsdale in a sonnet dated July 29, 1814— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Oft through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer,</p> +<p>In youth I roamed ...</p> +<p>Now, by thy care befriended, I appear</p> +<p>Before thee, Lonsdale, and this Work present."]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <a name="Note_6" id="Note_6"></a>{6}[<i>Paradise Lost</i>, vii. 25, 26.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <a name="Note_7" id="Note_7"></a>{7}"Pale, but not cadaverous:"—Milton's two elder +daughters are said to have robbed him of his books, besides cheating and +plaguing him in the economy of his house, etc., etc. His feelings on +such an outrage, both as a parent and a scholar, must have been +singularly painful. Hayley compares him to Lear. See part third, <i>Life +of Milton</i>, by W. Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me). +</p><p> +[<i>The Life of Milton</i>, by William Hailey (<i>sic</i>), Esq., Basil, 1799, p. +186.] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Or— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Would <i>he</i> subside into a hackney Laureate—</p> +<p>A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorned Iscariot?"</p> +</div></div> +<p> +I doubt if "Laureate" and "Iscariot" be good rhymes, but must say, as +Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I, John Sylvester,</p> +<p>Lay with your sister."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Jonson answered—"I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife." Sylvester +answered,—"That is not rhyme."—"No," said Ben Jonson; "but it is +<i>true</i>." +</p><p> +[For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, see <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, line +538, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 568, note 2; and <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. +108, note 1.] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <a name="Note_8" id="Note_8"></a>{8}For the character of Eutropius, the eunuch and minister +at the court of Arcadius, see Gibbon, [<i>Decline and Fall</i>, 1825, ii. +307, 308].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> ["Mr. John Murray,—As publisher to the Admiralty and of +various Government works, if the five stanzas concerning Castlereagh +should risk your ears or the Navy List, you may omit them in the +publication—in that case the two last lines of stanza 10 [<i>i.e</i>. 11] +must end with the couplet (lines 7, 8) inscribed in the margin. The +stanzas on Castlerighi (as the Italians call him) are 11, 12, 13, 14, +15."—<i>MS. M</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> [Commenting on a "pathetic sentiment" of Leoni, the author +of the Italian translation of <i>Childe Harold</i> ("Sciagurata condizione di +questa mia patria!"), Byron affirms that the Italians execrated +Castlereagh "as the cause, by the conduct of the English at Genoa." +"Surely," he exclaims, "that man will not die in his bed: there is no +spot of the earth where his name is not a hissing and a curse. Imagine +what must be the man's talent for Odium, who has contrived to spread his +infamy like a pestilence from Ireland to Italy, and to make his name an +execration in all languages."—Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, <i>Letters</i>, +1901, v. 22, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <a name="Note_9" id="Note_9"></a>{9}[Charles James Fox and the Whig Club of his time +adopted a uniform of blue and buff. Hence the livery of the <i>Edinburgh +Review</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> I allude not to our friend Landor's hero, the traitor +Count Julian, but to Gibbon's hero, vulgarly yclept "The Apostate."</p></div> + +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_FIRST" id="CANTO_THE_FIRST"></a> +<span style="border-bottom: 3px double black;padding-bottom:3px;">DON JUAN</span><br /> +CANTO THE FIRST.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">I want</span> a hero: an uncommon want,</p> +<p class="i2">When every year and month sends forth a new one,</p> +<p>Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,</p> +<p class="i2">The age discovers he is not the true one;</p> +<p>Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,</p> +<p class="i2">I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—</p> +<p>We all have seen him, in the pantomime,<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> +<p>Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Vernon,<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,</p> +<p class="i2">Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,</p> +<p>Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,</p> +<p class="i2">And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now;</p> +<p>Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,</p> +<p class="i2">Followers of Fame, "nine farrow"<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> of that sow:</p> +<p>France, too, had Buonaparté<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and Dumourier<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> +<p>Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p><h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,</p> +<p class="i2">Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +<p>Were French, and famous people, as we know;</p> +<p class="i2">And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,</p> +<p>Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> +<p class="i2">With many of the military set,</p> +<p>Exceedingly remarkable at times,</p> +<p>But not at all adapted to my rhymes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nelson was once Britannia's god of War,</p> +<p class="i2">And still should be so, but the tide is turned;</p> +<p>There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is with our hero quietly inurned;</p> +<p>Because the army's grown more popular,</p> +<p class="i2">At which the naval people are concerned;</p> +<p>Besides, the Prince is all for the land-service.</p> +<p>Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Brave men were living before Agamemnon<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And since, exceeding valorous and sage,</p> +<p>A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;</p> +<p class="i2">But then they shone not on the poet's page,</p> +<p>And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,</p> +<p class="i2">But can't find any in the present age</p> +<p>Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);</p> +<p>So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Most epic poets plunge <i>"in medias res"</i><a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),</p> +<p>And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,</p> +<p class="i2">What went before—by way of episode,</p> +<p>While seated after dinner at his ease,</p> +<p class="i2">Beside his mistress in some soft abode,</p> +<p>Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,</p> +<p>Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That is the usual method, but not mine—</p> +<p class="i2">My way is to begin with the beginning;</p> +<p>The regularity of my design</p> +<p class="i2">Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,</p> +<p>And therefore I shall open with a line</p> +<p class="i2">(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning),</p> +<p>Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,</p> +<p>And also of his mother, if you'd rather.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,</p> +<p class="i2">Famous for oranges and women,—he</p> +<p>Who has not seen it will be much to pity,</p> +<p class="i2">So says the proverb<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>—and I quite agree;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> +<p>Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,</p> +<p class="i2">Cadiz perhaps—but that you soon may see;—</p> +<p>Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,</p> +<p>A noble stream, and called the Guadalquivir.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His father's name was José-<i>Don</i>, of course,—</p> +<p class="i2">A true Hidalgo, free from every stain</p> +<p>Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source</p> +<p class="i2">Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;</p> +<p>A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse,</p> +<p class="i2">Or, being mounted, e'er got down again,</p> +<p>Than José, who begot our hero, who</p> +<p>Begot—but that's to come——Well, to renew:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His mother was a learnéd lady, famed</p> +<p class="i2">For every branch of every science known—</p> +<p>In every Christian language ever named,</p> +<p class="i2">With virtues equalled by her wit alone:</p> +<p>She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,</p> +<p class="i2">And even the good with inward envy groan,</p> +<p>Finding themselves so very much exceeded,</p> +<p>In their own way, by all the things that she did.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart</p> +<p class="i2">All Calderon and greater part of Lopé;</p> +<p>So, that if any actor missed his part,</p> +<p class="i2">She could have served him for the prompter's copy;</p> +<p>For her Feinagle's were an useless art,<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> +<p>Could never make a memory so fine as</p> +<p>That which adorned the brain of Donna Inez.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her favourite science was the mathematical,</p> +<p class="i2">Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,</p> +<p>Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,</p> +<p class="i2">Her serious sayings darkened to sublimity;<a name="FNanchor_A" id="FNanchor_A"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> +<p>In short, in all things she was fairly what I call</p> +<p class="i2">A prodigy—her morning dress was dimity,</p> +<p>Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,</p> +<p>And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She knew the Latin—that is, "the Lord's prayer,"</p> +<p class="i2">And Greek—the alphabet—I'm nearly sure;</p> +<p>She read some French romances here and there,</p> +<p class="i2">Although her mode of speaking was not pure;</p> +<p>For native Spanish she had no great care,</p> +<p class="i2">At least her conversation was obscure;</p> +<p>Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem,</p> +<p>As if she deemed that mystery would ennoble 'em.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3><a id="c1sxiv" name="c1sxiv"></a>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,</p> +<p class="i2">And said there was analogy between 'em;</p> +<p>She proved it somehow out of sacred song,</p> +<p class="i2">But I must leave the proofs to those who've seen 'em;</p> +<p>But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong,</p> +<p class="i2">And all may think which way their judgments lean 'em,</p> +<p>"'T is strange—the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'</p> +<p>The English always use to govern d—n."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some women use their tongues—she <i>looked</i> a lecture,</p> +<p class="i2">Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily,</p> +<p>An all-in-all sufficient self-director,</p> +<p class="i2">Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> +<p>The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose suicide was almost an anomaly—</p> +<p>One sad example more, that "All is vanity,"—</p> +<p>(The jury brought their verdict in "Insanity!")</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In short, she was a walking calculation,</p> +<p class="i2">Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers,<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> +<p>Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education,<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Or "Coelebs' Wife"<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> set out in quest of lovers,</p> +<p>Morality's prim personification,</p> +<p class="i2">In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers;</p> +<p>To others' share let "female errors fall,"<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> +<p>For she had not even one—the worst of all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! she was perfect past all parallel—</p> +<p class="i2">Of any modern female saint's comparison;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> +<p>So far above the cunning powers of Hell,</p> +<p class="i2">Her Guardian Angel had given up his garrison;</p> +<p>Even her minutest motions went as well</p> +<p class="i2">As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison:<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> +<p>In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,</p> +<p>Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perfect she was, but as perfection is</p> +<p class="i2">Insipid in this naughty world of ours,</p> +<p>Where our first parents never learned to kiss</p> +<p class="i2">Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,</p> +<p>Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss,<a name="FNanchor_B" id="FNanchor_B"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),</p> +<p>Don José, like a lineal son of Eve,</p> +<p>Went plucking various fruit without her leave.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a mortal of the careless kind,</p> +<p class="i2">With no great love for learning, or the learned,</p> +<p>Who chose to go where'er he had a mind,</p> +<p class="i2">And never dreamed his lady was concerned;</p> +<p>The world, as usual, wickedly inclined</p> +<p class="i2">To see a kingdom or a house o'erturned,</p> +<p>Whispered he had a mistress, some said <i>two</i>.</p> +<p>But for domestic quarrels <i>one</i> will do.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,</p> +<p class="i2">A great opinion of her own good qualities;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> +<p>Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,</p> +<p class="i2">And such, indeed, she was in her moralities;<a name="FNanchor_C" id="FNanchor_C"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> +<p>But then she had a devil of a spirit,</p> +<p class="i2">And sometimes mixed up fancies with realities,</p> +<p>And let few opportunities escape</p> +<p>Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was an easy matter with a man</p> +<p class="i2">Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard;</p> +<p>And even the wisest, do the best they can,</p> +<p class="i2">Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,</p> +<p>That you might "brain them with their lady's fan;"<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,</p> +<p>And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,</p> +<p>And why and wherefore no one understands.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is pity learnéd virgins ever wed</p> +<p class="i2">With persons of no sort of education,</p> +<p>Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred,</p> +<p class="i2">Grow tired of scientific conversation:</p> +<p>I don't choose to say much upon this head,</p> +<p class="i2">I'm a plain man, and in a single station,</p> +<p>But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,</p> +<p>Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don José and his lady quarrelled—<i>why</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Not any of the many could divine,</p> +<p>Though several thousand people chose to try,</p> +<p class="i2">'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine;</p> +<p>I loathe that low vice—curiosity;</p> +<p class="i2">But if there's anything in which I shine,</p> +<p>'T is in arranging all my friends' affairs,</p> +<p>Not having, of my own, domestic cares.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so I interfered, and with the best</p> +<p class="i2">Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;</p> +<p>I think the foolish people were possessed,</p> +<p class="i2">For neither of them could I ever find,</p> +<p>Although their porter afterwards confessed—</p> +<p class="i2">But that's no matter, and the worst's behind,</p> +<p>For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs,</p> +<p>A pail of housemaid's water unawares.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,</p> +<p class="i2">And mischief-making monkey from his birth;</p> +<p>His parents ne'er agreed except in doting</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the most unquiet imp on earth;</p> +<p>Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in</p> +<p class="i2">Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth</p> +<p>To school, or had him soundly whipped at home,</p> +<p>To teach him manners for the time to come.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don José and the Donna Inez led</p> +<p class="i2">For some time an unhappy sort of life,</p> +<p>Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;<a name="FNanchor_D" id="FNanchor_D"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p> +<p class="i2">They lived respectably as man and wife,</p> +<p>Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred,</p> +<p class="i2">And gave no outward signs of inward strife,</p> +<p>Until at length the smothered fire broke out,</p> +<p>And put the business past all kind of doubt.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For Inez called some druggists and physicians,</p> +<p class="i2">And tried to prove her loving lord was <i>mad</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> +<p>But as he had some lucid intermissions,</p> +<p class="i2">She next decided he was only <i>bad</i>;</p> +<p>Yet when they asked her for her depositions,</p> +<p class="i2">No sort of explanation could be had,</p> +<p>Save that her duty both to man and God<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> +<p>Required this conduct—which seemed very odd.<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,</p> +<p class="i2">And opened certain trunks of books and letters,<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> +<p>All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;</p> +<p class="i2">And then she had all Seville for abettors,</p> +<p>Besides her good old grandmother (who doted);</p> +<p class="i2">The hearers of her case became repeaters,</p> +<p>Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,</p> +<p>Some for amusement, others for old grudges.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then this best and meekest woman bore</p> +<p class="i2">With such serenity her husband's woes,</p> +<p>Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,</p> +<p class="i2">Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose</p> +<p>Never to say a word about them more—</p> +<p class="i2">Calmly she heard each calumny that rose,</p> +<p>And saw <i>his</i> agonies with such sublimity,</p> +<p>That all the world exclaimed, "What magnanimity!"</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us,</p> +<p class="i2">Is philosophic in our former friends;</p> +<p>'T is also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous,</p> +<p class="i2">The more so in obtaining our own ends;</p> +<p>And what the lawyers call a <i>"malus animus"</i></p> +<p class="i2">Conduct like this by no means comprehends:</p> +<p>Revenge in person's certainly no virtue,</p> +<p>But then 't is not <i>my</i> fault, if <i>others</i> hurt you.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if our quarrels should rip up old stories,</p> +<p class="i2">And help them with a lie or two additional,</p> +<p><i>I</i>'m not to blame, as you well know—no more is</p> +<p class="i2">Any one else—they were become traditional;</p> +<p>Besides, their resurrection aids our glories</p> +<p class="i2">By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all:</p> +<p>And Science profits by this resurrection—</p> +<p>Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their friends had tried at reconciliation,<a name="FNanchor_E" id="FNanchor_E"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Then their relations, who made matters worse.</p> +<p>('T were hard to tell upon a like occasion</p> +<p class="i2">To whom it may be best to have recourse—</p> +<p>I can't say much for friend or yet relation)</p> +<p class="i2">The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,<a name="FNanchor_F" id="FNanchor_F"></a><a href="#Footnote_F" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p> +<p>But scarce a fee was paid on either side</p> +<p>Before, unluckily, Don José died.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He died: and most unluckily, because,</p> +<p class="i2">According to all hints I could collect</p> +<p>From Counsel learnéd in those kinds of laws,</p> +<p class="i2">(Although their talk's obscure and circumspect)</p> +<p>His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;</p> +<p class="i2">A thousand pities also with respect</p> +<p>To public feeling, which on this occasion</p> +<p>Was manifested in a great sensation.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But ah! he died; and buried with him lay</p> +<p class="i2">The public feeling and the lawyers' fees:</p> +<p>His house was sold, his servants sent away,</p> +<p class="i2">A Jew took one of his two mistresses,</p> +<p>A priest the other—at least so they say:</p> +<p class="i2">I asked the doctors after his disease—</p> +<p>He died of the slow fever called the tertian,</p> +<p>And left his widow to her own aversion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet José was an honourable man,</p> +<p class="i2">That I must say, who knew him very well;</p> +<p>Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan,</p> +<p class="i2">Indeed there were not many more to tell:</p> +<p>And if his passions now and then outran</p> +<p class="i2">Discretion, and were not so peaceable</p> +<p>As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius),</p> +<p>He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.<a name="FNanchor_G" id="FNanchor_G"></a><a href="#Footnote_G" class="fnanchor">[G]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,</p> +<p class="i2">Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him.</p> +<p>Let's own—since it can do no good on earth—<a name="FNanchor_H" id="FNanchor_H"></a><a href="#Footnote_H" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p> +<p class="i2">It was a trying moment that which found him</p> +<p>Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,</p> +<p class="i2">Where all his household gods lay shivered round him:<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> +<p>No choice was left his feelings or his pride,</p> +<p>Save Death or Doctors' Commons—so he died.<a name="FNanchor_I" id="FNanchor_I"></a><a href="#Footnote_I" class="fnanchor">[I]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir</p> +<p class="i2">To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands,</p> +<p>Which, with a long minority and care,</p> +<p class="i2">Promised to turn out well in proper hands:</p> +<p>Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,</p> +<p class="i2">And answered but to Nature's just demands;</p> +<p>An only son left with an only mother</p> +<p>Is brought up much more wisely than another.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sagest of women, even of widows, she</p> +<p class="i2">Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon,</p> +<p>And worthy of the noblest pedigree,</p> +<p class="i2">(His Sire was of Castile, his Dam from Aragon)</p> +<p>Then, for accomplishments of chivalry,</p> +<p class="i2">In case our Lord the King should go to war again,</p> +<p>He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,</p> +<p>And how to scale a fortress—or a nunnery.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But that which Donna Inez most desired,</p> +<p class="i2">And saw into herself each day before all</p> +<p>The learnéd tutors whom for him she hired,</p> +<p class="i2">Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral:</p> +<p>Much into all his studies she inquired,</p> +<p class="i2">And so they were submitted first to her, all,</p> +<p>Arts, sciences—no branch was made a mystery</p> +<p>To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The languages, especially the dead,</p> +<p class="i2">The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,</p> +<p>The arts, at least all such as could be said</p> +<p class="i2">To be the most remote from common use,</p> +<p>In all these he was much and deeply read:</p> +<p class="i2">But not a page of anything that's loose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> +<p>Or hints continuation of the species,</p> +<p>Was ever suffered, lest he should grow vicious.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His classic studies made a little puzzle,</p> +<p class="i2">Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,</p> +<p>Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,</p> +<p class="i2">But never put on pantaloons or bodices;<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> +<p>His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,</p> +<p class="i2">And for their Æneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,<a name="FNanchor_J" id="FNanchor_J"></a><a href="#Footnote_J" class="fnanchor">[J]</a></p> +<p>Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,</p> +<p>For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,</p> +<p class="i2">Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,</p> +<p>Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,</p> +<p class="i2">I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,</p> +<p>Although Longinus<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> tells us there is no hymn</p> +<p class="i2">Where the Sublime soars forth on wings more ample;</p> +<p>But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one</p> +<p>Beginning with <i>"Formosum Pastor Corydon."</i><a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p><h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lucretius' irreligion is too strong</p> +<p class="i2">For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;</p> +<p>I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong,</p> +<p class="i2">Although no doubt his real intent was good,</p> +<p>For speaking out so plainly in his song,</p> +<p class="i2">So much indeed as to be downright rude;</p> +<p>And then what proper person can be partial</p> +<p>To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was taught from out the best edition,</p> +<p class="i2">Expurgated by learned men, who place,</p> +<p>Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision,</p> +<p class="i2">The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface</p> +<p>Too much their modest bard by this omission,<a name="FNanchor_K" id="FNanchor_K"></a><a href="#Footnote_K" class="fnanchor">[K]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And pitying sore his mutilated case,</p> +<p>They only add them all in an appendix,<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> +<p>Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For there we have them all "at one fell swoop,"</p> +<p class="i2">Instead of being scattered through the pages;</p> +<p>They stand forth marshalled in a handsome troop,</p> +<p class="i2">To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,</p> +<p>Till some less rigid editor shall stoop</p> +<p class="i2">To call them back into their separate cages,</p> +<p>Instead of standing staring all together,</p> +<p>Like garden gods—and not so decent either.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Missal too (it was the family Missal)</p> +<p class="i2">Was ornamented in a sort of way</p> +<p>Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all</p> +<p class="i2">Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> +<p>Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all,</p> +<p class="i2">Could turn their optics to the text and pray,</p> +<p>Is more than I know—But Don Juan's mother</p> +<p>Kept this herself, and gave her son another.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,</p> +<p class="i2">And homilies, and lives of all the saints;</p> +<p>To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,</p> +<p class="i2">He did not take such studies for restraints;</p> +<p>But how Faith is acquired, and then insured,</p> +<p class="i2">So well not one of the aforesaid paints</p> +<p>As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,</p> +<p>Which make the reader envy his transgressions.<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This, too, was a sealed book to little Juan—</p> +<p class="i2">I can't but say that his mamma was right,</p> +<p>If such an education was the true one.</p> +<p class="i2">She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;</p> +<p>Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,</p> +<p class="i2">You might be sure she was a perfect fright;</p> +<p>She did this during even her husband's life—</p> +<p>I recommend as much to every wife.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Young Juan waxed in goodliness and grace;</p> +<p class="i2">At six a charming child, and at eleven</p> +<p>With all the promise of as fine a face</p> +<p class="i2">As e'er to Man's maturer growth was given:</p> +<p>He studied steadily, and grew apace,</p> +<p class="i2">And seemed, at least, in the right road to Heaven,</p> +<p>For half his days were passed at church, the other</p> +<p>Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At six, I said, he was a charming child,</p> +<p class="i2">At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;</p> +<p>Although in infancy a little wild,</p> +<p class="i2">They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy</p> +<p>His natural spirit not in vain they toiled,</p> +<p class="i2">At least it seemed so; and his mother's joy</p> +<p>Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady,</p> +<p>Her young philosopher was grown already.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,</p> +<p class="i2">But what I say is neither here nor there:</p> +<p>I knew his father well, and have some skill</p> +<p class="i2">In character—but it would not be fair</p> +<p>From sire to son to augur good or ill:</p> +<p class="i2">He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair—</p> +<p>But scandal's my aversion—I protest</p> +<p>Against all evil speaking, even in jest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For my part I say nothing—nothing—but</p> +<p class="i2"><i>This</i> I will say—my reasons are my own—</p> +<p>That if I had an only son to put</p> +<p class="i2">To school (as God be praised that I have none),</p> +<p>'T is not with Donna Inez I would shut</p> +<p class="i2">Him up to learn his catechism alone,</p> +<p>No—no—I'd send him out betimes to college,</p> +<p>For there it was I picked up my own knowledge.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For there one learns—'t is not for me to boast,</p> +<p class="i2">Though I acquired—but I pass over <i>that</i>,</p> +<p>As well as all the Greek I since have lost:</p> +<p class="i2">I say that there's the place—but "<i>Verbum sat</i>,"</p> +<p>I think I picked up too, as well as most,</p> +<p class="i2">Knowledge of matters—but no matter <i>what</i>—</p> +<p>I never married—but, I think, I know</p> +<p>That sons should not be educated so.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,</p> +<p class="i2">Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seemed</p> +<p>Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;</p> +<p class="i2">And everybody but his mother deemed</p> +<p>Him almost man; but she flew in a rage<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And bit her lips (for else she might have screamed)</p> +<p>If any said so—for to be precocious</p> +<p>Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all</p> +<p class="i2">Selected for discretion and devotion,</p> +<p>There was the Donna Julia, whom to call</p> +<p class="i2">Pretty were but to give a feeble notion</p> +<p>Of many charms in her as natural</p> +<p class="i2">As sweetness to the flower, or salt to Ocean,</p> +<p>Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid,</p> +<p>(But this last simile is trite and stupid.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The darkness of her Oriental eye</p> +<p class="i2">Accorded with her Moorish origin;</p> +<p>(Her blood was not all Spanish; by the by,</p> +<p class="i2">In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin;)</p> +<p>When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,</p> +<p class="i2">Boabdil wept:<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> of Donna Julia's kin</p> +<p>Some went to Africa, some stayed in Spain—</p> +<p>Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She married (I forget the pedigree)</p> +<p class="i2">With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down</p> +<p>His blood less noble than such blood should be;</p> +<p class="i2">At such alliances his sires would frown,</p> +<p>In that point so precise in each degree</p> +<p class="i2">That they bred <i>in and in</i>, as might be shown,</p> +<p>Marrying their cousins—nay, their aunts, and nieces,</p> +<p>Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This heathenish cross restored the breed again,</p> +<p class="i2">Ruined its blood, but much improved its flesh;</p> +<p>For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain</p> +<p class="i2">Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;</p> +<p>The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:</p> +<p class="i2">But there's a rumour which I fain would hush,<a name="FNanchor_L" id="FNanchor_L"></a><a href="#Footnote_L" class="fnanchor">[L]</a></p> +<p>'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma</p> +<p>Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>However this might be, the race went on</p> +<p class="i2">Improving still through every generation,</p> +<p>Until it centred in an only son,</p> +<p class="i2">Who left an only daughter; my narration</p> +<p>May have suggested that this single one</p> +<p class="i2">Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion</p> +<p>I shall have much to speak about), and she</p> +<p>Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes)</p> +<p class="i2">Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire</p> +<p>Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise</p> +<p class="i2">Flashed an expression more of pride than ire,</p> +<p>And love than either; and there would arise</p> +<p class="i2">A something in them which was not desire,</p> +<p>But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul</p> +<p>Which struggled through and chastened down the whole.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her glossy hair was clustered o'er a brow</p> +<p class="i2">Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;</p> +<p>Her eyebrow's shape was like the aërial bow,</p> +<p class="i2">Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,</p> +<p>Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,</p> +<p class="i2">As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,</p> +<p>Possessed an air and grace by no means common:</p> +<p>Her stature tall—I hate a dumpy woman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Wedded she was some years, and to a man</p> +<p class="i2">Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;</p> +<p>And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE</p> +<p class="i2">'T were better to have TWO of five-and-twenty,</p> +<p>Especially in countries near the sun:</p> +<p class="i2">And now I think on 't, "<i>mi vien in mente</i>",</p> +<p>Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue</p> +<p>Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.<a name="FNanchor_M" id="FNanchor_M"></a><a href="#Footnote_M" class="fnanchor">[M]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,</p> +<p class="i2">And all the fault of that indecent sun,</p> +<p>Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,</p> +<p class="i2">But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,</p> +<p>That howsoever people fast and pray,</p> +<p class="i2">The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:</p> +<p>What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,</p> +<p>Is much more common where the climate's sultry,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Happy the nations of the moral North!</p> +<p class="i2">Where all is virtue, and the winter season</p> +<p>Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth</p> +<p class="i2">('T was snow that brought St. Anthony<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> to reason);<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> +<p>Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,</p> +<p class="i2">By laying whate'er sum, in mulct, they please on</p> +<p>The lover, who must pay a handsome price,</p> +<p>Because it is a marketable vice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord,</p> +<p class="i2">A man well looking for his years, and who</p> +<p>Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorred:</p> +<p class="i2">They lived together as most people do,</p> +<p>Suffering each other's foibles by accord,</p> +<p class="i2">And not exactly either <i>one</i> or <i>two</i>;</p> +<p>Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,</p> +<p>For Jealousy dislikes the world to know it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Julia was—yet I never could see why—</p> +<p class="i2">With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;</p> +<p>Between their tastes there was small sympathy,</p> +<p class="i2">For not a line had Julia ever penned:</p> +<p>Some people whisper (but, no doubt, they lie,</p> +<p class="i2">For Malice still imputes some private end)</p> +<p>That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage,</p> +<p>Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And that still keeping up the old connection,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Time had lately rendered much more chaste,</p> +<p>She took his lady also in affection,</p> +<p class="i2">And certainly this course was much the best:</p> +<p>She flattered Julia with her sage protection,</p> +<p class="i2">And complimented Don Alfonso's taste;</p> +<p>And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,</p> +<p>At least she left it a more slender handle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair</p> +<p class="i2">With other people's eyes, or if her own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> +<p>Discoveries made, but none could be aware</p> +<p class="i2">Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown;</p> +<p>Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,</p> +<p class="i2">Indifferent from the first, or callous grown:</p> +<p>I'm really puzzled what to think or say,</p> +<p>She kept her counsel in so close a way.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,</p> +<p class="i2">Caressed him often—such a thing might be</p> +<p>Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,</p> +<p class="i2">When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;</p> +<p>But I am not so sure I should have smiled</p> +<p class="i2">When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;</p> +<p>These few short years make wondrous alterations,</p> +<p>Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whate'er the cause might be, they had become</p> +<p class="i2">Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy,</p> +<p>Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb,</p> +<p class="i2">And much embarrassment in either eye;</p> +<p>There surely will be little doubt with some</p> +<p class="i2">That Donna Julia knew the reason why,</p> +<p>But as for Juan, he had no more notion</p> +<p>Than he who never saw the sea of Ocean.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,</p> +<p class="i2">And tremulously gentle her small hand</p> +<p>Withdrew itself from his, but left behind</p> +<p class="i2">A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland</p> +<p>And slight, so very slight, that to the mind</p> +<p class="i2">'T was but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand</p> +<p>Wrought change with all Armida's<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> fairy art</p> +<p>Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if she met him, though she smiled no more,</p> +<p class="i2">She looked a sadness sweeter than her smile,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> +<p>As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store</p> +<p class="i2">She must not own, but cherished more the while</p> +<p>For that compression in its burning core;</p> +<p class="i2">Even Innocence itself has many a wile,</p> +<p>And will not dare to trust itself with truth,</p> +<p>And Love is taught hypocrisy from youth.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Passion most dissembles, yet betrays</p> +<p class="i2">Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky</p> +<p>Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays</p> +<p class="i2">Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,</p> +<p>And in whatever aspect it arrays</p> +<p class="i2">Itself, 't is still the same hypocrisy;</p> +<p>Coldness or Anger, even Disdain or Hate,</p> +<p>Are masks it often wears, and still too late.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,</p> +<p class="i2">And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,</p> +<p>And burning blushes, though for no transgression,</p> +<p class="i2">Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left;</p> +<p>All these are little preludes to possession,</p> +<p class="i2">Of which young Passion cannot be bereft,</p> +<p>And merely tend to show how greatly Love is</p> +<p>Embarrassed at first starting with a novice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state;</p> +<p class="i2">She felt it going, and resolved to make</p> +<p>The noblest efforts for herself and mate,</p> +<p class="i2">For Honour's, Pride's, Religion's, Virtue's sake:</p> +<p>Her resolutions were most truly great,</p> +<p class="i2">And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:</p> +<p>She prayed the Virgin Mary for her grace,</p> +<p>As being the best judge of a lady's case.<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She vowed she never would see Juan more,</p> +<p class="i2">And next day paid a visit to his mother,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> +<p>And looked extremely at the opening door,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another;</p> +<p>Grateful she was, and yet a little sore—</p> +<p class="i2">Again it opens, it can be no other,</p> +<p>'T is surely Juan now—No! I'm afraid</p> +<p>That night the Virgin was no further prayed.<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She now determined that a virtuous woman</p> +<p class="i2">Should rather face and overcome temptation,</p> +<p>That flight was base and dastardly, and no man</p> +<p class="i2">Should ever give her heart the least sensation,</p> +<p>That is to say, a thought beyond the common</p> +<p class="i2">Preference, that we must feel, upon occasion,</p> +<p>For people who are pleasanter than others,</p> +<p>But then they only seem so many brothers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And even if by chance—and who can tell?</p> +<p class="i2">The Devil's so very sly—she should discover</p> +<p>That all within was not so very well,</p> +<p class="i2">And, if still free, that such or such a lover</p> +<p>Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell</p> +<p class="i2">Such thoughts, and be the better when they're over;</p> +<p>And if the man should ask, 't is but denial:</p> +<p>I recommend young ladies to make trial.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And, then, there are such things as Love divine,</p> +<p class="i2">Bright and immaculate, unmixed and pure,</p> +<p>Such as the angels think so very fine,</p> +<p class="i2">And matrons, who would be no less secure,</p> +<p>Platonic, perfect, "just such love as mine;"</p> +<p class="i2">Thus Julia said—and thought so, to be sure;</p> +<p>And so I'd have her think, were <i>I</i> the man</p> +<p>On whom her reveries celestial ran.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Such love is innocent, and may exist</p> +<p class="i2">Between young persons without any danger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> +<p>A hand may first, and then a lip be kissed;</p> +<p class="i2">For my part, to such doings I'm a stranger,</p> +<p>But <i>hear</i> these freedoms form the utmost list</p> +<p class="i2">Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger:</p> +<p>If people go beyond, 't is quite a crime,</p> +<p>But not my fault—I tell them all in time.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love, then, but Love within its proper limits,</p> +<p class="i2">Was Julia's innocent determination</p> +<p>In young Don Juan's favour, and to him its</p> +<p class="i2">Exertion might be useful on occasion;</p> +<p>And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its</p> +<p class="i2">Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion</p> +<p>He might be taught, by Love and her together—</p> +<p>I really don't know what, nor Julia either.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced</p> +<p class="i2">In mail of proof—her purity of soul<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a>—</p> +<p>She, for the future, of her strength convinced,</p> +<p class="i2">And that her honour was a rock, or mole,<a name="FNanchor_N" id="FNanchor_N"></a><a href="#Footnote_N" class="fnanchor">[N]</a></p> +<p>Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed</p> +<p class="i2">With any kind of troublesome control;</p> +<p>But whether Julia to the task was equal</p> +<p>Is that which must be mentioned in the sequel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her plan she deemed both innocent and feasible,</p> +<p class="i2">And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen</p> +<p>Not Scandal's fangs could fix on much that's seizable,</p> +<p class="i2">Or if they did so, satisfied to mean</p> +<p>Nothing but what was good, her breast was peaceable—</p> +<p class="i2">A quiet conscience makes one so serene!</p> +<p>Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded</p> +<p>That all the Apostles would have done as they did.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if in the mean time her husband died,</p> +<p class="i2">But Heaven forbid that such a thought should cross</p> +<p>Her brain, though in a dream! (and then she sighed)</p> +<p class="i2">Never could she survive that common loss;</p> +<p>But just suppose that moment should betide,</p> +<p class="i2">I only say suppose it—<i>inter nos</i>:</p> +<p>(This should be <i>entre nous</i>, for Julia thought</p> +<p>In French, but then the rhyme would go for nought.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I only say, suppose this supposition:</p> +<p class="i2">Juan being then grown up to man's estate</p> +<p>Would fully suit a widow of condition,</p> +<p class="i2">Even seven years hence it would not be too late;</p> +<p>And in the interim (to pursue this vision)</p> +<p class="i2">The mischief, after all, could not be great,</p> +<p>For he would learn the rudiments of Love,</p> +<p>I mean the <i>seraph</i> way of those above.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So much for Julia! Now we'll turn to Juan.</p> +<p class="i2">Poor little fellow! he had no idea</p> +<p>Of his own case, and never hit the true one;</p> +<p class="i2">In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea,<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> +<p>He puzzled over what he found a new one,</p> +<p class="i2">But not as yet imagined it could be a</p> +<p>Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming,</p> +<p>Which, with a little patience, might grow charming.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,</p> +<p class="i2">His home deserted for the lonely wood,</p> +<p>Tormented with a wound he could not know,</p> +<p class="i2">His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude:</p> +<p>I'm fond myself of solitude or so,</p> +<p class="i2">But then, I beg it may be understood,</p> +<p>By solitude I mean a Sultan's (not</p> +<p>A Hermit's), with a haram for a grot.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,</p> +<p class="i2">Where Transport and Security entwine,</p> +<p>Here is the Empire of thy perfect bliss,</p> +<p class="i2">And here thou art a God indeed divine."<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> +<p>The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,</p> +<p class="i2">With the exception of the second line,</p> +<p>For that same twining "Transport and Security"</p> +<p>Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals</p> +<p class="i2">To the good sense and senses of mankind,</p> +<p>The very thing which everybody feels,</p> +<p class="i2">As all have found on trial, or may find,</p> +<p>That no one likes to be disturbed at meals</p> +<p class="i2">Or love.—I won't say more about "entwined"</p> +<p>Or "Transport," as we knew all that before,</p> +<p>But beg "Security" will bolt the door.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Young Juan wandered by the glassy brooks,</p> +<p class="i2">Thinking unutterable things; he threw</p> +<p>Himself at length within the leafy nooks</p> +<p class="i2">Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;</p> +<p>There poets find materials for their books,</p> +<p class="i2">And every now and then we read them through,</p> +<p>So that their plan and prosody are eligible,</p> +<p>Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued</p> +<p class="i2">His self-communion with his own high soul,</p> +<p>Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,</p> +<p class="i2">Had mitigated part, though not the whole</p> +<p>Of its disease; he did the best he could</p> +<p class="i2">With things not very subject to control,</p> +<p>And turned, without perceiving his condition,</p> +<p>Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He thought about himself, and the whole earth,</p> +<p class="i2">Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,</p> +<p>And how the deuce they ever could have birth:</p> +<p class="i2">And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,</p> +<p>How many miles the moon might have in girth,</p> +<p class="i2">Of air-balloons, and of the many bars</p> +<p>To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;—</p> +<p>And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In thoughts like these true Wisdom may discern</p> +<p class="i2">Longings sublime, and aspirations high,</p> +<p>Which some are born with, but the most part learn</p> +<p class="i2">To plague themselves withal, they know not why:</p> +<p>'T was strange that one so young should thus concern</p> +<p class="i2">His brain about the action of the sky;<a name="FNanchor_O" id="FNanchor_O"></a><a href="#Footnote_O" class="fnanchor">[O]</a></p> +<p>If <i>you</i> think 't was Philosophy that this did,</p> +<p>I can't help thinking puberty assisted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,</p> +<p class="i2">And heard a voice in all the winds; and then</p> +<p>He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,</p> +<p class="i2">And how the goddesses came down to men:</p> +<p>He missed the pathway, he forgot the hours,</p> +<p class="i2">And when he looked upon his watch again,</p> +<p>He found how much old Time had been a winner—</p> +<p>He also found that he had lost his dinner.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book,</p> +<p class="i2">Boscan,<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> or Garcilasso;<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a>—by the wind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> +<p>Even as the page is rustled while we look,</p> +<p class="i2">So by the poesy of his own mind</p> +<p>Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,</p> +<p class="i2">As if 't were one whereon magicians bind</p> +<p>Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,</p> +<p>According to some good old woman's tale.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus would he while his lonely hours away</p> +<p class="i2">Dissatisfied, not knowing what he wanted;</p> +<p>Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay,</p> +<p class="i2">Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,</p> +<p>A bosom whereon he his head might lay,</p> +<p class="i2">And hear the heart beat with the love it granted,</p> +<p>With——several other things, which I forget,</p> +<p>Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,</p> +<p class="i2">Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes;</p> +<p>She saw that Juan was not at his ease;</p> +<p class="i2">But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,</p> +<p>Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease</p> +<p class="i2">Her only son with question or surmise;</p> +<p>Whether it was she did not see, or would not,</p> +<p>Or, like all very clever people, could not.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This may seem strange, but yet 't is very common;</p> +<p class="i2">For instance—gentlemen, whose ladies take</p> +<p>Leave to o'erstep the written rights of Woman,</p> +<p class="i2">And break the——Which commandment is 't they break?</p> +<p>(I have forgot the number, and think no man</p> +<p class="i2">Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake;)</p> +<p>I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,</p> +<p>They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A real husband always is suspicious,</p> +<p class="i2">But still no less suspects in the wrong place,<a name="FNanchor_P" id="FNanchor_P"></a><a href="#Footnote_P" class="fnanchor">[P]</a></p> +<p>Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,</p> +<p class="i2">Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace,</p> +<p>By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious;</p> +<p class="i2">The last indeed's infallibly the case:</p> +<p>And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly,</p> +<p>He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus parents also are at times short-sighted:</p> +<p class="i2">Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover,</p> +<p>The while the wicked world beholds delighted,</p> +<p class="i2">Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover,</p> +<p>Till some confounded escapade has blighted</p> +<p class="i2">The plan of twenty years, and all is over;</p> +<p>And then the mother cries, the father swears,</p> +<p>And wonders why the devil he got heirs.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Inez was so anxious, and so clear</p> +<p class="i2">Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion,</p> +<p>She had some other motive much more near</p> +<p class="i2">For leaving Juan to this new temptation,</p> +<p>But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps to finish Juan's education,</p> +<p>Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes,</p> +<p>In case he thought his wife too great a prize.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was upon a day, a summer's day;—</p> +<p class="i2">Summer's indeed a very dangerous season,</p> +<p>And so is spring about the end of May;</p> +<p class="i2">The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason;</p> +<p>But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say,</p> +<p class="i2">And stand convicted of more truth than treason,</p> +<p>That there are months which nature grows more merry in,—</p> +<p>March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was on a summer's day—the sixth of June:</p> +<p class="i2">I like to be particular in dates,</p> +<p>Not only of the age, and year, but moon;</p> +<p class="i2">They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates</p> +<p>Change horses, making History change its tune,<a name="FNanchor_Q" id="FNanchor_Q"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q" class="fnanchor">[Q]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states,</p> +<p>Leaving at last not much besides chronology,</p> +<p>Excepting the post-obits of theology.<a name="FNanchor_R" id="FNanchor_R"></a><a href="#Footnote_R" class="fnanchor">[R]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour</p> +<p class="i2">Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven—</p> +<p>When Julia sate within as pretty a bower</p> +<p class="i2">As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven</p> +<p>Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,</p> +<p>With all the trophies of triumphant song—</p> +<p>He won them well, and may he wear them long!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She sate, but not alone; I know not well</p> +<p class="i2">How this same interview had taken place,</p> +<p>And even if I knew, I should not tell—</p> +<p class="i2">People should hold their tongues in any case;</p> +<p>No matter how or why the thing befell,</p> +<p class="i2">But there were she and Juan, face to face—</p> +<p>When two such faces are so, 't would be wise,</p> +<p>But very difficult, to shut their eyes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How beautiful she looked! her conscious heart</p> +<p class="i2">Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> +<p>Oh Love! how perfect is thy mystic art,</p> +<p class="i2">Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong!</p> +<p>How self-deceitful is the sagest part</p> +<p class="i2">Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along!—</p> +<p>The precipice she stood on was immense,</p> +<p>So was her creed in her own innocence.<a name="FNanchor_S" id="FNanchor_S"></a><a href="#Footnote_S" class="fnanchor">[S]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth,</p> +<p class="i2">And of the folly of all prudish fears,</p> +<p>Victorious Virtue, and domestic Truth,</p> +<p class="i2">And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years:</p> +<p>I wish these last had not occurred, in sooth,</p> +<p class="i2">Because that number rarely much endears,</p> +<p>And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny,</p> +<p>Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When people say, "I've told you <i>fifty</i> times,"</p> +<p class="i2">They mean to scold, and very often do;</p> +<p>When poets say, "I've written <i>fifty</i> rhymes,"</p> +<p class="i2">They make you dread that they 'll recite them too;</p> +<p>In gangs of <i>fifty</i>, thieves commit their crimes;</p> +<p class="i2">At <i>fifty</i> love for love is rare, 't is true,</p> +<p>But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,</p> +<p>A good deal may be bought for <i>fifty</i> Louis.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love</p> +<p class="i2">For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,</p> +<p>By all the vows below to Powers above,</p> +<p class="i2">She never would disgrace the ring she wore,</p> +<p>Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove;</p> +<p class="i2">And while she pondered this, besides much more,</p> +<p>One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown,</p> +<p>Quite by mistake—she thought it was her own;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Unconsciously she leaned upon the other,</p> +<p class="i2">Which played within the tangles of her hair;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> +<p>And to contend with thoughts she could not smother</p> +<p class="i2">She seemed by the distraction of her air.</p> +<p>'T was surely very wrong in Juan's mother</p> +<p class="i2">To leave together this imprudent pair,<a name="FNanchor_T" id="FNanchor_T"></a><a href="#Footnote_T" class="fnanchor">[T]</a></p> +<p>She who for many years had watched her son so—</p> +<p>I'm very certain <i>mine</i> would not have done so.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees</p> +<p class="i2">Gently, but palpably confirmed its grasp,</p> +<p>As if it said, "Detain me, if you please;"</p> +<p class="i2">Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp</p> +<p>His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze;</p> +<p class="i2">She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp,</p> +<p>Had she imagined such a thing could rouse</p> +<p>A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I cannot know what Juan thought of this,</p> +<p class="i2">But what he did, is much what you would do;</p> +<p>His young lip thanked it with a grateful kiss,</p> +<p class="i2">And then, abashed at its own joy, withdrew</p> +<p>In deep despair, lest he had done amiss,—</p> +<p class="i2">Love is so very timid when 't is new:</p> +<p>She blushed, and frowned not, but she strove to speak,</p> +<p>And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon:</p> +<p class="i2">The Devil's in the moon for mischief; they</p> +<p>Who called her <span class="smcap">chaste</span>, methinks, began too soon</p> +<p class="i2">Their nomenclature; there is not a day,</p> +<p>The longest, not the twenty-first of June,</p> +<p class="i2">Sees half the business in a wicked way,</p> +<p>On which three single hours of moonshine smile—</p> +<p>And then she looks so modest all the while!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is a dangerous silence in that hour,</p> +<p class="i2">A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> +<p>To open all itself, without the power</p> +<p class="i2">Of calling wholly back its self-control;</p> +<p>The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower,</p> +<p class="i2">Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,</p> +<p>Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws</p> +<p>A loving languor, which is not repose.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced</p> +<p class="i2">And half retiring from the glowing arm,</p> +<p>Which trembled like the bosom where 't was placed;</p> +<p class="i2">Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,</p> +<p>Or else 't were easy to withdraw her waist;</p> +<p class="i2">But then the situation had its charm,</p> +<p>And then—God knows what next—I can't go on;</p> +<p>I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh Plato! Plato! you have paved the way,</p> +<p class="i2">With your confounded fantasies, to more</p> +<p>Immoral conduct by the fancied sway</p> +<p class="i2">Your system feigns o'er the controlless core</p> +<p>Of human hearts, than all the long array</p> +<p class="i2">Of poets and romancers:—You're a bore,</p> +<p>A charlatan, a coxcomb—and have been,</p> +<p>At best, no better than a go-between.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,</p> +<p class="i2">Until too late for useful conversation;</p> +<p>The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion;</p> +<p>But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?</p> +<p class="i2">Not that Remorse did not oppose Temptation;</p> +<p>A little still she strove, and much repented,</p> +<p>And whispering "I will ne'er consent"—consented.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is said that Xerxes offered a reward<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To those who could invent him a new pleasure:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> +<p>Methinks the requisition's rather hard,</p> +<p class="i2">And must have cost his Majesty a treasure:</p> +<p>For my part, I'm a moderate-minded bard,</p> +<p class="i2">Fond of a little love (which I call leisure);</p> +<p>I care not for new pleasures, as the old</p> +<p>Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh Pleasure! you're indeed a pleasant thing,<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Although one must be damned for you, no doubt:</p> +<p>I make a resolution every spring</p> +<p class="i2">Of reformation, ere the year run out,</p> +<p>But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet still, I trust, it may be kept throughout:</p> +<p>I'm very sorry, very much ashamed,</p> +<p>And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaimed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take—</p> +<p class="i2">Start not! still chaster reader—she'll be nice hence-</p> +<p>Forward, and there is no great cause to quake;</p> +<p class="i2">This liberty is a poetic licence,</p> +<p>Which some irregularity may make</p> +<p class="i2">In the design, and as I have a high sense</p> +<p>Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit</p> +<p>To beg his pardon when I err a bit.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This licence is to hope the reader will</p> +<p class="i2">Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day,</p> +<p>Without whose epoch my poetic skill</p> +<p class="i2">For want of facts would all be thrown away),</p> +<p>But keeping Julia and Don Juan still</p> +<p class="i2">In sight, that several months have passed; we'll say</p> +<p>'T was in November, but I'm not so sure</p> +<p>About the day—the era's more obscure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We'll talk of that anon.—'T is sweet to hear</p> +<p class="i2">At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> +<p>The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> +<p class="i2">By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep;</p> +<p>'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;</p> +<p class="i2">'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep</p> +<p>From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high</p> +<p>The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark</p> +<p class="i2">Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;</p> +<p>'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark</p> +<p class="i2">Our coming, and look brighter when we come;<a name="FNanchor_U" id="FNanchor_U"></a><a href="#Footnote_U" class="fnanchor">[U]</a></p> +<p>'T is sweet to be awakened by the lark,</p> +<p class="i2">Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum</p> +<p>Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,</p> +<p>The lisp of children, and their earliest words.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes</p> +<p class="i2">In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,</p> +<p>Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes</p> +<p class="i2">From civic revelry to rural mirth;</p> +<p>Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,</p> +<p class="i2">Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,</p> +<p>Sweet is revenge—especially to women—</p> +<p>Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet<a name="FNanchor_V" id="FNanchor_V"></a><a href="#Footnote_V" class="fnanchor">[V]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The unexpected death of some old lady,</p> +<p>Or gentleman of seventy years complete,</p> +<p class="i2">Who've made "us youth"<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> wait too—too long already,</p> +<p>For an estate, or cash, or country seat,</p> +<p class="i2">Still breaking, but with stamina so steady,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> +<p>That all the Israelites are fit to mob its</p> +<p>Next owner for their double-damned post-obits.<a name="FNanchor_W" id="FNanchor_W"></a><a href="#Footnote_W" class="fnanchor">[W]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,</p> +<p class="i2">By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end</p> +<p>To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,</p> +<p class="i2">Particularly with a tiresome friend:</p> +<p>Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;</p> +<p class="i2">Dear is the helpless creature we defend</p> +<p>Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> +<p>We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,</p> +<p class="i2">Is first and passionate Love—it stands alone,</p> +<p>Like Adam's recollection of his fall;</p> +<p class="i2">The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked—all 's known—</p> +<p>And Life yields nothing further to recall</p> +<p class="i2">Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,</p> +<p>No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven</p> +<p>Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use</p> +<p class="i2">Of his own nature, and the various arts,</p> +<p>And likes particularly to produce</p> +<p class="i2">Some new experiment to show his parts;</p> +<p>This is the age of oddities let loose,</p> +<p class="i2">Where different talents find their different marts;</p> +<p>You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost your</p> +<p>Labour, there's a sure market for imposture.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What opposite discoveries we have seen!</p> +<p class="i2">(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)</p> +<p>One makes new noses<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>, one a guillotine,</p> +<p class="i2">One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;</p> +<p>But Vaccination certainly has been</p> +<p class="i2">A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets,<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> +<p>With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,</p> +<p>By borrowing a new one from an ox.<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes:</p> +<p class="i2">And Galvanism has set some corpses grinning,<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> +<p>But has not answered like the apparatus</p> +<p class="i2">Of the Humane Society's beginning,</p> +<p>By which men are unsuffocated gratis:</p> +<p class="i2">What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!</p> +<p>I said the small-pox has gone out of late;</p> +<p>Perhaps it may be followed by the great.<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is said the great came from America;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps it may set out on its return,—</p> +<p>The population there so spreads, they say</p> +<p class="i2">'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn,</p> +<p>With war, or plague, or famine—any way,</p> +<p class="i2">So that civilisation they may learn;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> +<p>And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is—</p> +<p>Their real <i>lues,</i> or our pseudo-syphilis?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is the patent age of new inventions</p> +<p class="i2">For killing bodies, and for saving souls,</p> +<p>All propagated with the best intentions:</p> +<p class="i2">Sir Humphry Davy's lantern,<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> by which coals</p> +<p>Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,</p> +<p class="i2">Tombuctoo travels,<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> voyages to the Poles<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> +<p>Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,</p> +<p>Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what,</p> +<p class="i2">And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;</p> +<p>'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that</p> +<p class="i2">Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes Sin's a pleasure;<a name="FNanchor_X" id="FNanchor_X"></a><a href="#Footnote_X" class="fnanchor">[X]</a></p> +<p>Few mortals know what end they would be at,</p> +<p class="i2">But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure,</p> +<p>The path is through perplexing ways, and when</p> +<p>The goal is gained, we die, you know—and then——</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What then?—I do not know, no more do you—</p> +<p class="i2">And so good night.—Return we to our story:</p> +<p>'T was in November, when fine days are few,</p> +<p class="i2">And the far mountains wax a little hoary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> +<p>And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;<a name="FNanchor_Y" id="FNanchor_Y"></a><a href="#Footnote_Y" class="fnanchor">[Y]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And the sea dashes round the promontory,</p> +<p>And the loud breaker boils against the rock,</p> +<p>And sober suns must set at five o'clock.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;<a name="FNanchor_Z" id="FNanchor_Z"></a><a href="#Footnote_Z" class="fnanchor">[Z]</a></p> +<p class="i2">No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud</p> +<p>By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright</p> +<p class="i2">With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;</p> +<p>There's something cheerful in that sort of light,</p> +<p class="i2">Even as a summer sky's without a cloud:</p> +<p>I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,<a name="FNanchor_AA" id="FNanchor_AA"></a><a href="#Footnote_AA" class="fnanchor">[AA]</a><a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> +<p>A lobster salad<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>, and champagne, and chat.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was midnight—Donna Julia was in bed,</p> +<p class="i2">Sleeping, most probably,—when at her door</p> +<p>Arose a clatter might awake the dead,</p> +<p class="i2">If they had never been awoke before,</p> +<p>And that they have been so we all have read,</p> +<p class="i2">And are to be so, at the least, once more;—</p> +<p>The door was fastened, but with voice and fist</p> +<p>First knocks were heard, then "Madam—Madam—hist!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"For God's sake, Madam—Madam—here's my master,<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> +<p class="i2">With more than half the city at his back—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!</p> +<p class="i2">'T is not my fault—I kept good watch—Alack!</p> +<p>Do pray undo the bolt a little faster—</p> +<p class="i2">They're on the stair just now, and in a crack</p> +<p>Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly—</p> +<p>Surely the window's not so <i>very</i> high!"</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>CXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,</p> +<p class="i2">With torches, friends, and servants in great number;</p> +<p>The major part of them had long been wived,</p> +<p class="i2">And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber</p> +<p>Of any wicked woman, who contrived</p> +<p class="i2">By stealth her husband's temples to encumber:</p> +<p>Examples of this kind are so contagious,</p> +<p>Were <i>one</i> not punished, <i>all</i> would be outrageous.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion</p> +<p class="i2">Could enter into Don Alfonso's head;</p> +<p>But for a cavalier of his condition</p> +<p class="i2">It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,</p> +<p>Without a word of previous admonition,</p> +<p class="i2">To hold a levee round his lady's bed,</p> +<p>And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword,</p> +<p>To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep,</p> +<p class="i2">(Mind—that I do not say—she had not slept),</p> +<p>Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;</p> +<p class="i2">Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept,</p> +<p>Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,</p> +<p class="i2">As if she had just now from out them crept:<a name="FNanchor_AB" id="FNanchor_AB"></a><a href="#Footnote_AB" class="fnanchor">[AB]</a></p> +<p>I can't tell why she should take all this trouble</p> +<p>To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CXLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,</p> +<p class="i2">Appeared like two poor harmless women, who</p> +<p>Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">Had thought one man might be deterred by two,</p> +<p>And therefore side by side were gently laid,</p> +<p class="i2">Until the hours of absence should run through,</p> +<p>And truant husband should return, and say,</p> +<p>"My dear,—I was the first who came away."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,</p> +<p class="i2">"In Heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mean?</p> +<p>Has madness seized you? would that I had died</p> +<p class="i2">Ere such a monster's victim I had been!<a name="FNanchor_AC" id="FNanchor_AC"></a><a href="#Footnote_AC" class="fnanchor">[AC]</a></p> +<p>What may this midnight violence betide,</p> +<p class="i2">A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?</p> +<p>Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?</p> +<p>Search, then, the room!"—Alfonso said, "I will."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>He</i> searched, <i>they</i> searched, and rummaged everywhere,</p> +<p class="i2">Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-seat,</p> +<p>And found much linen, lace, and several pair</p> +<p class="i2">Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,</p> +<p>With other articles of ladies fair,</p> +<p class="i2">To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:</p> +<p>Arras they pricked and curtains with their swords,</p> +<p>And wounded several shutters, and some boards.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Under the bed they searched, and there they found—</p> +<p class="i2">No matter what—it was not that they sought;</p> +<p>They opened windows, gazing if the ground</p> +<p class="i2">Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;</p> +<p>And then they stared each others' faces round:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought,</p> +<p>And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,</p> +<p>Of looking <i>in</i> the bed as well as under.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>During this inquisition Julia's tongue<a name="FNanchor_AD" id="FNanchor_AD"></a><a href="#Footnote_AD" class="fnanchor">[AD]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Was not asleep—"Yes, search and search," she cried,</p> +<p>"Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!</p> +<p class="i2">It was for this that I became a bride!</p> +<p>For this in silence I have suffered long</p> +<p class="i2">A husband like Alfonso at my side;</p> +<p>But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain,</p> +<p>If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,</p> +<p class="i2">If ever you indeed deserved the name,</p> +<p>Is 't worthy of your years?—you have threescore—</p> +<p class="i2">Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same—</p> +<p>Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore</p> +<p class="i2">For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?</p> +<p>Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,</p> +<p>How dare you think your lady would go on so?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Is it for this I have disdained to hold</p> +<p class="i2">The common privileges of my sex?</p> +<p>That I have chosen a confessor so old</p> +<p class="i2">And deaf, that any other it would vex,</p> +<p>And never once he has had cause to scold,</p> +<p class="i2">But found my very innocence perplex</p> +<p>So much, he always doubted I was married—</p> +<p>How sorry you will be when I've miscarried!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Was it for this that no Cortejo<a name="FNanchor_74" id="FNanchor_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> e'er</p> +<p class="i2">I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?</p> +<p>Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,</p> +<p class="i2">Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel?</p> +<p>Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were,</p> +<p class="i2">I favoured none—nay, was almost uncivil?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> +<p>Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly,</p> +<p>Who took Algiers,<a name="FNanchor_75" id="FNanchor_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> declares I used him vilely?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Did not the Italian <i>Musico</i> Cazzani</p> +<p class="i2">Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?</p> +<p>Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,<a name="FNanchor_76" id="FNanchor_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?</p> +<p>Were there not also Russians, English, many?</p> +<p class="i2">The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,</p> +<p>And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,</p> +<p>Who killed himself for love (with wine) last year.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Have I not had two bishops at my feet?</p> +<p class="i2">The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez;</p> +<p>And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?</p> +<p class="i2">I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:</p> +<p>I praise your vast forbearance not to beat</p> +<p class="i2">Me also, since the time so opportune is—</p> +<p>Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger,</p> +<p>Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Was it for this you took your sudden journey,</p> +<p class="i2">Under pretence of business indispensable</p> +<p>With that sublime of rascals your attorney,</p> +<p class="i2">Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible</p> +<p>Of having played the fool? though both I spurn, he</p> +<p class="i2">Deserves the worst, his conduct's less defensible,</p> +<p>Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee,</p> +<p>And not from any love to you nor me.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"If he comes here to take a deposition,</p> +<p class="i2">By all means let the gentleman proceed;</p> +<p>You've made the apartment in a fit condition:—</p> +<p class="i2">There's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need—</p> +<p>Let everything be noted with precision,</p> +<p class="i2">I would not you for nothing should be fee'd—</p> +<p>But, as my maid's undressed, pray turn your spies out."</p> +<p>"Oh!" sobbed Antonia, "I could tear their eyes out."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"There is the closet, there the toilet, there</p> +<p class="i2">The antechamber—search them under, over;</p> +<p>There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,</p> +<p class="i2">The chimney—which would really hold a lover.<a name="FNanchor_AE" id="FNanchor_AE"></a><a href="#Footnote_AE" class="fnanchor">[AE]</a></p> +<p>I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care</p> +<p class="i2">And make no further noise, till you discover</p> +<p>The secret cavern of this lurking treasure—</p> +<p>And when 't is found, let me, too, have that pleasure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown</p> +<p class="i2">Doubt upon me, confusion over all,</p> +<p>Pray have the courtesy to make it known</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Who</i> is the man you search for? how d' ye call</p> +<p>Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown—</p> +<p class="i2">I hope he's young and handsome—is he tall?</p> +<p>Tell me—and be assured, that since you stain</p> +<p>My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,</p> +<p class="i2">At that age he would be too old for slaughter,</p> +<p>Or for so young a husband's jealous fears—</p> +<p class="i2">(Antonia! let me have a glass of water.)</p> +<p>I am ashamed of having shed these tears,</p> +<p class="i2">They are unworthy of my father's daughter;</p> +<p>My mother dreamed not in my natal hour,</p> +<p>That I should fall into a monster's power.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous,</p> +<p class="i2">You saw that she was sleeping by my side,</p> +<p>When you broke in upon us with your fellows:</p> +<p class="i2">Look where you please—we've nothing, sir, to hide;</p> +<p>Only another time, I trust, you'll tell us,</p> +<p class="i2">Or for the sake of decency abide</p> +<p>A moment at the door, that we may be</p> +<p>Dressed to receive so much good company.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;</p> +<p class="i2">The little I have said may serve to show</p> +<p>The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er<a name="FNanchor_AF" id="FNanchor_AF"></a><a href="#Footnote_AF" class="fnanchor">[AF]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:—</p> +<p>I leave you to your conscience as before,</p> +<p class="i2">'T will one day ask you <i>why</i> you used me so?</p> +<p>God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief!—</p> +<p>Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; pale</p> +<p class="i2">She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,</p> +<p>Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,</p> +<p class="i2">Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears</p> +<p>Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail</p> +<p class="i2">To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears</p> +<p>Its snow through all;—her soft lips lie apart,</p> +<p>And louder than her breathing beats her heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;</p> +<p class="i2">Antonia bustled round the ransacked room,</p> +<p>And, turning up her nose, with looks abused</p> +<p class="i2">Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom</p> +<p>Not one, except the attorney, was amused;</p> +<p class="i2">He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,</p> +<p>So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,</p> +<p>Knowing they must be settled by the laws.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,</p> +<p class="i2">Following Antonia's motions here and there,</p> +<p>With much suspicion in his attitude;</p> +<p class="i2">For reputations he had little care;</p> +<p>So that a suit or action were made good,</p> +<p class="i2">Small pity had he for the young and fair,</p> +<p>And ne'er believed in negatives, till these</p> +<p>Were proved by competent false witnesses.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,</p> +<p class="i2">And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;</p> +<p>When, after searching in five hundred nooks,</p> +<p class="i2">And treating a young wife with so much rigour,</p> +<p>He gained no point, except some self-rebukes,</p> +<p class="i2">Added to those his lady with such vigour</p> +<p>Had poured upon him for the last half-hour,</p> +<p>Quick, thick, and heavy—as a thunder-shower.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At first he tried to hammer an excuse,</p> +<p class="i2">To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs,</p> +<p>And indications of hysterics, whose</p> +<p class="i2">Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,</p> +<p>Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;<a name="FNanchor_77" id="FNanchor_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> +<p>He saw too, in perspective, her relations,</p> +<p>And then he tried to muster all his patience.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,</p> +<p class="i2">But sage Antonia cut him short before</p> +<p>The anvil of his speech received the hammer,</p> +<p class="i2">With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,</p> +<p>Or madam dies."—Alfonso muttered, "D—n her,"<a name="FNanchor_78" id="FNanchor_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;</p> +<p>He cast a rueful look or two, and did,</p> +<p>He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CLXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With him retired his <i>"posse comitatus,"</i></p> +<p class="i2">The attorney last, who lingered near the door</p> +<p>Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as</p> +<p class="i2">Antonia let him—not a little sore</p> +<p>At this most strange and unexplained "<i>hiatus</i>"</p> +<p class="i2">In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore</p> +<p>An awkward look; as he revolved the case,</p> +<p>The door was fastened in his legal face.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No sooner was it bolted, than—Oh Shame!</p> +<p class="i2">Oh Sin! Oh Sorrow! and Oh Womankind!</p> +<p>How can you do such things and keep your fame,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind?</p> +<p>Nothing so dear as an unfilched good name!</p> +<p class="i2">But to proceed—for there is more behind:</p> +<p>With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,</p> +<p>Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, from the bed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had been hid—I don't pretend to say</p> +<p class="i2">How, nor can I indeed describe the where—</p> +<p>Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay,</p> +<p class="i2">No doubt, in little compass, round or square;</p> +<p>But pity him I neither must nor may</p> +<p class="i2">His suffocation by that pretty pair;</p> +<p>'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut</p> +<p>With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.<a name="FNanchor_AG" id="FNanchor_AG"></a><a href="#Footnote_AG" class="fnanchor">[AG]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And, secondly, I pity not, because</p> +<p class="i2">He had no business to commit a sin,</p> +<p>Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws;—</p> +<p class="i2">At least 't was rather early to begin,</p> +<p>But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws</p> +<p class="i2">So much as when we call our old debts in</p> +<p>At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,</p> +<p>And find a deuced balance with the Devil.<a name="FNanchor_AH" id="FNanchor_AH"></a><a href="#Footnote_AH" class="fnanchor">[AH]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CLXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of his position I can give no notion:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle,</p> +<p>How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,</p> +<p class="i2">Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,</p> +<p>When old King David's blood grew dull in motion,</p> +<p class="i2">And that the medicine answered very well;</p> +<p>Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,</p> +<p>For David lived, but Juan nearly died.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What's to be done? Alfonso will be back</p> +<p class="i2">The moment he has sent his fools away.</p> +<p>Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,</p> +<p class="i2">But no device could be brought into play—</p> +<p>And how to parry the renewed attack?</p> +<p class="i2">Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:</p> +<p>Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,</p> +<p>But pressed her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He turned his lip to hers, and with his hand</p> +<p class="i2">Called back the tangles of her wandering hair;</p> +<p>Even then their love they could not all command,</p> +<p class="i2">And half forgot their danger and despair:</p> +<p>Antonia's patience now was at a stand—</p> +<p class="i2">"Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there,"</p> +<p>She whispered, in great wrath—"I must deposit</p> +<p>This pretty gentleman within the closet:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night—</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Who</i> can have put my master in this mood?</p> +<p>What will become on 't—I'm in such a fright,</p> +<p class="i2">The Devil's in the urchin, and no good—</p> +<p>Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?</p> +<p class="i2">Why, don't you know that it may end in blood?</p> +<p>You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,</p> +<p>My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Had it but been for a stout cavalier<a name="FNanchor_79" id="FNanchor_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of twenty-five or thirty—(come, make haste)</p> +<p>But for a child, what piece of work is here!</p> +<p class="i2">I really, madam, wonder at your taste—</p> +<p>(Come, sir, get in)—my master must be near:</p> +<p class="i2">There, for the present, at the least, he's fast,</p> +<p>And if we can but till the morning keep</p> +<p>Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep.)"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,</p> +<p class="i2">Closed the oration of the trusty maid:</p> +<p>She loitered, and he told her to be gone,</p> +<p class="i2">An order somewhat sullenly obeyed;</p> +<p>However, present remedy was none,</p> +<p class="i2">And no great good seemed answered if she staid:</p> +<p>Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,</p> +<p>She snuffed the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alfonso paused a minute—then begun</p> +<p class="i2">Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;</p> +<p>He would not justify what he had done,</p> +<p class="i2">To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;</p> +<p>But there were ample reasons for it, none</p> +<p class="i2">Of which he specified in this his pleading:</p> +<p>His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,</p> +<p>Of rhetoric, which the learned call "<i>rigmarole.</i>"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Julia said nought; though all the while there rose</p> +<p class="i2">A ready answer, which at once enables<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> +<p>A matron, who her husband's foible knows,</p> +<p class="i2">By a few timely words to turn the tables,</p> +<p>Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,—</p> +<p class="i2">Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;</p> +<p>'T is to retort with firmness, and when he</p> +<p>Suspects with <i>one</i>, do you reproach with <i>three</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,—</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known;</p> +<p>But whether 't was that one's own guilt confounds—</p> +<p class="i2">But that can't be, as has been often shown,</p> +<p>A lady with apologies abounds;—</p> +<p class="i2">It might be that her silence sprang alone</p> +<p>From delicacy to Don Juan's ear,</p> +<p>To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There might be one more motive, which makes two;</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded,—</p> +<p>Mentioned his jealousy, but never who</p> +<p class="i2">Had been the happy lover, he concluded,</p> +<p>Concealed amongst his premises; 't is true,</p> +<p class="i2">His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded;</p> +<p>To speak of Inez now were, one may say,</p> +<p>Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A hint, in tender cases, is enough;</p> +<p class="i2">Silence is best: besides, there is a <i>tact</i><a name="FNanchor_80" id="FNanchor_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a>—</p> +<p>(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,</p> +<p class="i2">But it will serve to keep my verse compact)—</p> +<p>Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough,</p> +<p class="i2">A lady always distant from the fact:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> +<p>The charming creatures lie with such a grace,</p> +<p>There's nothing so becoming to the face.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They blush, and we believe them; at least I</p> +<p class="i2">Have always done so; 't is of no great use,</p> +<p>In any case, attempting a reply,</p> +<p class="i2">For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;</p> +<p>And when at length they're out of breath, they sigh,</p> +<p class="i2">And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose</p> +<p>A tear or two, and then we make it up;</p> +<p>And then—and then—and then—sit down and sup.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alfonso closed his speech, and begged her pardon,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,</p> +<p>And laid conditions he thought very hard on,</p> +<p class="i2">Denying several little things he wanted:</p> +<p>He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,</p> +<p class="i2">With useless penitence perplexed and haunted;<a name="FNanchor_AI" id="FNanchor_AI"></a><a href="#Footnote_AI" class="fnanchor">[AI]</a></p> +<p>Beseeching she no further would refuse,</p> +<p>When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A pair of shoes!<a name="FNanchor_81" id="FNanchor_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a>—what then? not much, if they</p> +<p class="i2">Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these</p> +<p>(No one can tell how much I grieve to say)</p> +<p class="i2">Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,</p> +<p>Was but a moment's act.—Ah! well-a-day!</p> +<p class="i2">My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> +<p>Alfonso first examined well their fashion,</p> +<p>And then flew out into another passion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He left the room for his relinquished sword,</p> +<p class="i2">And Julia instant to the closet flew.</p> +<p>"Fly, Juan, fly! for Heaven's sake—not a word—</p> +<p class="i2">The door is open—you may yet slip through</p> +<p>The passage you so often have explored—</p> +<p class="i2">Here is the garden-key—Fly—fly—Adieu!</p> +<p>Haste—haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet—</p> +<p>Day has not broke—there's no one in the street."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>None can say that this was not good advice,</p> +<p class="i2">The only mischief was, it came too late;</p> +<p>Of all experience 't is the usual price,</p> +<p class="i2">A sort of income-tax laid on by fate:</p> +<p>Juan had reached the room-door in a trice,</p> +<p class="i2">And might have done so by the garden-gate,</p> +<p>But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,</p> +<p>Who threatened death—so Juan knocked him down.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;</p> +<p class="i2">Antonia cried out "Rape!" and Julia "Fire!"</p> +<p>But not a servant stirred to aid the fight.</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso, pommelled to his heart's desire,</p> +<p>Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night;</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;</p> +<p>His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,</p> +<p>And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alfonso's sword had dropped ere he could draw it,</p> +<p class="i2">And they continued battling hand to hand,</p> +<p>For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it;</p> +<p class="i2">His temper not being under great command,</p> +<p>If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso's days had not been in the land</p> +<p>Much longer.—Think of husbands', lovers' lives!</p> +<p>And how ye may be doubly widows—wives!</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan throttled him to get away,</p> +<p>And blood ('t was from the nose) began to flow;</p> +<p class="i2">At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,</p> +<p>Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,</p> +<p class="i2">And then his only garment quite gave way;</p> +<p>He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,</p> +<p>I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found</p> +<p class="i2">An awkward spectacle their eyes before;</p> +<p>Antonia in hysterics, Julia swooned,</p> +<p class="i2">Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;</p> +<p>Some half-torn drapery scattered on the ground,</p> +<p class="i2">Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:</p> +<p>Juan the gate gained, turned the key about,</p> +<p>And liking not the inside, locked the out.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here ends this canto.—Need I sing, or say,</p> +<p class="i2">How Juan, naked, favoured by the night,</p> +<p>Who favours what she should not, found his way,<a name="FNanchor_AJ" id="FNanchor_AJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AJ" class="fnanchor">[AJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And reached his home in an unseemly plight?</p> +<p>The pleasant scandal which arose next day,</p> +<p class="i2">The nine days' wonder which was brought to light,</p> +<p>And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,</p> +<p>Were in the English newspapers, of course.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If you would like to see the whole proceedings,</p> +<p class="i2">The depositions, and the Cause at full,</p> +<p>The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings</p> +<p class="i2">Of Counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,</p> +<p>There's more than one edition, and the readings</p> +<p class="i2">Are various, but they none of them are dull:</p> +<p>The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,<a name="FNanchor_82" id="FNanchor_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> +<p>Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.<a name="FNanchor_83" id="FNanchor_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +But Donna Inez, to divert the train</p> +<p class="i2">Of one of the most circulating scandals</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +That had for centuries been known in Spain,</p> +<p class="i2">At least since the retirement of the Vandals,</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +First vowed (and never had she vowed in vain)</p> +<p class="i2">To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +And then, by the advice of some old ladies,</p> +<p>She sent her son to be shipped off from Cadiz.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She had resolved that he should travel through</p> +<p class="i2">All European climes, by land or sea,</p> +<p>To mend his former morals, and get new,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially in France and Italy—</p> +<p>(At least this is the thing most people do.)</p> +<p class="i2">Julia was sent into a convent—she</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +Grieved—but, perhaps, her feelings may be better<a name="FNanchor_AK" id="FNanchor_AK"></a><a href="#Footnote_AK" class="fnanchor">[AK]</a></p> +<p>Shown in the following copy of her Letter:—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"They tell me 't is decided you depart:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is wise—'t is well, but not the less a pain;</p> +<p>I have no further claim on your young heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Mine is the victim, and would be again:</p> +<p>To love too much has been the only art</p> +<p class="i2">I used;—I write in haste, and if a stain</p> +<p>Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears;</p> +<p>My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I loved, I love you, for this love have lost</p> +<p class="i2">State, station, Heaven, Mankind's, my own esteem,</p> +<p>And yet can not regret what it hath cost,</p> +<p class="i2">So dear is still the memory of that dream;</p> +<p>Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast,</p> +<p class="i2">None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:</p> +<p>I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest—</p> +<p>I've nothing to reproach, or to request.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,<a name="FNanchor_AL" id="FNanchor_AL"></a><a href="#Footnote_AL" class="fnanchor">[AL]</a></p> +<p class="i2">'T is a Woman's whole existence; Man may range</p> +<p>The Court, Camp, Church, the Vessel, and the Mart;</p> +<p class="i2">Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory, offer in exchange</p> +<p>Pride, Fame, Ambition, to fill up his heart,</p> +<p class="i2">And few there are whom these can not estrange;</p> +<p>Men have all these resources, We but one,<a name="FNanchor_84" id="FNanchor_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> +<p>To love again, and be again undone."<a name="FNanchor_AM" id="FNanchor_AM"></a><a href="#Footnote_AM" class="fnanchor">[AM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p><h3>CXCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,<a name="FNanchor_AN" id="FNanchor_AN"></a><a href="#Footnote_AN" class="fnanchor">[AN]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Beloved and loving many; all is o'er</p> +<p>For me on earth, except some years to hide</p> +<p class="i2">My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core:</p> +<p>These I could bear, but cannot cast aside</p> +<p class="i2">The passion which still rages as before,—</p> +<p>And so farewell—forgive me, love me—No,</p> +<p>That word is idle now—but let it go.<a name="FNanchor_AO" id="FNanchor_AO"></a><a href="#Footnote_AO" class="fnanchor">[AO]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;</p> +<p class="i2">But still I think I can collect my mind;<a name="FNanchor_AP" id="FNanchor_AP"></a><a href="#Footnote_AP" class="fnanchor">[AP]</a></p> +<p>My blood still rushes where my spirit's set,</p> +<p class="i2">As roll the waves before the settled wind;</p> +<p>My heart is feminine, nor can forget—</p> +<p class="i2">To all, except one image, madly blind;</p> +<p>So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,</p> +<p>As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.<a name="FNanchor_AQ" id="FNanchor_AQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AQ" class="fnanchor">[AQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I have no more to say, but linger still,</p> +<p class="i2">And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,</p> +<p>And yet I may as well the task fulfil,</p> +<p class="i2">My misery can scarce be more complete;</p> +<p>I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;</p> +<p class="i2">Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet,</p> +<p>And I must even survive this last adieu,</p> +<p>And bear with life, to love and pray for you!"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This note was written upon gilt-edged paper</p> +<p class="i2">With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_AR" id="FNanchor_AR"></a><a href="#Footnote_AR" class="fnanchor">[AR]</a></p> +<p>Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper,</p> +<p class="i2">It trembled as magnetic needles do,</p> +<p>And yet she did not let one tear escape her;</p> +<p class="i2">The seal a sun-flower; <i>"Elle vous suit partout,"</i><a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> +<p>The motto cut upon a white cornelian;</p> +<p>The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but whether</p> +<p class="i2">I shall proceed with his adventures is</p> +<p>Dependent on the public altogether;</p> +<p class="i2">We'll see, however, what they say to this:</p> +<p>Their favour in an author's cap's a feather,</p> +<p class="i2">And no great mischief's done by their caprice;</p> +<p>And if their approbation we experience,</p> +<p>Perhaps they'll have some more about a year hence.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>My poem's epic, and is meant to be</p> +<p class="i2">Divided in twelve books; each book containing,</p> +<p>With Love, and War, a heavy gale at sea,</p> +<p class="i2">A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,</p> +<p>New characters; the episodes are three:<a name="FNanchor_AS" id="FNanchor_AS"></a><a href="#Footnote_AS" class="fnanchor">[AS]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A panoramic view of Hell's in training,</p> +<p>After the style of Virgil and of Homer,</p> +<p>So that my name of Epic's no misnomer.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All these things will be specified in time,</p> +<p class="i2">With strict regard to Aristotle's rules,</p> +<p>The <i>Vade Mecum</i> of the true sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes so many poets, and some fools:</p> +<p>Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme,</p> +<p class="i2">Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;</p> +<p>I've got new mythological machinery,</p> +<p>And very handsome supernatural scenery.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's only one slight difference between</p> +<p class="i2">Me and my epic brethren gone before,</p> +<p>And here the advantage is my own, I ween</p> +<p class="i2">(Not that I have not several merits more,</p> +<p>But this will more peculiarly be seen);</p> +<p class="i2">They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore</p> +<p>Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,</p> +<p>Whereas this story's actually true.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If any person doubt it, I appeal</p> +<p class="i2">To History, Tradition, and to Facts,</p> +<p>To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,</p> +<p class="i2">To plays in five, and operas in three acts;<a name="FNanchor_AT" id="FNanchor_AT"></a><a href="#Footnote_AT" class="fnanchor">[AT]</a></p> +<p>All these confirm my statement a good deal,</p> +<p class="i2">But that which more completely faith exacts</p> +<p>Is, that myself, and several now in Seville,</p> +<p><i>Saw</i> Juan's last elopement with the Devil.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If ever I should condescend to prose,</p> +<p class="i2">I'll write poetical commandments, which</p> +<p>Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those</p> +<p class="i2">That went before; in these I shall enrich</p> +<p>My text with many things that no one knows,</p> +<p class="i2">And carry precept to the highest pitch:</p> +<p>I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a Bottle,<a name="FNanchor_AU" id="FNanchor_AU"></a><a href="#Footnote_AU" class="fnanchor">[AU]</a></p> +<p>Or, Every Poet his <i>own</i> Aristotle."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;</p> +<p class="i2">Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;</p> +<p>Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,</p> +<p class="i2">The second drunk,<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> the third so quaint and mouthy:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> +<p>With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,</p> +<p class="i2">And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:</p> +<p>Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor</p> +<p>Commit—flirtation with the muse of Moore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse,</p> +<p class="i2">His Pegasus, nor anything that's his;</p> +<p>Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"—</p> +<p class="i2">(There's <i>one</i>, at least, is very fond of this);</p> +<p>Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:</p> +<p class="i2">This is true criticism, and you may kiss—</p> +<p>Exactly as you please, or not,—the rod;</p> +<p>But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G—d!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If any person should presume to assert</p> +<p class="i2">This story is not moral, first, I pray,</p> +<p>That they will not cry out before they're hurt,</p> +<p class="i2">Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say</p> +<p>(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)</p> +<p class="i2">That this is not a moral tale, though gay:</p> +<p>Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show</p> +<p>The very place where wicked people go.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If, after all, there should be some so blind</p> +<p class="i2">To their own good this warning to despise,</p> +<p>Led by some tortuosity of mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,</p> +<p>And cry that they "the moral cannot find,"</p> +<p class="i2">I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;</p> +<p>Should captains the remark, or critics, make,</p> +<p>They also lie too—under a mistake.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The public approbation I expect,</p> +<p class="i2">And beg they'll take my word about the moral,</p> +<p>Which I with their amusement will connect</p> +<p class="i2">(So children cutting teeth receive a coral);</p> +<p>Meantime they'll doubtless please to recollect</p> +<p class="i2">My epical pretensions to the laurel:</p> +<p>For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,</p> +<p>I've bribed my Grandmother's Review—the British.<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I sent it in a letter to the Editor,</p> +<p class="i2">Who thanked me duly by return of post—</p> +<p>I'm for a handsome article his creditor;</p> +<p class="i2">Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,</p> +<p>And break a promise after having made it her,</p> +<p class="i2">Denying the receipt of what it cost,</p> +<p>And smear his page with gall instead of honey,</p> +<p>All I can say is—that he had the money.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think that with this holy <i>new</i> alliance</p> +<p class="i2">I may ensure the public, and defy</p> +<p>All other magazines of art or science,</p> +<p class="i2">Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I</p> +<p>Have not essayed to multiply their clients,</p> +<p class="i2">Because they tell me 't were in vain to try,</p> +<p>And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly</p> +<p>Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CCXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventâ</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Consule Planco</i>"<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Horace said, and so</p> +<p>Say I; by which quotation there is meant a</p> +<p class="i2">Hint that some six or seven good years ago</p> +<p>(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)</p> +<p class="i2">I was most ready to return a blow,</p> +<p>And would not brook at all this sort of thing</p> +<p>In my hot youth—when George the Third was King.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But now at thirty years my hair is grey—</p> +<p class="i2">(I wonder what it will be like at forty?</p> +<p>I thought of a peruke the other day—)<a name="FNanchor_AV" id="FNanchor_AV"></a><a href="#Footnote_AV" class="fnanchor">[AV]</a></p> +<p class="i2">My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I</p> +<p>Have squandered my whole summer while 't was May,</p> +<p class="i2">And feel no more the spirit to retort; I</p> +<p>Have spent my life, both interest and principal,</p> +<p>And deem not, what I deemed—my soul invincible.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No more—no more—Oh! never more on me</p> +<p class="i2">The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,</p> +<p>Which out of all the lovely things we see</p> +<p class="i2">Extracts emotions beautiful and new,</p> +<p>Hived<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee.</p> +<p class="i2">Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?</p> +<p>Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power</p> +<p>To double even the sweetness of a flower.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No more—no more—Oh! never more, my heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!</p> +<p>Once all in all, but now a thing apart,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:</p> +<p>The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art</p> +<p class="i2">Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> +<p>And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment,</p> +<p>Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>My days of love are over; me no more<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,</p> +<p>Can make the fool of which they made before,—</p> +<p class="i2">In short, I must not lead the life I did do;</p> +<p>The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,</p> +<p class="i2">The copious use of claret is forbid too,</p> +<p>So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,</p> +<p>I think I must take up with avarice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ambition was my idol, which was broken</p> +<p class="i2">Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;</p> +<p>And the two last have left me many a token</p> +<p class="i2">O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:</p> +<p>Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, I've spoken,</p> +<p class="i2">"Time is, Time was, Time's past:"<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>—a chymic treasure</p> +<p>Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes—</p> +<p>My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill</p> +<p class="i2">A certain portion of uncertain paper:</p> +<p>Some liken it to climbing up a hill,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_92" id="FNanchor_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> +<p>For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,</p> +<p class="i2">And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"</p> +<p>To have, when the original is dust,</p> +<p>A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.<a name="FNanchor_AW" id="FNanchor_AW"></a><a href="#Footnote_AW" class="fnanchor">[AW]</a><a name="FNanchor_93" id="FNanchor_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King</p> +<p class="i2">Cheops erected the first Pyramid</p> +<p>And largest, thinking it was just the thing</p> +<p class="i2">To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;</p> +<p>But somebody or other rummaging,</p> +<p class="i2">Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:</p> +<p>Let not a monument give you or me hopes,</p> +<p>Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.<a name="FNanchor_94" id="FNanchor_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I, being fond of true philosophy,</p> +<p class="i2">Say very often to myself, "Alas!</p> +<p>All things that have been born were born to die,</p> +<p class="i2">And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;</p> +<p>You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,</p> +<p class="i2">And if you had it o'er again—'t would pass—</p> +<p>So thank your stars that matters are no worse,</p> +<p>And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse."</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CCXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But for the present, gentle reader! and</p> +<p class="i2">Still gentler purchaser! the Bard—that's I—</p> +<p>Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,<a name="FNanchor_AX" id="FNanchor_AX"></a><a href="#Footnote_AX" class="fnanchor">[AX]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And so—"your humble servant, and Good-bye!"</p> +<p>We meet again, if we should understand</p> +<p class="i2">Each other; and if not, I shall not try</p> +<p>Your patience further than by this short sample—</p> +<p>'T were well if others followed my example.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Go, little Book, from this my solitude!</p> +<p class="i2">I cast thee on the waters—go thy ways!</p> +<p>And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,</p> +<p class="i2">The World will find thee after many days."<a name="FNanchor_95" id="FNanchor_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> +<p>When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood,</p> +<p class="i2">I can't help putting in my claim to praise—</p> +<p>The four first rhymes are Southey's every line:</p> +<p>For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.</p> +</div></div> + +<p>Nov. 1, 1818.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <a name="Note_11" id="Note_11"></a>{11}[Begun at Venice, September 6; finished November 1, +1818.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> [The pantomime which Byron and his readers "all had seen," +was an abbreviated and bowdlerized version of Shadwell's <i>Libertine</i>. +"First produced by Mr. Garrick on the boards of Drury Lane Theatre," it +was recomposed by Charles Anthony Delpini, and performed at the Royalty +Theatre, in Goodman's Fields, in 1787. It was entitled <i>Don Juan; or, +The Libertine Destroyed</i>: A Tragic Pantomimical Entertainment, In Two +Acts. Music Composed by Mr. Gluck. "Scaramouch," the "Sganarelle" of +Molière's <i>Festin de Pierre</i>, was a favourite character of Joseph +Grimaldi. He was cast for the part, in 1801, at Sadler's Wells, and, +again, on a memorable occasion, November 28, 1809, at Covent Garden +Theatre, when the O.P. riots were in full swing, and (see the <i>Morning +Chronicle</i>, November 29, 1809) "there was considerable tumult in the +pit." According to "Boz" (<i>Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi</i>, 1846, ii. 81, +106, 107), Byron patronized Grimaldi's "benefits at Covent Garden," was +repeatedly in his company, and when he left England, in 1816, "presented +him with a valuable silver snuff-box." At the end of the pantomime "the +Furies gather round him [Don Juan], and the Tyrant being bound in chains +is hurried away and thrown into flames." The Devil is conspicuous by his +absence.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <a name="Note_12" id="Note_12"></a>{12}[Edward Vernon, Admiral (1684-1757), took Porto Bello +in 1739. +</p><p> +William Augustus, second son of George II. (1721-1765), fought at the +battles of Dettingen, 1743; Fontenoy, 1745; and at Culloden, 1746. For +the "severity of the Duke of Cumberland," see Scott's <i>Tales of a +Grandfather</i>, <i>Prose Works</i>, 1830, vii. 852, <i>sq</i>. +</p><p> +James Wolfe, General, born January 2, 1726, was killed at the siege of +Quebec, September 13, 1759. +</p><p> +Edward, Lord Hawke, Admiral (1715-1781), totally defeated the French +fleet in Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759. +</p><p> +Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1721-1792), gained the victory at Minden, +August 1, 1759. +</p><p> +John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721-1790), commanded the British +forces in Germany (1766-1769). +</p><p> +John Burgoyne, General, defeated the Americans at Germantown, October 3, +1777, but surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, October 17, 1778. He +died in 1792. +</p><p> +Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral (1725-1786), was tried by +court-martial, January-February, 1779, for allowing the French fleet off +Ushant to escape, July, 1778. He was honourably acquitted. +</p><p> +Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral (1725-1799), known by the sailors as "Black +Dick," defeated the French off Ushant, June 1, 1794.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> [Compare <i>Macbeth</i>, act iv. sc. i, line 65.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> ["In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Hazlitt's +canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution (<i>The English +Poets</i>, 1870, pp. 203, 204), I am accused of having 'lauded Buonaparte +to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly wreaking my +disappointment on the god of my idolatry.' The first lines I ever wrote +upon Buonaparte were the 'Ode to Napoleon,' after his abdication in +1814. All that I have ever written on that subject has been done since +his decline;—I never 'met him in the hour of his success.' I have +considered his character at different periods, in its strength and in +its weakness: by his zealots I am accused of injustice—by his enemies +as his warmest partisan, in many publications, both English and foreign. +</p><p> +"For the accuracy of my delineation I have high authority. A year and +some months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing at Venice my friend the +honourable Douglas Kinnaird. In his way through Germany, he told me that +he had been honoured with a presentation to, and some interviews with, +one of the nearest family connections of Napoleon (Eugène Beauharnais). +During one of these, he read and translated the lines alluding to +Buonaparte, in the Third Canto of <i>Childe Harold</i>. He informed me, that +he was authorized by the illustrious personage—(still recognized as +such by the Legitimacy in Europe)—to whom they were read, to say, <i>that +'the delineation was complete,'</i> or words to this effect. It is no +puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact;—but Mr. Hazlitt +accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will +admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family +connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the +subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt that I never flattered Napoleon on the +throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are the +incredible antitheses of his character. +</p><p> +"Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating <i>myself</i> in <i>Childe +Harold</i>, etc., etc. I have denied this long ago—but, even were it true, +Locke tells us, that all his knowledge of human understanding was +derived from studying his own mind. From Mr. Hazlitt's opinion of my +poetry I do not appeal; but I request that gentleman not to insult me by +imputing the basest of crimes,—viz. 'praising publicly the same man +whom I wished to depreciate in his adversity:'—the <i>first</i> lines I ever +wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,—the <i>last</i>, though +not at all in his favour, were more impartial and discriminative, in +1818. Has he become more fortunate since 1814?" For Byron's various +estimates of Napoleon's character and career, see <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto +III, stanza xxxvi. line 7, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 238, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <a name="Note_13" id="Note_13"></a>{13}[Charles François Duperier Dumouriez (1739-1823) +defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, November 6, 1792, etc. He published +his <i>Mémoires</i> (Hamburg et Leipsic), 1794. For the spelling, see +<i>Memoirs of General Dumourier</i>, written by himself, translated by John +Fenwick. London, 1794. See, too, <i>Lettre de Joseph Servan</i>, Ex-ministre +de la Guerre, <i>Sur le mémoire lu par M. Dumourier le 13 Juin à +l'Assemblée Nationale; Bibiothèque Historique de la Révolution</i>, +"Justifications," 7, 8, 9.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> [Antoine Pierre Joseph Barnave, born 1761, was appointed +President of the Constituent Assembly in 1790. He was guillotined +November 30, 1793. +</p><p> +Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville, philosopher and politician, born +January 14, 1754, was one of the principal instigators of the revolt of +the Champ de Mars, July, 1789. He was guillotined October 31, 1793. +</p><p> +Marie Jean Antoine, Marquis de Condorcet, born September 17, 1743, was +appointed President of the Legislative Assembly in 1792. Proscribed by +the Girondins, he poisoned himself to escape the guillotine, March 28, +1794. +</p><p> +Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, born March 9, 1749, died +April 2, 1791. +</p><p> +Jérôme Petion de Villeneuve, born 1753, Mayor of Paris in 1791, took an +active part in the imprisonment of the king. In 1793 he fell under +Robespierre's displeasure, and to escape proscription took refuge in the +department of Calvados. In 1794 his body was found in a field, half +eaten by wolves. +</p><p> +Jean Baptiste, Baron de Clootz (better known as Anacharsis Clootz), was +born in 1755. In 1790, at the bar of the National Convention, he +described himself as the "Speaker of Mankind." Being suspected by +Robespierre, he was condemned to death, March 24, 1794. On the scaffold +he begged to be executed last, "in order to establish certain +principles." (See Carlyle's <i>French Revolution</i>, 1839, iii. 315.) +</p><p> +Georges Jacques Danton, born October 28, 1759, helped to establish the +Revolutionary Tribunal, March 10, and the Committee of Public Safety, +April 6, 1793; agreed to proscription of the Girondists, June, 1793; was +executed with Camille Desmoulins and others, April 5, 1794. +</p><p> +Jean Paul Marat, born May 24, 1744, physician and man of science, +proposed and carried out the wholesale massacre of September 2-5, 1792; +was denounced to, but acquitted by, the Revolutionary Tribunal, May, +1793; assassinated by Charlotte Corday, July 13, 1793. +</p><p> +Marie Jean Paul, Marquis de La Fayette, born September 6, 1757, died May +19, 1834. +</p><p> +With the exception of La Fayette, who outlived Byron by ten years, and +Lord St. Vincent, all "the famous persons" mentioned in stanzas ii.-iv. +had passed away long before the First Canto of <i>Don Juan</i> was written.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <a name="Note_14" id="Note_14"></a>{14}[Barthélemi Catherine Joubert, born April 14, 1769, +distinguished himself at the engagements of Cava, Montebello, Rivoli, +and in the Tyrol. He was afterwards sent to oppose Suvóroff, and was +killed at Novi, August 15, 1799. +</p><p> +For Hoche and Marceau, <i>vide ante, Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 296. +</p><p> +Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello, born April 11, 1769, distinguished +himself at Lodi, Aboukir, Acre, Austerlitz, Jena and, lastly, at +Essling, where he was mortally wounded. He died May 31, 1809. +</p><p> +Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Voygoux, born August 27, 1768, won the +victory at the Pyramids, July 21, 1798. He was mortally wounded at +Marengo, June 14, 1800. +</p><p> +Jean Victor Moreau, born August 11, 1763, was victorious at Engen, May +3, and at Hohenlinden, December 3, 1800. He was struck by a cannon-ball +at the battle of Dresden, August 27, and died September 2, 1813.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <a name="Note_15" id="Note_15"></a>{15}[Hor., <i>Od.</i>, iv. c. ix. 1. 25— +</p> +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<p>"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," etc.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> [Hor., <i>Epist. Ad Pisones</i>, lines 148, 149— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res,</p> +<p>Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit—"]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> ["Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <a name="Note_16" id="Note_16"></a>{16} [In his reply to <i>Blackwood</i> (No. xxix. August, +1819), Byron somewhat disingenuously rebuts the charge that <i>Don Juan</i> +contained "an elaborate satire on the character and manners of his +wife." "If," he writes, "in a poem by no means ascertained to be my +production there appears a disagreeable, casuistical, and by no means +respectable female pedant, it is set down for my wife. Is there any +resemblance? If there be, it is in those who make it—I can see +none."—Letters, 1900, iv. 477. The allusions in stanzas xii.-xiv., and, +again, in stanzas xxvii.-xxix., are, and must have been meant to be, +unmistakable.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> [Gregor von Feinagle, born? 1765, was the inventor of a +system of mnemonics, "founded on the topical memory of the ancients," as +described by Cicero and Quinctilian. He lectured, in 1811, at the Royal +Institution and elsewhere. When Rogers was asked if he attended the +lectures, he replied, "No; I wished to learn the Art of Forgetting" +(<i>Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers</i>, 1856, p. 42).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A" id="Footnote_A"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> <a name="Note_17" id="Note_17"></a>{17} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Little she spoke—but what she spoke was Attic all</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>With words and deeds in perfect unanimity.</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> [Sir Samuel Romilly, born 1757, lost his wife on the 29th +of October, and committed suicide on the 2nd of November, 1818.—"But +there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. +I have at least seen Romilly shivered, who was one of the assassins. +When that felon or lunatic ... was doing his worst to uproot my whole +family, tree, branch, and blossoms—when, after taking my retainer, he +went over to them [see <i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 324]—when he was bringing +desolation ... on my household gods—did he think that, in less than +three years, a natural event—a severe, domestic, but an unexpected and +common calamity—would lay his carcase in a cross-road, or stamp his +name in a verdict of Lunacy! Did he (who in his drivelling sexagenary +dotage had not the courage to survive his Nurse—for what else was a +wife to him at his time of life?)—reflect or consider what <i>my</i> +feelings must have been, when wife, and child, and sister, and name, and +fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar,—and this +at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my +mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment—while I was yet +young, and might have reformed what might be wrong in my conduct, and +retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs! But the wretch is in his +grave," etc.-Letter to Murray, June 7, 1819, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 316.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> [Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) published <i>Castle Rackrent</i>, +etc., etc., etc., in 1800. "In 1813," says Byron, "I recollect to have +met them [the Edgeworths] in the fashionable world of London.... She was +a nice little unassuming 'Jeannie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch say; +and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking" (<i>Diary</i>, January 19, +1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 177-179).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> [Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) published, in 1782, <i>Easy +Introduction to the Study of Nature</i>; <i>History of the Robins</i> (dedicated +to the Princess Sophia) in 1786, etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> [Hannah More (1745-1833) published <i>Coelebs in Search of a +Wife</i> in 1809.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> [Pope, <i>Rape of the Lock</i>, Canto II, line 17.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <a name="Note_19" id="Note_19"></a>{19} [John Harrison (1693-1776), known as "Longitude" +Harrison, was the inventor of watch compensation. He received, in slowly +and reluctantly paid instalments, a sum of £20,000 from the Government, +for producing a chronometer which should determine the longitude within +half a degree. A watch which contained his latest improvements was worn +by Captain Cook during his three years' circumnavigation of the globe.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> "Description des <i>vertus incomparables</i> de l'Huile de +Macassar." See the Advertisement. [<i>An Historical, Philosophical and +Practical Essay on the Human Hair</i>, was published by Alexander Rowland, +jun., in 1816. It was inscribed, "To her Royal Highness the Princess +Charlotte of Wales and Cobourg."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B" id="Footnote_B"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> <i>Where all was innocence and quiet bliss</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C" id="Footnote_C"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> <i>And so she seemed, in all outside formalities</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> ["'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him +with his lady's fan."—I <i>Henry IV.</i>, act ii, sc 3, lines 19, 20.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D" id="Footnote_D"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> <a name="Note_21" id="Note_21"></a>{21}<i>Wishing each other damned, divorced, or dead</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> [According to Medwin (<i>Conversations</i>, 1824, p. 55), Byron +"was surprised one day by a Doctor and a Lawyer almost forcing +themselves at the same time into my room. I did not know," he adds, +"till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their +questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not +impertinent: but what should I have thought, if I had known that they +were sent to provide proofs of my insanity?" Lady Byron, in her <i>Remarks +on Mr. Moore's Life, etc</i>. (<i>Life</i>, pp. 661-663), says that Dr. Baillie +(<i>vide post</i>, <a href="#Footnote_545">p. 412, note 2</a>), whom she consulted with regard to her +husband's supposed insanity, "not having had access to Lord Byron, could +not pronounce a positive opinion on this point." It appears, however, +that another doctor, a Mr. Le Mann (see <i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 293, note +1, 295, 299, etc.), visited Byron professionally, and reported on his +condition to Lady Byron. Hence, perhaps, the mention of "druggists."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <a name="Note_22" id="Note_22"></a>{22}["I deem it <i>my duty to God</i> to act as I am +acting."—Letter of Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh, February 14, 1816, +<i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 311.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> ["This is so very pointed."—[?Hobhouse.] "If people make +application, it is their own fault."—[B.].—[<i>Revise.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> ["There is some doubt about this."—[H.] "What has the +'doubt' to do with the poem? it is, at least, poetically true. Why apply +everything to that absurd woman? I have no reference to living +characters."—[B.].—[<i>Revise.</i>] Medwin (<i>Conversations</i>, 1824, p. 54) +attributes the "breaking open my writing-desk" to Mrs. Charlment (i.e. +Mrs. Clermont) the original of "A Sketch," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. +540-544. It is evident from Byron's reply to Hobhouse's remonstrance +that Medwin did not invent this incident, but that some one, perhaps +Fletcher's wife, had told him that his papers had been overhauled.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E" id="Footnote_E"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> <a name="Note_23" id="Note_23"></a>{23}<i>First their friends tried at reconciliation</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F" id="Footnote_F"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> <i>The lawyers recommended a divorce</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G" id="Footnote_G"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> +<a name="Note_24" id="Note_24"></a>{24}</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td><i>He had been ill brought up,</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>besides was<br />besides being</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>bilious.</i></td> +</tr></table> +<p>or, <i>The reason was, perhaps, that he was bilious</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H" id="Footnote_H"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> +</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td><i>And we may own—since he is</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>now but<br />laid in</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>earth.—[MS.]</i></td> +</tr></table> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> ["I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl,—any thing +but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my +hearth, with my household gods shivered around me.... Do you suppose I +have forgotten it? It has, comparatively swallowed up in me every other +feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold opportunity +offers."—Letter to Moore, September 19, 1818, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv, 262, +263. Compare, too— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I had one only fount of quiet left,</p> +<p>And <i>that</i> they poisoned! My pure household gods</p> +<p>Were shivered on my hearth, and o'er their shrine</p> +<p>Sate grinning Ribaldry and sneering Scorn."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Marino Faliero</i>, act iii. sc. II, lines 361-364.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I" id="Footnote_I"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> +<a name="Note_25" id="Note_25"></a>{25}</p> + +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td><i>Save death or</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>litigation—<br />banishment—</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>so he died</i>.—[MS.]</td> +</tr></table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <a name="Note_26" id="Note_26"></a>{26}[Compare Leigh Hunt on the illustrations to Andrew +Tooke's <i>Pantheon</i>: "I see before me, as vividly now as ever, his Mars +and Apollo ... and Venus very handsome, we thought, and not looking too +modest in a 'light cymar.'"—<i>Autobiography</i>, 1860, p. 75.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J" id="Footnote_J"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> +<i>Defending still their Iliads and Odysseys</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> +See Longinus, Section 10, +<span title="I(/na mê\ e(/n ti peri\">"Ἵνα μὴ ἕν τι περὶ</span> +<span title="au)tê\n pa/thos phai/nêtai,">αὐτὴν πάθος φαίνηται,</span> +<span title="pathô~n de\ sy/nodos.">παθῶν δὲ σύνοδος.</span> +</p> +<p> +["The effect desired is that not one passion only should be seen in her, +but a concourse of passions" (<i>Longinis on the Sublime</i>, by W. Rhys +Roberts, 1899, pp. 70, 71). +</p><p> +The Ode alluded to is the famous +<span title="Phai/netai/ moi kê~nos i)/sos theoi~sin, k.t.l.">Φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν, +κ.τ.λ</span>. +</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Him rival to the gods I place;</p> +<p class="i4">Him loftier yet, if loftier be,</p> +<p>Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,</p> +<p class="i4">Who listens and who looks on thee."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">W.E. Gladstone.</p> +<p> +"I do not think you are quite held out by the quotation. Longinus says +the circumstantial assemblage of the passions makes the sublime; he does +not talk of the sublime being soaring and ample."—[H.] "I do not care +for this—it must stand."—[B.]—[<i>Marginal notes in Revise.</i>]]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> [<i>Bucol.</i>, Ecl. ii. "Alexis."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K" id="Footnote_K"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> +<a name="Note_27" id="Note_27"></a>{27}</p> +<table class="variant"> +<tr> +<td><i>Too much their</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:300%">{</span></td> +<td><i>antique<br />modest<br />downright</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:300%">}</span></td> +<td><i>bard by the</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:300%">{</span></td> +<td><i>elision<br /> <br />omission</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:300%">}</span></td> +<td>—[MS.] +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Fact! There is, or was, such an edition, with all the +obnoxious epigrams of Martial placed by themselves at the end. +</p><p> +[In the Delphin <i>Martial</i> (Amsterdam, 1701) the <i>Epigrammata Obscaena</i> +are printed as an Appendix (pp. 2-56), "[Ne] quiequam desideraretur a +morosis quibusdam hominibus."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <a name="Note_28" id="Note_28"></a>{28} See his <i>Confessions</i>, lib. i. cap. ix.; [lib. ii. +cap. ii., <i>et passim</i>]. By the representation which Saint Augustine +gives of himself in his youth, it is easy to see that he was what we +should call a rake. He avoided the school as the plague; he loved +nothing but gaming and public shows; he robbed his father of everything +he could find; he invented a thousand lies to escape the rod, which they +were obliged to make use of to punish his irregularities. </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <a name="Note_30" id="Note_30"></a>{30}[Byron's early letters are full of complaints of his +mother's violent temper. See, for instance, letter to the Hon. Augusta +Byron, April 23, 1805. In another letter to John M.B. Pigot, August 9, +1806, he speaks of her as "Mrs. Byron '<i>furiosa</i>'" (<i>Letters</i>, 1898, i. +60, 101).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> ["Having surrendered the last symbol of power, the +unfortunate Boabdil continued on towards the Alpuxarras, that he might +not behold the entrance of the Christians into his capital.... Having +ascended an eminence commanding the last view of Granada, the Moors +paused involuntarily to take a farewell gaze at their beloved city, +which a few steps more would shut from their sight for ever.... The +heart of Boabdil, softened by misfortunes, and overcharged with grief, +could no longer contain itself. 'Allah achbar! God is great!' said he; +but the words of resignation died upon his lips, and he burst into a +flood of tears."—<i>Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada</i>, by Washington +Irving, 1829, ii. 379-381.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L" id="Footnote_L"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> <a name="Note_31" id="Note_31"></a>{31} +</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td><i>I'll tell you a secret—</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>silence! hush!<br />which you'll hush</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td>.—[MS.]</td> +</tr></table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M" id="Footnote_M"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> +<a name="Note_32" id="Note_32"></a>{32}</p> +<table class="variant"> +<tr> +<td colspan="5" style="text-align:left"><i>Spouses from twenty years of age to thirty</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><i>Are most admired by women of</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>strict<br />staid</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>virtue</i>.—[MS.]</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> For the particulars of St. Anthony's recipe for hot blood +in cold weather, see Mr. Alban Butler's <i>Lives of the Saints</i>. +</p><p> +["I am not sure it was not St. Francis who had the wife of snow—in that +case the line must run, 'St. Francis back to reason.'"—[<i>MS. M.</i>] +</p><p> +For the seven snow-balls, of which "the greatest" was his wife, see Life +of "St. Francis of Assisi" (<i>The Golden Legend</i> (edited by F.S. Ellis), +1900, v. 221). See, too, <i>the Lives of the Saints, etc.</i>, by the Rev. +Alban Butler, 1838, ii. 574.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <a name="Note_34" id="Note_34"></a>{34}[The sorceress in Tasso's <i>Gerusalemme Liberata</i>. The +story of Armida and Rinaldo forms the plot of operas by Glück and +Rossini.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a><a name="Note_35" id="Note_35"></a>{35} <i>Thinking God might not understand the case</i>.—[MS. +M., Revise.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> +<a name="Note_36" id="Note_36"></a>{36}</p> +<p>["Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante." +Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, canto v. line 138.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <a name="Note_37" id="Note_37"></a>{37} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13">["Conscienzia m'assicura,</p> +<p>La buona compagnia che l'uom francheggia</p> +<p>Sotto l'osbergo del sentirsi pura."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Inferno</i>, canto xxviii, lines 115-117.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N" id="Footnote_N"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> <i>Deemed that her thoughts no more required +control</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <a name="Note_38" id="Note_38"></a>{38}[See Ovid, <i>Metamorph</i>., vii. 9, sq.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <a name="Note_39" id="Note_39"></a>{39}Campbell's <i>Gertrude of Wyoming</i>—(I think)—the +opening of Canto Second [Part III. stanza i. lines 1-4]—but quote from +memory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> [See Coleridge's <i>Biographia Literaria</i>, chap. i. (ed. +1847, i. 14, 15); and <i>Dejection: An Ode</i>, lines 86-93.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_O" id="Footnote_O"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O"><span class="label">[O]</span></a> <a name="Note_40" id="Note_40"></a>{40} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>I say this by the way—so don't look stern</i>.</p> +<p class="i2"><i>But if you're angry, reader, pass it by</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> [Juan Boscan, of Barcelona (1500-1544), in concert with +his friend Garcilasso, Italianized Castilian poetry. He was the author +of the <i>Leandro</i>, a poem in blank verse, of canzoni, and sonnets after +the model of Petrarch, and of <i>The Allegory</i>.—<i>History of Spanish +Literature</i>, by George Ticknor, 1888, i. 513.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> [Garcias Lasso or Garcilasso de la Vega (1503-1536), of a +noble family at Toledo, was a warrior as well as a poet, "now seizing on +the sword and now the pen." After serving with distinction in Germany, +Africa, and Provence, he was killed at Muy, near Frejus, in 1536, by a +stone, thrown from a tower, which fell on his head as he was leading on +his battalion. He was the author of thirty-seven sonnets, five canzoni, +and three pastorals.—<i>Vide ibidem</i>, pp. 522-535.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_P" id="Footnote_P"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P"><span class="label">[P]</span></a> <a name="Note_42" id="Note_42"></a>{42} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>A real wittol always is suspicious</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>But always also hunts in the wrong place</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Q" id="Footnote_Q"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q"><span class="label">[Q]</span></a> <a name="Note_43" id="Note_43"></a>{43}<i>Change horses every hour from night till +noon</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_R" id="Footnote_R"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R"><span class="label">[R]</span></a> <i>Except the promises of true theology</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Oh, Susan! I've said, in the moments of mirth,</p> +<p class="i2">What's devotion to thee or to me?</p> +<p>I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth,</p> +<p class="i2">And believe that <i>that</i> heaven's in <i>thee.</i>"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">"The Catalogue," <i>Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little</i>, 1803, p. 128.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_S" id="Footnote_S"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S"><span class="label">[S]</span></a> <a name="Note_44" id="Note_44"></a>{44} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>She stood on Guilt's steep brink, in all the sense</i></p> +<p><i>And full security of Innocence</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_T" id="Footnote_T"></a><a href="#FNanchor_T"><span class="label">[T]</span></a> <a name="Note_45" id="Note_45"></a>{45}<i>To leave these two young people then and +there.—[MS.]</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <a name="Note_46" id="Note_46"></a>{46} ["Age Xerxes.. eo usque luxuria gaudens, ut edicto +præmium ei proponeret, qui novum voluptatis genus reperisset."—Val. +Max, <i>De Dictis, etc.</i>, lib. ix. cap. 1, ext. 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> ["You certainly will be damned for all this +scene."—[H.]]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <a name="Note_48" id="Note_48"></a>{48}[Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto IV. stanza iii. line +2, <i>Poetical Works</i>, ii. 329, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_U" id="Footnote_U"></a><a href="#FNanchor_U"><span class="label">[U]</span></a> <i>Our coming, nor look brightly till we come</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_V" id="Footnote_V"></a><a href="#FNanchor_V"><span class="label">[V]</span></a> <i>Sweet is a lawsuit to the attorney—sweet, etc</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> [So, too, Falstaff, <i>Henry IV.</i>, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79, +80.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_W" id="Footnote_W"></a><a href="#FNanchor_W"><span class="label">[W]</span></a> +<a name="Note_49" id="Note_49"></a>{49} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Who've made us wait—God knows how long already,</i></p> +<p><i>For an entailed estate, or country-seat,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Wishing them not exactly damned, but dead—he</i></p> +<p><i>Knows nought of grief, who has not so been worried—</i></p> +<p><i>'T is strange old people don't like to be buried</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> [Byron has not been forgotten at Harrow, though it is a +bend of the Cam (Byron's Pool), not his favourite Duck Pool (now +"Ducker") which bears his name.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <a name="Note_50" id="Note_50"></a>{50} [The reference is to the metallic tractors of +Benjamin Charles Perkins, which were advertised as a "cure for all +disorders, Red Noses," etc. Compare <i>English Bards, etc.</i>, lines 131, +132— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!</p> +<p>The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">See <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 307, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> [Edward Jenner (1749-1823) made his first experiments in +vaccination, May 14, 1796. Napoleon caused his soldiers to be +vaccinated, and imagined that the English would be gratified by his +recognition of Jenner's discovery. +</p><p> +Sir William Congreve (1772-1828) invented "Congreve rockets" or shells +in 1804. They were used with great effect at the battle of Leipzig, in +1813.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> ["Mon cher ne touchez pas à la petite +Vérole."—[H.]—[Revise.]]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> [Experiments in galvanism were made on the body of Forster +the murderer, by Galvani's nephew, Professor Aldini, January and +February, 1803.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> ["Put out these lines, and keep the +others."—[H.]—[<i>Revise.</i>]]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> <a name="Note_51" id="Note_51"></a>{51} [Sir Humphry Davy, P.R.S. (1778-1829), invented the +safety-lamp in 1815.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> [In a critique of <i>An Account of the Empire of +Marocco</i>.... <i>To which is added an</i> ... <i>account of Tombuctoo, the great +Emporium of Central Africa,</i> by James Grey Jackson, London, 1809, the +reviewer comments on the author's pedantry in correcting "the common +orthography of African names." "We do not," he writes, "greatly object +to ... <i>Fas</i> for <i>Fez,</i> or even <i>Timbuctoo</i> for <i>Tombuctoo,</i> but +<i>Marocco</i> for <i>Morocco</i> is a little too much."—<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, +July, 1809 vol. xiv. p. 307.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> [Sir John Ross (1777-1856) published <i>A Voyage of +Discovery</i> ... <i>for the purpose of Exploring Baffin's Bay, etc.,</i> in +1819; Sir W.E. Parry (1790-1855) published his <i>Journal of a Voyage of +Discovery to the Arctic Regions between 4th April and 18th November</i>, +1818, in 1820.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_X" id="Footnote_X"></a><a href="#FNanchor_X"><span class="label">[X]</span></a> <i>Not only pleasure's sin, but sin's a pleasure</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Y" id="Footnote_Y"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Y"><span class="label">[Y]</span></a> <i>And lose in shining snow their summits blue</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Z" id="Footnote_Z"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Z"><span class="label">[Z]</span></a> <i>'Twas midnight—dark and sombre was the night, +etc</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AA" id="Footnote_AA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AA"><span class="label">[AA]</span></a> <i>And supper, punch, ghost-stories, and such chat</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> ["'All that, Egad,' as Bayes says" [in the Duke of +Buckingham's play <i>The Rehearsal</i>].—Letter to Murray, September 28, +1820, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 80.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> ["Lobster-sallad, <i>not</i> a lobster-salad. Have you been at +a London <i>ball</i>, and not known a Lobster-<i>sallad?</i>"—[H.]—[<i>Revise.</i>] +]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> ["To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over +<i>Don Juan</i>, she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th stanza of the First +Canto, and asked me what it meant. I told her, 'Nothing,—but your +husband is coming.' As I said this in Italian with some emphasis, she +started up in a fright, and said, <i>'Oh, my God, is</i> he <i>coming?'</i> +thinking it was <i>her own</i>....You may suppose we laughed when she found +out the mistake. You will be amused, as I was;—it happened not three +hours ago."—Letter to Murray, November 8, 1819, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. +374. +</p><p> +It should be borne in mind that the loves of Juan and Julia, the +irruption of Don Alfonso, etc., were rather of the nature of prophecy +than of reminiscence. The First Canto had been completed before the +Countess Guiccioli appeared on the scene.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AB" id="Footnote_AB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AB"><span class="label">[AB]</span></a> <i>And thus as 'twere herself from out them crept</i>.—[MS. +M.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AC" id="Footnote_AC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AC"><span class="label">[AC]</span></a> +<a name="Note_54" id="Note_54"></a>{54}<i>Ere I the wife of such a man had been!</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AD" id="Footnote_AD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AD"><span class="label">[AD]</span></a> <a name="Note_55" id="Note_55"></a>{55}<i>But while this search was making, Julia's +tongue</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> The Spanish "Cortejo" is much the same as the Italian +"Cavalier Servente."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <a name="Note_56" id="Note_56"></a>{56}Donna Julia here made a mistake. Count O'Reilly did +not take Algiers—but Algiers very nearly took him: he and his army and +fleet retreated with great loss, and not much credit, from before that +city, in the year 1775. +</p><p> +[Alexander O'Reilly, born 1722, a Spanish general of Irish extraction, +failed in an expedition against Algiers in 1775, in which the Spaniards +lost four thousand men. In 1794 he was appointed commander-in-chief of +the forces equipped against the army of the French National Convention. +He died March 23, 1794.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> [The Italian names have an obvious signification.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AE" id="Footnote_AE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AE"><span class="label">[AE]</span></a> <i>The chimney—fit retreat for any lover!</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AF" id="Footnote_AF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AF"><span class="label">[AF]</span></a> <a name="Note_58" id="Note_58"></a>{58}—— <i>may deplore</i>.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <a name="Note_59" id="Note_59"></a>{59}["Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh" +(<i>Job</i> ii. 10).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> ["Don't be read aloud."—[H.]—[<i>Revise.</i>]]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AG" id="Footnote_AG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AG"><span class="label">[AG]</span></a> <a name="Note_60" id="Note_60"></a>{60} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i15">—— <i>than be put</i></p> +<p><i>To drown with Clarence in his Malmsey butt</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AH" id="Footnote_AH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AH"><span class="label">[AH]</span></a> <i>And reckon up our balance with the devil</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> <a name="Note_62" id="Note_62"></a>{62}["Carissimo, do review the whole scene, and think what +you would say of it, if written by another."—[H.] "I would say, read +'The Miracle' ['A Tale from Boccace'] in Hobhouse's poems, and 'January +and May,' and 'Paulo Purganti,' and 'Hans Carvel,' and 'Joconde.' +<i>These</i> are laughable: it is the <i>serious</i>—Little's poems and <i>Lalla +Rookh</i>—that affect seriously. Now Lust is a serious passion, and cannot +be excited by the ludicrous."—[B.]—<i>Marginal Notes in Revise</i>.] +</p><p> +For the "Miracle," see <i>Imitations and Translations</i>, 1809, pp. +111-128. "January and May" is Pope's version of Chaucer's <i>Merchant's +Tale</i>. "Paulo Purganti" and "Hans Carvel" are by Matthew Prior; and for +"Joconde" (<i>Nouvelle Tirée de L'Ariosto</i>, canto xxviii.) see <i>Contes et +Nouvelles en Vers</i>, de Mr. de la Fontaine, 1691, i. 1-19.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <a name="Note_63" id="Note_63"></a>{63}[Compare "The use made in the French tongue of the +word <i>tact</i>, to denote that delicate sense of propriety, which enables a +man to <i>feel his way</i> in the difficult intercourse of polished society, +seems to have been suggested by similar considerations (i.e. similar to +those which suggested the use of the word <i>taste</i>)."—<i>Outlines of Moral +Philosophy</i>, by Dugald Stewart, Part I. sect. x. ed. 1855, p. 48. For +D'Alembert's use of <i>tact</i>, to denote "that peculiar delicacy of +perception (which, like the nice touch of a blind man) arises from +habits of close attention to those slighter feelings which escape +general notice," see <i>Philosophical Essays</i>, by Dugald Stewart, 1818, p. +603.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AI" id="Footnote_AI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AI"><span class="label">[AI]</span></a> <a name="Note_64" id="Note_64"></a>{64}<i>With base suspicion now no longer haunted.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> [For the incident of the shoes, Lord Byron was probably +indebted to the Scottish ballad— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Our goodman came hame at e'en, and hame came he;</p> +<p>He spy'd a pair of jack-boots, where nae boots should be,</p> +<p>What's this now, goodwife? What's this I see?</p> +<p>How came these boots there, without the leave o' me!</p> +<p class="i13">Boots! quo' she:</p> +<p class="i13">Ay, boots, quo' he.</p> +<p>Shame fa' your cuckold face, and ill mat ye see,</p> +<p>It's but a pair of water stoups the cooper sent to me," etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p>See James Johnson's <i>Musical Museum</i>, 1787, etc., v. 466.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AJ" id="Footnote_AJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AJ"><span class="label">[AJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_66" id="Note_66"></a>{66}<i>Found—heaven knows how—his solitary way.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> [William Brodie Gurney (1777-1855), the son and grandson +of eminent shorthand writers, "reported the proceedings against the Duke +of York in 1809, the trials of Lord Cochrane in 1814, and of Thistlewood +in 1820, and the proceedings against Queen Caroline."—<i>Dict. of Nat. +Biog</i>., art. "Gurney."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> +<a name="Note_67" id="Note_67"></a>{67}["Venice, December 7, 1818. +</p><p> +"After <i>that stanza</i> in the first canto of <i>Don Juan</i> (sent by Lord +Lauderdale) towards the <i>conclusion</i> of the canto—I speak of the stanza +whose two last lines are— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,</p> +<p>Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey,'</p> +</div></div> +<p> +insert the following stanzas, 'But Donna Inez,' etc."—[B.] +</p><p> +The text is based on a second or revised copy of stanzas cxc.-cxcviii. +Many of the corrections and emendations which were inserted in the first +draft are omitted in the later and presumably improved version. Byron's +first intention was to insert seven stanzas after stanza clxxxix., +descriptive and highly depreciatory of Brougham, but for reasons of +"fairness" (<i>vide infra</i>) he changed his mind. The casual mention of +"blundering Brougham" in <i>English Bards, etc.</i> (line 524, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1898, i. 338, note 2), is a proof that his suspicions were not +aroused as to the authorship of the review of <i>Hours of Idleness</i> +(<i>Edin. Rev.</i>, January, 1808), and it is certain that Byron's animosity +was due to the part played by Brougham at the time of the Separation. +(In a letter to Byron, dated February 18, 1817, Murray speaks of a +certain B. "as your incessant persecutor—the source of all affected +public opinion respecting you.") The stanzas, with the accompanying +notes, are not included in the editions of 1833 or 1837, and are now +printed for the first time. +</p><p class="center">I.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'Twas a fine cause for those in law delighting—</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis pity that they had no Brougham in Spain,</p> +<p>Famous for always talking, and ne'er fighting,</p> +<p class="i2">For calling names, and taking them again;</p> +<p>For blustering, bungling, trimming, wrangling, writing,</p> +<p class="i2">Groping all paths to power, and all in vain—</p> +<p>Losing elections, character, and temper,</p> +<p>A foolish, clever, fellow—<i>Idem semper!</i></p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">II.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Bully in Senates, skulker in the Field,<a href="#FN_XXA" id="XXA">[A]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The Adulterer's advocate when duly feed,</p> +<p>The libeller's gratis Counsel, dirty shield</p> +<p class="i2">Which Law affords to many a dirty deed;</p> +<p>A wondrous Warrior against those who yield—</p> +<p class="i2">A rod to Weakness, to the brave a reed—</p> +<p>The People's sycophant, the Prince's foe,</p> +<p>And serving him the more by being so.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">III.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Tory by nurture, Whig by Circumstance,</p> +<p class="i2">A Democrat some once or twice a year,</p> +<p>Whene'er it suits his purpose to advance</p> +<p class="i2">His vain ambition in its vague career:</p> +<p>A sort of Orator by sufferance,</p> +<p class="i2">Less for the comprehension than the ear;</p> +<p>With all the arrogance of endless power,</p> +<p>Without the sense to keep it for an hour.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">IV.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The House-of-Commons Damocles of words—</p> +<p class="i2">Above him, hanging by a single hair,</p> +<p>On each harangue depend some hostile Swords;</p> +<p class="i2">And deems he that we <i>always</i> will forbear?</p> +<p>Although Defiance oft declined affords</p> +<p class="i2">A blotted shield no Shire's true knight would wear:</p> +<p>Thersites of the House. Parolles<a href="#FN_XXB" id="XXB">[B]</a> of Law,</p> +<p>The double Bobadill<a href="#FN_XXC" id="XXC">[C]</a> takes Scorn for Awe.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">V.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"How noble is his language—never pert—</p> +<p class="i2">How grand his sentiments which ne'er run riot!</p> +<p>As when he swore 'by God he'd sell his shirt</p> +<p class="i2">To head the poll!' I wonder who would buy it</p> +<p>The skin has passed through such a deal of dirt</p> +<p class="i2">In grovelling on to power—such stains now dye it—</p> +<p>So black the long-worn Lion's hide in hue,</p> +<p>You'd swear his very heart had sweated through.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">VI.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Panting for power—as harts for cooling streams—</p> +<p class="i2">Yet half afraid to venture for the draught;</p> +<p>A go-between, yet blundering in extremes,</p> +<p class="i2">And tossed along the vessel fore and aft;</p> +<p>Now shrinking back, now midst the first he seems,</p> +<p class="i2">Patriot by force, and courtisan<a href="#FN_XXD" id="XXD">[D]</a> by craft;</p> +<p>Quick without wit, and violent without strength—</p> +<p>A disappointed Lawyer, at full length.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">VII.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"A strange example of the force of Law,</p> +<p class="i2">And hasty temper on a kindling mind—</p> +<p>Are these the dreams his young Ambition saw?</p> +<p class="i2">Poor fellow! he had better far been blind!</p> +<p>I'm sorry thus to probe a wound so raw—</p> +<p class="i2">But, then, as Bard my duty to Mankind,</p> +<p>For warning to the rest, compels these raps—</p> +<p>As Geographers lay down a Shoal in Maps."</p> +</div></div> + +<p> +[<a id="FN_XXA" href="#XXA">[A]</a> For Brougham's Fabian tactics with regard to duelling, <i>vide post</i>, +<a href="#c13slxxxiv">Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv</a>. line 1, <a href="#Footnote_687">p. 506, note 1</a>.] +</p><p> +[<a id="FN_XXB" href="#XXB">[B]</a> <i>Vide post</i>, <a href="#c13slxxxiv">Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv</a>. line 1, <a href="#Footnote_687">p. 506, note 1</a>.] +</p><p> +[<a id="FN_XXC" href="#XXC">[C]</a> For "Captain Bobadill, a Paul's man," see Ben Jonson's <i>Every Man +in his Humour</i>, act iv. sc. 5, <i>et passim</i>.] +</p><p> +[<a id="FN_XXD" href="#XXD">[D]</a> The <i>N. Eng. Dict.</i>, quotes a passage in <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, iv. 286 +(1669), as the latest instance of "courtisan" for "courtier."] +</p> + +<p class="smcap" style="text-align:center">Note to the Annexed Stanzas on Brougham.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Distrusted by the Democracy, disliked by the Whigs, and detested +by the Tories, too much of a lawyer for the people, and too much of +a demagogue for Parliament, a contestor of counties, and a +Candidate for cities, the refuse of half the Electors of England, +and representative at last upon sufferance of the proprietor of +some rotten borough, which it would have been more independent to +have purchased, a speaker upon all questions, and the outcast of +all parties, his support has become alike formidable to all his +enemies (for he has no friends), and his vote can be only valuable +when accompanied by his Silence. A disappointed man with a bad +temper, he is endowed with considerable but not first-rate +abilities, and has blundered on through life, remarkable only for a +fluency, in which he has many rivals at the bar and in the Senate, +and an eloquence in which he has several Superiors. 'Willing to +wound and <i>not</i> afraid to strike, until he receives a blow in +return, he has not yet betrayed any illegal ardour, or Irish +alacrity, in accepting the defiances, and resenting the disgraceful +terms which his proneness to evil-speaking have (sic) brought upon +him. In the cases of Mackinnon and Manners,<a href="#FN_XXE" id="XXE">[E]</a> he sheltered himself +behind those parliamentary privileges, which Fox, Pitt, Canning, +Castlereagh, Tierney, Adam, Shelburne, Grattan, Corry, Curran, and +Clare disdained to adopt as their buckler. The House of Commons +became the Asylum of his Slander, as the Churches of Rome were once +the Sanctuary of Assassins. +</p><p> +"His literary reputation (with the exception of one work of his +early career) rests upon some anonymous articles imputed to him in +a celebrated periodical work; but even these are surpassed by the +Essays of others in the same Journal. He has tried every thing and +succeeded in nothing; and he may perhaps finish as a Lawyer without +practice, as he has already been occasionally an orator without an +audience, if not soon cut short in his career. +</p><p> +"The above character is <i>not</i> written impartially, but by one who +has had occasion to know some of the baser parts of it, and regards +him accordingly with shuddering abhorrence, and just so much fear +as he deserves. In him is to be dreaded the crawling of the +centipede, not the spring of the tiger—the venom of the reptile, +not the strength of the animal—the rancour of the miscreant, not +the courage of the Man. +</p><p> +"In case the prose or verse of the above should be actionable, I +put my name, that the man may rather proceed against me than the +publisher—not without some faint hope that the brand with which I +blast him may induce him, however reluctantly, to a manlier +revenge." </p> +</div> + +<p class="smcap" style="text-align:center">Extract from Letter to Murray.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"I enclose you the stanzas which were intended for 1st Canto, after the line</p> +<p class="center">'Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey:'</p> +<p> +but I do not mean them for present publication, because I will not, +at this distance, publish <i>that</i> of a Man, for which he has a claim +upon another too remote to give him redress. +</p><p> +"With regard to the Miscreant Brougham, however, it was only long +after the fact, and I was made acquainted with the language he had +held of me on my leaving England (with regard to the D<sup>ss</sup> of D.'s +house),<a href="#FN_XXF" id="XXF">[F]</a> and his letter to Me. de Staël, and various matters for +all of which the first time he and I foregather—be it in England, +be it on earth—he shall account, and one of the two be carried +home. +</p><p> +"As I have no wish to have mysteries, I merely prohibit the +<i>publication</i> of these stanzas in <i>print</i>, for the reasons of +fairness mentioned; but I by no means wish <i>him not</i> to <i>know</i> +their existence or their tenor, nor my intentions as to himself: he +has shown no forbearance, and he shall find none. You may show them +to <i>him</i> and to all whom it may concern, with the explanation that +the only reason that I have not had satisfaction of this man has +been, that I have never had an opportunity since I was aware of the +facts, which my friends had carefully concealed from me; and it was +only by slow degrees, and by piecemeal, that I got at them. I have +not sought him, nor gone out of my way for him; but I will <i>find</i> +him, and then we can have it out: he has shown so little courage, +that he <i>must</i> fight at last in his absolute necessity to escape +utter degradation. +</p><p> +"I send you the stanzas, which (except the last) have been written +nearly two years, merely because I have been lately copying out +most of the MSS. which were in my drawers."</p> +</div> +<p> +<a id="FN_XXE" href="#XXE">[E]</a> [Possibly George Manners (1778-1853), editor of <i>The Satirist</i>, +whose appointment to a foreign consulate Brougham sharply criticized in +the House of Commons, July 9, 1817 (<i>Parl. Deb.</i>, vol. xxxvi. pp. 1320, +1321); and Daniel Mackinnon (1791-1836), the nephew of Henry Mackinnon, +who fell at Ciudad Rodrigo. Byron met "Dan" Mackinnon at Lisbon in 1809, +and (Gronow, <i>Reminiscences</i>, 1889, ii. 259, 260) was amused by his +"various funny stories."] +</p><p> +<a id="FN_XXF" href="#XXF">[F]</a> [Byron's town-house, in 1815-1816, No. 13, Piccadilly, belonged to +the Duchess of Devonshire. When he went abroad in April, 1816, the rent +was still unpaid. The duchess, through her agent, distrained, but was +unable to recover the debt. See Byron's "Letter to Elizabeth, Duchess of +Devonshire," November 3, 1817, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 178.] </p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AK" id="Footnote_AK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AK"><span class="label">[AK]</span></a> +<a name="Note_71" id="Note_71"></a>{71}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Julia was sent into a nunnery</i>,</p> +<p><i>And there, perhaps, her feelings may be better</i>.—[MS. M.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AL" id="Footnote_AL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AL"><span class="label">[AL]</span></a> <i>Man's love is of his life</i>——.—[MS. M.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> ["Que les hommes sont heureux d'aller à la guerre, +d'exposer leur vie, de se livrer à l'enthousiasme de l'honneur et du +danger! Mais il n'y a rien au-dehors qui soulage les femmes."—<i>Corinne, +ou L'Italie</i>, Madame de Staël, liv., xviii. chap. v. ed. 1835, iii. +209.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AM" id="Footnote_AM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AM"><span class="label">[AM]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>To mourn alone the love which has undone.</i></p> +<p>or, <i>To lift our fatal love to God from man.</i></p> +</div></div> +<p>Take that which, of these three, seems the best prescription.—B.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AN" id="Footnote_AN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AN"><span class="label">[AN]</span></a> <a name="Note_72" id="Note_72"></a>{72} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>You will proceed in beauty and in pride</i>,</p> +<p class="i6"><i>You will return</i>——.—[MS. M.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AO" id="Footnote_AO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AO"><span class="label">[AO]</span></a> +</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td>Or, <i>That word is</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>fatal now<br />lost for me<br />deadly now</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td>—<i>but let it go</i>.—[MS.M.]</td> +</tr></table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AP" id="Footnote_AP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AP"><span class="label">[AP]</span></a> <i>I struggle, but can not collect my mind</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AQ" id="Footnote_AQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AQ"><span class="label">[AQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>As turns the needle trembling to the pole</i></p> +<p><i>It ne'er can reach—so turns to you my soul</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AR" id="Footnote_AR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AR"><span class="label">[AR]</span></a> <i>With a neat crow-quill, rather hard, but new</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> <a name="Note_73" id="Note_73"></a>{73}[Byron had a seal bearing this motto.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_AS" id="Footnote_AS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AS"><span class="label">[AS]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>And there are other incidents remaining</i></p> +<p><i>Which shall be specified in fitting time,</i></p> +<p><i>With good discretion, and in current rhyme</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AT" id="Footnote_AT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AT"><span class="label">[AT]</span></a> <a name="Note_74" id="Note_74"></a>{74} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>To newspapers, to sermons, which the zeal</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Of pious men have published on his acts</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AU" id="Footnote_AU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AU"><span class="label">[AU]</span></a> <i>I'll call the work "Reflections o'er a Bottle</i>."—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> [Here, and elsewhere in <i>Don Juan</i>, Byron attacked +Coleridge fiercely and venomously, because he believed that his +<i>protégé</i> had accepted patronage and money, and, notwithstanding, had +retailed scandalous statements to the detriment and dishonour of his +advocate and benefactor (see letter to Murray, November 24, 1818, +<i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 272; and "Introduction to the <i>Vision of Judgment," +Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 475). Byron does not substantiate his charge +of ingratitude, and there is nothing to show whether Coleridge ever knew +why a once friendly countenance was changed towards him. He might have +asked, with the Courtenays, <i>Ubi lapsus, quid feci?</i> If Byron had been +on his mind or his conscience he would have drawn up an elaborate +explanation or apology; but nothing of the kind is extant. He took the +abuse as he had taken the favours—for the unmerited gifts of the blind +goddess Fortune. (See, too, <i>Letter</i> ..., by John Bull, 1821, p. 14.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> <a name="Note_76" id="Note_76"></a>{76}[Compare Byron's "Letter to the Editor of My +Grandmother's Review," <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. Appendix VII. 465-470; and +letter to Murray, August 24, 1819, ibid., p. 348: "I wrote to you by +last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to +the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own +tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not +very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more +bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch." The letter +was in reply to a criticism of <i>Don Juan</i> (Cantos I., II.) in the +<i>British Review</i> (No. xxvii., 1819, vol. 14, pp. 266-268), in which the +Editor assumed, or feigned to assume, that the accusation of bribery was +to be taken <i>au grand sérieux</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> <a name="Note_77" id="Note_77"></a>{77}[Hor., <i>Od.</i> III. C. xiv. lines 27, 28.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AV" id="Footnote_AV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AV"><span class="label">[AV]</span></a> <i>I thought of dyeing it the other day</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto III. stanza cvii. line +2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <a name="Note_78" id="Note_78"></a>{78} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Me nec femina, nec puer</p> +<p>Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui,</p> +<p class="i2">Nec certare juvat mero;</p> +<p>Nec vincire novis tempora floribus."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Hor., <i>Od.</i> IV. i. 30. +</p><p> +[In the revise the words <i>nec puer Jam</i> were omitted. On this Hobhouse +comments, "Better add the whole or scratch out all after +femina."—"Quote the whole then—it was only in compliance with your +<i>settentrionale</i> notions that I left out the remnant of the +line."—[B.]]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> [For "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen head to speak," see +<i>The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon</i> (Reprint, London, 1815, pp. 13-18); +see, too, <i>Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay</i>, by Robert Greene, ed. Rev. +Alexander Dyce, 1861, pp. 153-181.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb</p> +<p class="i2">The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?" etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Beattie's <i>Minstrel</i>, Bk. I. stanza i. lines 1, 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AW" id="Footnote_AW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AW"><span class="label">[AW]</span></a> <a name="Note_79" id="Note_79"></a>{79}<i>A book—a damned bad picture—and worse bust</i>.—[MS.] +</p><p> +["Don't swear again—the third 'damn.'"—[H.]—[<i>Revise.</i>]] </p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> [Byron sat for his bust to Thorwaldsen, in May, 1817.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> [This stanza appears to have been suggested by the +following passage in the <i>Quarterly Review</i>, April, 1818, vol. xix. p. +203: "[It was] the opinion of the Egyptians, that the soul never +deserted the body while the latter continued in a perfect state. To +secure this union, King Cheops is said, by Herodotus, to have employed +three hundred and sixty thousand of his subjects for twenty years in +raising over the 'angusta domus' destined to hold his remains, a pile of +stone equal in weight to six millions of tons, which is just three times +that of the vast Breakwater thrown across Plymouth Sound; and, to render +this precious dust still more secure, the narrow chamber was made +accessible only by small, intricate passages, obstructed by stones of an +enormous weight, and so carefully closed externally as not to be +perceptible.—Yet, how vain are all the precautions of man! Not a bone +was left of Cheops, either in the stone coffin, or in the vault, when +Shaw entered the gloomy chamber.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AX" id="Footnote_AX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AX"><span class="label">[AX]</span></a> <a name="Note_80" id="Note_80"></a>{80} <i>Must bid you both farewell in accents +bland</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> [Lines 1-4 are taken from the last stanza of the <i>Epilogue +to the Lay of the Laureate</i>, entitled "L'Envoy." (See <i>Poetical Works</i> +of Robert Southey, 1838, x. 174.)]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_SECOND" id="CANTO_THE_SECOND"></a> +CANTO THE SECOND.<a name="FNanchor_96" id="FNanchor_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">Oh</span> ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,</p> +<p class="i2">Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,</p> +<p>I pray ye flog them upon all occasions—</p> +<p class="i2">It mends their morals, never mind the pain:</p> +<p>The best of mothers and of educations</p> +<p class="i2">In Juan's case were but employed in vain,</p> +<p>Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he</p> +<p>Became divested of his native modesty.<a name="FNanchor_AY" id="FNanchor_AY"></a><a href="#Footnote_AY" class="fnanchor">[AY]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Had he but been placed at a public school,</p> +<p class="i2">In the third form, or even in the fourth,</p> +<p>His daily task had kept his fancy cool,</p> +<p class="i2">At least, had he been nurtured in the North;</p> +<p>Spain may prove an exception to the rule,</p> +<p class="i2">But then exceptions always prove its worth—</p> +<p>A lad of sixteen causing a divorce</p> +<p>Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't say that it puzzles me at all,</p> +<p class="i2">If all things be considered: first, there was</p> +<p>His lady-mother, mathematical,</p> +<p class="i2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>A——never mind;—his tutor, an old ass;</p> +<p>A pretty woman—(that's quite natural,</p> +<p class="i2">Or else the thing had hardly come to pass)</p> +<p>A husband rather old, not much in unity</p> +<p>With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Well—well; the World must turn upon its axis,</p> +<p class="i2">And all Mankind turn with it, heads or tails,</p> +<p>And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,</p> +<p class="i2">And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;</p> +<p>The King commands us, and the Doctor quacks us,</p> +<p class="i2">The Priest instructs, and so our life exhales,</p> +<p>A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,</p> +<p>Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz—</p> +<p class="i2">A pretty town, I recollect it well—</p> +<p>'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is,</p> +<p class="i2">(Or was, before Peru learned to rebel),</p> +<p>And such sweet girls!<a name="FNanchor_97" id="FNanchor_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>—I mean, such graceful ladies,</p> +<p class="i2">Their very walk would make your bosom swell;</p> +<p>I can't describe it, though so much it strike,</p> +<p>Nor liken it—I never saw the like:<a name="FNanchor_AZ" id="FNanchor_AZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AZ" class="fnanchor">[AZ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb</p> +<p class="i2">New broke, a camelopard, a gazelle,</p> +<p>No—none of these will do;—and then their garb,</p> +<p class="i2">Their veil and petticoat—Alas! to dwell</p> +<p>Upon such things would very near absorb</p> +<p class="i2">A canto—then their feet and ankles,—well,</p> +<p>Thank Heaven I've got no metaphor quite ready,</p> +<p>(And so, my sober Muse—come, let's be steady—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Chaste Muse!—well,—if you must, you must)—the veil</p> +<p class="i2">Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> +<p>While the o'erpowering eye, that turns you pale,</p> +<p class="i2">Flashes into the heart:—All sunny land</p> +<p>Of Love! when I forget you, may I fail</p> +<p class="i2">To——say my prayers—but never was there planned</p> +<p>A dress through which the eyes give such a volley,</p> +<p>Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.<a name="FNanchor_98" id="FNanchor_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to our tale: the Donna Inez sent</p> +<p class="i2">Her son to Cadiz only to embark;</p> +<p>To stay there had not answered her intent,</p> +<p class="i2">But why?—we leave the reader in the dark—</p> +<p>'T was for a voyage the young man was meant,</p> +<p class="i2">As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark,</p> +<p>To wean him from the wickedness of earth,</p> +<p>And send him like a Dove of Promise forth.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan bade his valet pack his things</p> +<p class="i2">According to direction, then received</p> +<p>A lecture and some money: for four springs</p> +<p class="i2">He was to travel; and though Inez grieved</p> +<p>(As every kind of parting has its stings),</p> +<p class="i2">She hoped he would improve—perhaps believed:</p> +<p>A letter, too, she gave (he never read it)</p> +<p>Of good advice—and two or three of credit.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In the mean time, to pass her hours away,</p> +<p class="i2">Brave Inez now set up a Sunday school</p> +<p>For naughty children, who would rather play</p> +<p class="i2">(Like truant rogues) the devil, or the fool;</p> +<p>Infants of three years old were taught that day,</p> +<p class="i2">Dunces were whipped, or set upon a stool:</p> +<p>The great success of Juan's education</p> +<p>Spurred her to teach another generation.<a name="FNanchor_BA" id="FNanchor_BA"></a><a href="#Footnote_BA" class="fnanchor">[BA]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan embarked—the ship got under way,</p> +<p class="i2">The wind was fair, the water passing rough;</p> +<p>A devil of a sea rolls in that bay,</p> +<p class="i2">As I, who've crossed it oft, know well enough;</p> +<p>And, standing on the deck, the dashing spray</p> +<p class="i2">Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-tough:</p> +<p>And there he stood to take, and take again,</p> +<p>His first—perhaps his last—farewell of Spain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't but say it is an awkward sight</p> +<p class="i2">To see one's native land receding through</p> +<p>The growing waters; it unmans one quite,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially when life is rather new:</p> +<p>I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white,<a name="FNanchor_99" id="FNanchor_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But almost every other country's blue,</p> +<p>When gazing on them, mystified by distance,</p> +<p>We enter on our nautical existence.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So Juan stood, bewildered on the deck:</p> +<p class="i2">The wind sung, cordage strained, and sailors swore,</p> +<p>And the ship creaked, the town became a speck,</p> +<p class="i2">From which away so fair and fast they bore.</p> +<p>The best of remedies is a beef-steak</p> +<p class="i2">Against sea-sickness: try it, Sir, before</p> +<p>You sneer, and I assure you this is true,</p> +<p>For I have found it answer—so may you.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stern,</p> +<p class="i2">Beheld his native Spain receding far:</p> +<p>First partings form a lesson hard to learn,</p> +<p class="i2">Even nations feel this when they go to war;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> +<p>There is a sort of unexpressed concern,</p> +<p class="i2">A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar,</p> +<p>At leaving even the most unpleasant people</p> +<p>And places—one keeps looking at the steeple.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan had got many things to leave,</p> +<p class="i2">His mother, and a mistress, and no wife,</p> +<p>So that he had much better cause to grieve</p> +<p class="i2">Than many persons more advanced in life:</p> +<p>And if we now and then a sigh must heave</p> +<p class="i2">At quitting even those we quit in strife,</p> +<p>No doubt we weep for those the heart endears—</p> +<p>That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews</p> +<p class="i2">By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion:</p> +<p>I'd weep,—but mine is not a weeping Muse,</p> +<p class="i2">And such light griefs are not a thing to die on;</p> +<p>Young men should travel, if but to amuse</p> +<p class="i2">Themselves; and the next time their servants tie on</p> +<p>Behind their carriages their new portmanteau,</p> +<p>Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan wept, and much he sighed and thought,</p> +<p class="i2">While his salt tears dropped into the salt sea,</p> +<p>"Sweets to the sweet;" (I like so much to quote;</p> +<p class="i2">You must excuse this extract,—'t is where she,</p> +<p>The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought</p> +<p class="i2">Flowers to the grave;) and, sobbing often, he</p> +<p>Reflected on his present situation,</p> +<p>And seriously resolved on reformation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!" he cried,</p> +<p class="i2">"Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,</p> +<p>But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,</p> +<p class="i2">Of its own thirst to see again thy shore:</p> +<p>Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide!</p> +<p class="i2">Farewell, my mother! and, since all is o'er,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> +<p>Farewell, too, dearest Julia!—(here he drew</p> +<p>Her letter out again, and read it through.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear—</p> +<p class="i2">But that's impossible, and cannot be—</p> +<p>Sooner shall this blue Ocean melt to air,</p> +<p class="i2">Sooner shall Earth resolve itself to sea,</p> +<p>Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!</p> +<p class="i2">Or think of anything, excepting thee;</p> +<p>A mind diseased no remedy can physic—</p> +<p>(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Sooner shall Heaven kiss earth—(here he fell sicker)</p> +<p class="i2">Oh, Julia! what is every other woe?—</p> +<p>(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;</p> +<p class="i2">Pedro, Battista, help me down below.)</p> +<p>Julia, my love!—(you rascal, Pedro, quicker)—</p> +<p class="i2">Oh, Julia!—(this curst vessel pitches so)—</p> +<p>Belovéd Julia, hear me still beseeching!"</p> +<p>(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He felt that chilling heaviness of heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends,</p> +<p>Beyond the best apothecary's art,</p> +<p class="i2">The loss of Love, the treachery of friends,</p> +<p>Or death of those we dote on, when a part</p> +<p class="i2">Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends:</p> +<p>No doubt he would have been much more pathetic,</p> +<p>But the sea acted as a strong emetic.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love's a capricious power: I've known it hold</p> +<p class="i2">Out through a fever caused by its own heat,</p> +<p>But be much puzzled by a cough and cold,</p> +<p class="i2">And find a quinsy very hard to treat;</p> +<p>Against all noble maladies he's bold,</p> +<p class="i2">But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet,</p> +<p>Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh,</p> +<p>Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But worst of all is nausea, or a pain</p> +<p class="i2">About the lower region of the bowels;</p> +<p>Love, who heroically breathes a vein,<a name="FNanchor_100" id="FNanchor_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Shrinks from the application of hot towels,</p> +<p>And purgatives are dangerous to his reign,</p> +<p class="i2">Sea-sickness death: his love was perfect, how else<a name="FNanchor_BB" id="FNanchor_BB"></a><a href="#Footnote_BB" class="fnanchor">[BB]</a></p> +<p>Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar,</p> +<p>Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The ship, called the most holy "Trinidada,"<a name="FNanchor_101" id="FNanchor_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Was steering duly for the port Leghorn;</p> +<p>For there the Spanish family Moncada</p> +<p class="i2">Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born:</p> +<p>They were relations, and for them he had a</p> +<p class="i2">Letter of introduction, which the morn</p> +<p>Of his departure had been sent him by</p> +<p>His Spanish friends for those in Italy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His suite consisted of three servants and</p> +<p class="i2">A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,</p> +<p>Who several languages did understand,</p> +<p class="i2">But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow</p> +<p>And, rocking in his hammock, longed for land,</p> +<p class="i2">His headache being increased by every billow;</p> +<p>And the waves oozing through the port-hole made</p> +<p>His berth a little damp, and him afraid.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was not without some reason, for the wind</p> +<p class="i2">Increased at night, until it blew a gale;</p> +<p>And though 't was not much to a naval mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Some landsmen would have looked a little pale,</p> +<p>For sailors are, in fact, a different kind:</p> +<p class="i2">At sunset they began to take in sail,</p> +<p>For the sky showed it would come on to blow,</p> +<p>And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift</p> +<p class="i2">Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea,</p> +<p>Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift,</p> +<p class="i2">Started the stern-post, also shattered the</p> +<p>Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could lift</p> +<p class="i2">Herself from out her present jeopardy,</p> +<p>The rudder tore away: 't was time to sound</p> +<p>The pumps, and there were four feet water found.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One gang of people instantly was put</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the pumps, and the remainder set</p> +<p>To get up part of the cargo, and what not;</p> +<p class="i2">But they could not come at the leak as yet;</p> +<p>At last they did get at it really, but</p> +<p class="i2">Still their salvation was an even bet:</p> +<p>The water rushed through in a way quite puzzling,</p> +<p>While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslin,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Into the opening; but all such ingredients</p> +<p class="i2">Would have been vain, and they must have gone down,</p> +<p>Despite of all their efforts and expedients,</p> +<p class="i2">But for the pumps: I'm glad to make them known</p> +<p>To all the brother tars who may have need hence,</p> +<p class="i2">For fifty tons of water were upthrown</p> +<p>By them per hour, and they had all been undone,</p> +<p>But for the maker, Mr. Mann, of London.<a name="FNanchor_102" id="FNanchor_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As day advanced the weather seemed to abate,</p> +<p class="i2">And then the leak they reckoned to reduce,</p> +<p>And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet</p> +<p class="i2">Kept two hand—and one chain-pump still in use.</p> +<p>The wind blew fresh again: as it grew late</p> +<p class="i2">A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose,</p> +<p>A gust—which all descriptive power transcends—</p> +<p>Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There she lay, motionless, and seemed upset;</p> +<p class="i2">The water left the hold, and washed the decks,</p> +<p>And made a scene men do not soon forget;</p> +<p class="i2">For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks,</p> +<p>Or any other thing that brings regret</p> +<p class="i2">Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or necks:</p> +<p>Thus drownings are much talked of by the divers,</p> +<p>And swimmers, who may chance to be survivors.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Immediately the masts were cut away,</p> +<p class="i2">Both main and mizen; first the mizen went,</p> +<p>The main-mast followed: but the ship still lay</p> +<p class="i2">Like a mere log, and baffled our intent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> +<p>Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they</p> +<p class="i2">Eased her at last (although we never meant</p> +<p>To part with all till every hope was blighted),</p> +<p>And then with violence the old ship righted.<a name="FNanchor_103" id="FNanchor_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It may be easily supposed, while this</p> +<p class="i2">Was going on, some people were unquiet,</p> +<p>That passengers would find it much amiss</p> +<p class="i2">To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet;</p> +<p>That even the able seaman, deeming his</p> +<p class="i2">Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot,</p> +<p>As upon such occasions tars will ask</p> +<p>For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms</p> +<p class="i2">As rum and true religion: thus it was,</p> +<p>Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms,</p> +<p class="i2">The high wind made the treble, and as bass</p> +<p>The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured the qualms</p> +<p class="i2">Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws:</p> +<p>Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion,</p> +<p>Clamoured in chorus to the roaring Ocean.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for<a name="FNanchor_BC" id="FNanchor_BC"></a><a href="#Footnote_BC" class="fnanchor">[BC]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> +<p>Got to the spirit-room, and stood before</p> +<p class="i2">It with a pair of pistols;<a name="FNanchor_104" id="FNanchor_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> and their fears,</p> +<p>As if Death were more dreadful by his door</p> +<p class="i2">Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears,</p> +<p>Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk,</p> +<p>Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Give us more grog," they cried, "for it will be</p> +<p class="i2">All one an hour hence." Juan answered, "No!</p> +<p>'T is true that Death awaits both you and me,</p> +<p class="i2">But let us die like men, not sink below</p> +<p>Like brutes:"—and thus his dangerous post kept he,</p> +<p class="i2">And none liked to anticipate the blow;</p> +<p>And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor,</p> +<p>Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The good old gentleman was quite aghast,</p> +<p class="i2">And made a loud and pious lamentation;</p> +<p>Repented all his sins, and made a last</p> +<p class="i2">Irrevocable vow of reformation;</p> +<p>Nothing should tempt him more (this peril past)</p> +<p class="i2">To quit his academic occupation,</p> +<p>In cloisters of the classic Salamanca,</p> +<p>To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho Panca.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But now there came a flash of hope once more;</p> +<p class="i2">Day broke, and the wind lulled: the masts were gone</p> +<p>The leak increased; shoals round her, but no shore,</p> +<p class="i2">The vessel swam, yet still she held her own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_105" id="FNanchor_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> +<p>They tried the pumps again, and though before</p> +<p class="i2">Their desperate efforts seemed all useless grown,</p> +<p>A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale—</p> +<p>The stronger pumped, the weaker thrummed a sail.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Under the vessel's keel the sail was passed,</p> +<p class="i2">And for the moment it had some effect;</p> +<p>But with a leak, and not a stick of mast,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect?</p> +<p>But still 't is best to struggle to the last,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is never too late to be wholly wrecked:</p> +<p>And though 't is true that man can only die once,</p> +<p>'T is not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.<a name="FNanchor_BD" id="FNanchor_BD"></a><a href="#Footnote_BD" class="fnanchor">[BD]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There winds and waves had hurled them, and from thence,</p> +<p class="i2">Without their will, they carried them away;</p> +<p>For they were forced with steering to dispense,</p> +<p class="i2">And never had as yet a quiet day</p> +<p>On which they might repose, or even commence</p> +<p class="i2">A jurymast or rudder, or could say</p> +<p>The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck,</p> +<p>Still swam—though not exactly like a duck.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The wind, in fact, perhaps, was rather less,</p> +<p class="i2">But the ship laboured so, they scarce could hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> +<p>To weather out much longer; the distress</p> +<p class="i2">Was also great with which they had to cope</p> +<p>For want of water, and their solid mess</p> +<p class="i2">Was scant enough: in vain the telescope</p> +<p>Was used—nor sail nor shore appeared in sight,</p> +<p>Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Again the weather threatened,—again blew</p> +<p class="i2">A gale, and in the fore and after hold</p> +<p>Water appeared; yet, though the people knew</p> +<p class="i2">All this, the most were patient, and some bold,</p> +<p>Until the chains and leathers were worn through</p> +<p class="i2">Of all our pumps:—a wreck complete she rolled,</p> +<p>At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are</p> +<p>Like human beings during civil war.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears</p> +<p class="i2">In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he</p> +<p>Could do no more: he was a man in years,</p> +<p class="i2">And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea,</p> +<p>And if he wept at length they were not fears</p> +<p class="i2">That made his eyelids as a woman's be,</p> +<p>But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children,—</p> +<p>Two things for dying people quite bewildering.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The ship was evidently settling now</p> +<p class="i2">Fast by the head; and, all distinction gone,</p> +<p>Some went to prayers again, and made a vow</p> +<p class="i2">Of candles to their saints<a name="FNanchor_106" id="FNanchor_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>—but there were none</p> +<p>To pay them with; and some looked o'er the bow;</p> +<p class="i2">Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one</p> +<p>That begged Pedrillo for an absolution,</p> +<p>Who told him to be damned—in his confusion.<a name="FNanchor_107" id="FNanchor_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p><h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some lashed them in their hammocks; some put on</p> +<p class="i2">Their best clothes, as if going to a fair;</p> +<p>Some cursed the day on which they saw the Sun,</p> +<p class="i2">And gnashed their teeth, and, howling, tore their hair;</p> +<p>And others went on as they had begun,</p> +<p class="i2">Getting the boats out, being well aware</p> +<p>That a tight boat will live in a rough sea,</p> +<p>Unless with breakers close beneath her lee.<a name="FNanchor_108" id="FNanchor_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The worst of all was, that in their condition,</p> +<p class="i2">Having been several days in great distress,</p> +<p>'T was difficult to get out such provision</p> +<p class="i2">As now might render their long suffering less:</p> +<p>Men, even when dying, dislike inanition;<a name="FNanchor_BE" id="FNanchor_BE"></a><a href="#Footnote_BE" class="fnanchor">[BE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Their stock was damaged by the weather's stress:</p> +<p>Two casks of biscuit, and a keg of butter,</p> +<p>Were all that could be thrown into the cutter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But in the long-boat they contrived to stow</p> +<p class="i2">Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> +<p>Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so;</p> +<p class="i2">Six flasks of wine; and they contrived to get</p> +<p>A portion of their beef up from below,<a name="FNanchor_109" id="FNanchor_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And with a piece of pork, moreover, met,</p> +<p>But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon—</p> +<p>Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had</p> +<p class="i2">Been stove in the beginning of the gale;<a name="FNanchor_110" id="FNanchor_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p> +<p>And the long-boat's condition was but bad,</p> +<p class="i2">As there were but two blankets for a sail,<a name="FNanchor_111" id="FNanchor_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> +<p>And one oar for a mast, which a young lad</p> +<p class="i2">Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail;</p> +<p>And two boats could not hold, far less be stored,</p> +<p>To save one half the people then on board.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down</p> +<p class="i2">Over the waste of waters; like a veil,</p> +<p>Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown<a name="FNanchor_BF" id="FNanchor_BF"></a><a href="#Footnote_BF" class="fnanchor">[BF]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of one whose hate is masked but to assail.</p> +<p>Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,</p> +<p class="i2">And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale,</p> +<p>And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear<a name="FNanchor_BG" id="FNanchor_BG"></a><a href="#Footnote_BG" class="fnanchor">[BG]</a></p> +<p>Been their familiar, and now Death was here.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some trial had been making at a raft,</p> +<p class="i2">With little hope in such a rolling sea,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> +<p>A sort of thing at which one would have laughed,<a name="FNanchor_112" id="FNanchor_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> +<p class="i2">If any laughter at such times could be,</p> +<p>Unless with people who too much have quaffed,</p> +<p class="i2">And have a kind of wild and horrid glee,</p> +<p>Half epileptical, and half hysterical:—</p> +<p>Their preservation would have been a miracle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars,</p> +<p class="i2">And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose,</p> +<p>That still could keep afloat the struggling tars,<a name="FNanchor_113" id="FNanchor_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For yet they strove, although of no great use:</p> +<p>There was no light in heaven but a few stars,</p> +<p class="i2">The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews;</p> +<p>She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port,</p> +<p>And, going down head foremost—sunk, in short.<a name="FNanchor_114" id="FNanchor_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—</p> +<p class="i2">Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,—</p> +<p>Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,<a name="FNanchor_115" id="FNanchor_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p> +<p class="i2">As eager to anticipate their grave;</p> +<p>And the sea yawned around her like a hell,</p> +<p class="i2">And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,</p> +<p>Like one who grapples with his enemy,</p> +<p>And strives to strangle him before he die.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And first one universal shriek there rushed,</p> +<p class="i2">Louder than the loud Ocean, like a crash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> +<p>Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed,</p> +<p class="i2">Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash</p> +<p>Of billows; but at intervals there gushed,</p> +<p class="i2">Accompanied by a convulsive splash,</p> +<p>A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry</p> +<p>Of some strong swimmer in his agony.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The boats, as stated, had got off before,</p> +<p class="i2">And in them crowded several of the crew;</p> +<p>And yet their present hope was hardly more</p> +<p class="i2">Than what it had been, for so strong it blew</p> +<p>There was slight chance of reaching any shore;</p> +<p class="i2">And then they were too many, though so few—</p> +<p>Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat,</p> +<p>Were counted in them when they got afloat.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All the rest perished; near two hundred souls</p> +<p class="i2">Had left their bodies; and what's worse, alas!</p> +<p>When over Catholics the Ocean rolls,</p> +<p class="i2">They must wait several weeks before a mass</p> +<p>Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,</p> +<p class="i2">Because, till people know what's come to pass,</p> +<p>They won't lay out their money on the dead—</p> +<p>It costs three francs for every mass that's said.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan got into the long-boat, and there</p> +<p class="i2">Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place;</p> +<p>It seemed as if they had exchanged their care,</p> +<p class="i2">For Juan wore the magisterial face</p> +<p>Which courage gives, while poor Pedrillo's pair</p> +<p class="i2">Of eyes were crying for their owner's case:</p> +<p>Battista, though, (a name called shortly Tita),</p> +<p>Was lost by getting at some aqua-vita.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Pedro, his valet, too, he tried to save,</p> +<p class="i2">But the same cause, conducive to his loss,</p> +<p>Left him so drunk, he jumped into the wave,</p> +<p class="i2">As o'er the cutter's edge he tried to cross,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> +<p>And so he found a wine-and-watery grave;</p> +<p class="i2">They could not rescue him although so close,</p> +<p>Because the sea ran higher every minute,</p> +<p>And for the boat—the crew kept crowding in it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A small old spaniel,—which had been Don José's,</p> +<p class="i2">His father's, whom he loved, as ye may think,</p> +<p>For on such things the memory reposes</p> +<p class="i2">With tenderness—stood howling on the brink,</p> +<p>Knowing, (dogs have such intellectual noses!)</p> +<p class="i2">No doubt, the vessel was about to sink;</p> +<p>And Juan caught him up, and ere he stepped</p> +<p>Off threw him in, then after him he leaped.<a name="FNanchor_116" id="FNanchor_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He also stuffed his money where he could</p> +<p class="i2">About his person, and Pedrillo's too,</p> +<p>Who let him do, in fact, whate'er he would,</p> +<p class="i2">Not knowing what himself to say, or do,</p> +<p>As every rising wave his dread renewed;</p> +<p class="i2">But Juan, trusting they might still get through,</p> +<p>And deeming there were remedies for any ill,</p> +<p>Thus re-embarked his tutor and his spaniel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet,</p> +<p class="i2">That the sail was becalmed between the seas,<a name="FNanchor_117" id="FNanchor_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> +<p>Though on the wave's high top too much to set,</p> +<p class="i2">They dared not take it in for all the breeze:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> +<p>Each sea curled o'er the stern, and kept them wet,</p> +<p class="i2">And made them bale without a moment's ease,<a name="FNanchor_118" id="FNanchor_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> +<p>So that themselves as well as hopes were damped,</p> +<p>And the poor little cutter quickly swamped.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nine souls more went in her: the long-boat still</p> +<p class="i2">Kept above water, with an oar for mast,</p> +<p>Two blankets stitched together, answering ill</p> +<p class="i2">Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast;</p> +<p>Though every wave rolled menacing to fill,</p> +<p class="i2">And present peril all before surpassed,<a name="FNanchor_119" id="FNanchor_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p> +<p>They grieved for those who perished with the cutter,</p> +<p>And also for the biscuit-casks and butter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sign</p> +<p class="i2">Of the continuance of the gale: to run</p> +<p>Before the sea until it should grow fine,</p> +<p class="i2">Was all that for the present could be done:</p> +<p>A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum and wine</p> +<p class="i2">Were served out to the people, who begun<a name="FNanchor_120" id="FNanchor_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> +<p>To faint, and damaged bread wet through the bags,</p> +<p>And most of them had little clothes but rags.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They counted thirty, crowded in a space</p> +<p class="i2">Which left scarce room for motion or exertion;</p> +<p>They did their best to modify their case,</p> +<p class="i2">One half sate up, though numbed with the immersion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> +<p>While t' other half were laid down in their place,</p> +<p class="i2">At watch and watch; thus, shivering like the tertian</p> +<p>Ague in its cold fit, they filled their boat,</p> +<p>With nothing but the sky for a great coat.<a name="FNanchor_121" id="FNanchor_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is very certain the desire of life</p> +<p class="i2">Prolongs it: this is obvious to physicians,</p> +<p>When patients, neither plagued with friends nor wife,</p> +<p class="i2">Survive through very desperate conditions,</p> +<p>Because they still can hope, nor shines the knife</p> +<p class="i2">Nor shears of Atropos before their visions:</p> +<p>Despair of all recovery spoils longevity,</p> +<p>And makes men's misery of alarming brevity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is said that persons living on annuities</p> +<p class="i2">Are longer lived than others,—God knows why,</p> +<p>Unless to plague the grantors,—yet so true it is,</p> +<p class="i2">That some, I really think, <i>do</i> never die:</p> +<p>Of any creditors the worst a Jew it is,</p> +<p class="i2">And <i>that's</i> their mode of furnishing supply:</p> +<p>In my young days they lent me cash that way,</p> +<p>Which I found very troublesome to pay.<a name="FNanchor_122" id="FNanchor_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is thus with people in an open boat,</p> +<p class="i2">They live upon the love of Life, and bear</p> +<p>More than can be believed, or even thought,</p> +<p class="i2">And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear;</p> +<p>And hardship still has been the sailor's lot,</p> +<p class="i2">Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there;</p> +<p>She had a curious crew as well as cargo,</p> +<p>Like the first old Greek privateer, the Argo.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But man is a carnivorous production,</p> +<p class="i2">And must have meals, at least one meal a day;</p> +<p>He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,</p> +<p class="i2">But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;</p> +<p>Although his anatomical construction</p> +<p class="i2">Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,</p> +<p>Your labouring people think, beyond all question,</p> +<p>Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus it was with this our hapless crew;</p> +<p class="i2">For on the third day there came on a calm,</p> +<p>And though at first their strength it might renew,</p> +<p class="i2">And lying on their weariness like balm,</p> +<p>Lulled them like turtles sleeping on the blue</p> +<p class="i2">Of Ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm,</p> +<p>And fell all ravenously on their provision,</p> +<p>Instead of hoarding it with due precision.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The consequence was easily foreseen—</p> +<p class="i2">They ate up all they had, and drank their wine,</p> +<p>In spite of all remonstrances, and then</p> +<p class="i2">On what, in fact, next day were they to dine?</p> +<p>They hoped the wind would rise, these foolish men!</p> +<p class="i2">And carry them to shore; these hopes were fine,</p> +<p>But as they had but one oar, and that brittle,</p> +<p>It would have been more wise to save their victual.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The fourth day came, but not a breath of air,</p> +<p class="i2">And Ocean slumbered like an unweaned child:</p> +<p>The fifth day, and their boat lay floating there,</p> +<p class="i2">The sea and sky were blue, and clear, and mild—</p> +<p>With their one oar (I wish they had had a pair)</p> +<p class="i2">What could they do? and Hunger's rage grew wild:</p> +<p>So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating,</p> +<p>Was killed, and portioned out for present eating.<a name="FNanchor_123" id="FNanchor_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>On the sixth day they fed upon his hide,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan, who had still refused, because</p> +<p>The creature was his father's dog that died,</p> +<p class="i2">Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws,</p> +<p>With some remorse received (though first denied)</p> +<p class="i2">As a great favour one of the fore-paws,<a name="FNanchor_124" id="FNanchor_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> +<p>Which he divided with Pedrillo, who</p> +<p>Devoured it, longing for the other too.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The seventh day, and no wind—the burning sun</p> +<p class="i2">Blistered and scorched, and, stagnant on the sea,</p> +<p>They lay like carcasses; and hope was none,</p> +<p class="i2">Save in the breeze that came not: savagely</p> +<p>They glared upon each other—all was done,</p> +<p class="i2">Water, and wine, and food,—and you might see</p> +<p>The longings of the cannibal arise</p> +<p>(Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At length one whispered his companion, who</p> +<p class="i2">Whispered another, and thus it went round,</p> +<p>And then into a hoarser murmur grew,</p> +<p class="i2">An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;</p> +<p>And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew,</p> +<p class="i2">'T was but his own, suppressed till now, he found:</p> +<p>And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood,</p> +<p>And who should die to be his fellow's food.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But ere they came to this, they that day shared</p> +<p class="i2">Some leathern caps, and what remained of shoes;</p> +<p>And then they looked around them, and despaired,</p> +<p class="i2">And none to be the sacrifice would choose;</p> +<p>At length the lots were torn up,<a name="FNanchor_125" id="FNanchor_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> and prepared,</p> +<p class="i2">But of materials that must shock the Muse—</p> +<p>Having no paper, for the want of better,</p> +<p>They took by force from Juan Julia's letter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lots were made, and marked, and mixed, and handed,</p> +<p class="i2">In silent horror,<a name="FNanchor_126" id="FNanchor_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> and their distribution</p> +<p>Lulled even the savage hunger which demanded,</p> +<p class="i2">Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution;</p> +<p>None in particular had sought or planned it,</p> +<p class="i2">'T was Nature gnawed them to this resolution,</p> +<p>By which none were permitted to be neuter—</p> +<p>And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He but requested to be bled to death:</p> +<p class="i2">The surgeon had his instruments, and bled<a name="FNanchor_127" id="FNanchor_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> +<p>Pedrillo, and so gently ebbed his breath,</p> +<p class="i2">You hardly could perceive when he was dead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p> +<p>He died as born, a Catholic in faith,</p> +<p class="i2">Like most in the belief in which they're bred,</p> +<p>And first a little crucifix he kissed,</p> +<p>And then held out his jugular and wrist.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The surgeon, as there was no other fee,</p> +<p class="i2">Had his first choice of morsels for his pains;</p> +<p>But being thirstiest at the moment, he</p> +<p class="i2">Preferred a draught from the fast-flowing veins:<a name="FNanchor_128" id="FNanchor_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> +<p>Part was divided, part thrown in the sea,</p> +<p class="i2">And such things as the entrails and the brains</p> +<p>Regaled two sharks, who followed o'er the billow—</p> +<p>The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The sailors ate him, all save three or four,</p> +<p class="i2">Who were not quite so fond of animal food;</p> +<p>To these was added Juan, who, before</p> +<p class="i2">Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could</p> +<p>Feel now his appetite increased much more;</p> +<p class="i2">'T was not to be expected that he should,</p> +<p>Even in extremity of their disaster,</p> +<p>Dine with them on his pastor and his master.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was better that he did not; for, in fact,</p> +<p class="i2">The consequence was awful in the extreme;</p> +<p>For they, who were most ravenous in the act,</p> +<p class="i2">Went raging mad<a name="FNanchor_129" id="FNanchor_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>—Lord! how they did blaspheme!</p> +<p>And foam, and roll, with strange convulsions racked,</p> +<p class="i2">Drinking salt-water like a mountain-stream,</p> +<p>Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing,</p> +<p>And, with hyæna-laughter, died despairing.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their numbers were much thinned by this infliction,</p> +<p class="i2">And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven knows;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> +<p>And some of them had lost their recollection,</p> +<p class="i2">Happier than they who still perceived their woes;</p> +<p>But others pondered on a new dissection,</p> +<p class="i2">As if not warned sufficiently by those</p> +<p>Who had already perished, suffering madly,</p> +<p>For having used their appetites so sadly.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And next they thought upon the master's mate,</p> +<p class="i2">As fattest; but he saved himself, because,</p> +<p>Besides being much averse from such a fate,</p> +<p class="i2">There were some other reasons: the first was,</p> +<p>He had been rather indisposed of late;</p> +<p class="i2">And—that which chiefly proved his saving clause—</p> +<p>Was a small present made to him at Cadiz,</p> +<p>By general subscription of the ladies.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of poor Pedrillo something still remained,</p> +<p class="i2">But was used sparingly,—some were afraid,</p> +<p>And others still their appetites constrained,</p> +<p class="i2">Or but at times a little supper made;</p> +<p>All except Juan, who throughout abstained,</p> +<p class="i2">Chewing a piece of bamboo, and some lead:<a name="FNanchor_130" id="FNanchor_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p> +<p>At length they caught two Boobies, and a Noddy,<a name="FNanchor_131" id="FNanchor_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> +<p>And then they left off eating the dead body.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking be,</p> +<p class="i2">Remember Ugolino<a name="FNanchor_132" id="FNanchor_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> condescends</p> +<p>To eat the head of his arch-enemy</p> +<p class="i2">The moment after he politely ends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> +<p>His tale: if foes be food in Hell, at sea</p> +<p class="i2">'T is surely fair to dine upon our friends,</p> +<p>When Shipwreck's short allowance grows too scanty,</p> +<p>Without being much more horrible than Dante.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And the same night there fell a shower of rain,</p> +<p class="i2">For which their mouths gaped, like the cracks of earth</p> +<p>When dried to summer dust; till taught by pain,</p> +<p class="i2">Men really know not what good water's worth;</p> +<p>If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,</p> +<p class="i2">Or with a famished boat's-crew had your berth,</p> +<p>Or in the desert heard the camel's bell,</p> +<p>You'd wish yourself where Truth is—in a well.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It poured down torrents, but they were no richer</p> +<p class="i2">Until they found a ragged piece of sheet,</p> +<p>Which served them as a sort of spongy pitcher,</p> +<p class="i2">And when they deemed its moisture was complete,</p> +<p>They wrung it out, and though a thirsty ditcher<a name="FNanchor_133" id="FNanchor_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Might not have thought the scanty draught so sweet</p> +<p>As a full pot of porter, to their thinking</p> +<p>They ne'er till now had known the joys of drinking.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And their baked lips, with many a bloody crack,<a name="FNanchor_134" id="FNanchor_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Sucked in the moisture, which like nectar streamed;</p> +<p>Their throats were ovens, their swoln tongues were black,</p> +<p class="i2">As the rich man's in Hell, who vainly screamed</p> +<p>To beg the beggar, who could not rain back</p> +<p>A drop of dew, when every drop had seemed</p> +<p>To taste of Heaven—If this be true, indeed,</p> +<p>Some Christians have a comfortable creed.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,</p> +<p class="i2">And with them their two sons, of whom the one</p> +<p>Was more robust and hardy to the view,</p> +<p class="i2">But he died early; and when he was gone,</p> +<p>His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw</p> +<p class="i2">One glance at him, and said, "Heaven's will be done!</p> +<p>I can do nothing," and he saw him thrown</p> +<p>Into the deep without a tear or groan.<a name="FNanchor_135" id="FNanchor_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The other father had a weaklier child,</p> +<p class="i2">Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;<a name="FNanchor_136" id="FNanchor_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> +<p>But the boy bore up long, and with a mild</p> +<p class="i2">And patient spirit held aloof his fate;</p> +<p>Little he said, and now and then he smiled,</p> +<p class="i2">As if to win a part from off the weight</p> +<p>He saw increasing on his father's heart,</p> +<p>With the deep deadly thought, that they must part.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised</p> +<p class="i2">His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam</p> +<p>From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,</p> +<p class="i2">And when the wished-for shower at length was come,</p> +<p>And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed,</p> +<p class="i2">Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam,</p> +<p>He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain</p> +<p>Into his dying child's mouth—but in vain.<a name="FNanchor_137" id="FNanchor_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The boy expired—the father held the clay,</p> +<p class="i2">And looked upon it long, and when at last</p> +<p>Death left no doubt, and the dead burthen lay</p> +<p class="i2">Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past,</p> +<p>He watched it wistfully, until away</p> +<p class="i2">'T was borne by the rude wave wherein't was cast;<a name="FNanchor_138" id="FNanchor_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> +<p>Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering,</p> +<p>And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now overhead a rainbow, bursting through</p> +<p class="i2">The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dark sea,</p> +<p>Resting its bright base on the quivering blue;</p> +<p class="i2">And all within its arch appeared to be</p> +<p>Clearer than that without, and its wide hue</p> +<p class="i2">Waxed broad and waving, like a banner free,</p> +<p>Then changed like to a bow that's bent, and then</p> +<p>Forsook the dim eyes of these shipwrecked men.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It changed, of course; a heavenly Chameleon,</p> +<p class="i2">The airy child of vapour and the sun,</p> +<p>Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion,</p> +<p class="i2">Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun,</p> +<p>Glittering like crescents o'er a Turk's pavilion,</p> +<p class="i2">And blending every colour into one,</p> +<p>Just like a black eye in a recent scuffle</p> +<p>(For sometimes we must box without the muffle).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our shipwrecked seamen thought it a good omen—</p> +<p class="i2">It is as well to think so, now and then;</p> +<p>'T was an old custom of the Greek and Roman,</p> +<p class="i2">And may become of great advantage when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> +<p>Folks are discouraged; and most surely no men</p> +<p class="i2">Had greater need to nerve themselves again</p> +<p>Than these, and so this rainbow looked like Hope—</p> +<p>Quite a celestial Kaleidoscope.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>About this time a beautiful white bird,</p> +<p class="i2">Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size</p> +<p>And plumage (probably it might have erred</p> +<p class="i2">Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes,</p> +<p>And tried to perch, although it saw and heard</p> +<p class="i2">The men within the boat, and in this guise</p> +<p>It came and went, and fluttered round them till</p> +<p>Night fell:—this seemed a better omen still.<a name="FNanchor_139" id="FNanchor_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But in this case I also must remark,</p> +<p class="i2">'T was well this bird of promise did not perch,</p> +<p>Because the tackle of our shattered bark</p> +<p class="i2">Was not so safe for roosting as a church;</p> +<p>And had it been the dove from Noah's ark,</p> +<p class="i2">Returning there from her successful search,</p> +<p>Which in their way that moment chanced to fall,</p> +<p>They would have eat her, olive-branch and all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With twilight it again came on to blow,</p> +<p class="i2">But not with violence; the stars shone out,</p> +<p>The boat made way; yet now they were so low,</p> +<p class="i2">They knew not where nor what they were about;</p> +<p>Some fancied they saw land, and some said "No!"</p> +<p class="i2">The frequent fog-banks gave them cause to doubt—</p> +<p>Some swore that they heard breakers, others guns,<a name="FNanchor_140" id="FNanchor_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> +<p>And all mistook about the latter once.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As morning broke, the light wind died away,</p> +<p class="i2">When he who had the watch sung out and swore,</p> +<p>If 't was not land that rose with the Sun's ray,</p> +<p class="i2">He wished that land he never might see more;<a name="FNanchor_141" id="FNanchor_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p> +<p>And the rest rubbed their eyes and saw a bay,</p> +<p class="i2">Or thought they saw, and shaped their course for shore;</p> +<p>For shore it was, and gradually grew</p> +<p>Distinct, and high, and palpable to view.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then of these some part burst into tears,</p> +<p class="i2">And others, looking with a stupid stare,<a name="FNanchor_142" id="FNanchor_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p> +<p>Could not yet separate their hopes from fears,</p> +<p class="i2">And seemed as if they had no further care;</p> +<p>While a few prayed—(the first time for some years)—</p> +<p class="i2">And at the bottom of the boat three were</p> +<p>Asleep: they shook them by the hand and head,</p> +<p>And tried to awaken them, but found them dead.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The day before, fast sleeping on the water,</p> +<p class="i2">They found a turtle of the hawk's-bill kind,</p> +<p>And by good fortune, gliding softly, caught her,<a name="FNanchor_143" id="FNanchor_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> +<p>Which yielded a day's life, and to their mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> +<p>Proved even still a more nutritious matter,</p> +<p class="i2">Because it left encouragement behind:</p> +<p>They thought that in such perils, more than chance</p> +<p>Had sent them this for their deliverance.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The land appeared a high and rocky coast,</p> +<p class="i2">And higher grew the mountains as they drew,</p> +<p>Set by a current, toward it: they were lost</p> +<p class="i2">In various conjectures, for none knew</p> +<p>To what part of the earth they had been tost,</p> +<p class="i2">So changeable had been the winds that blew;</p> +<p>Some thought it was Mount Ætna, some the highlands</p> +<p>Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Meantime the current, with a rising gale,</p> +<p class="i2">Still set them onwards to the welcome shore,</p> +<p>Like Charon's bark of spectres, dull and pale:</p> +<p class="i2">Their living freight was now reduced to four,</p> +<p>And three dead, whom their strength could not avail</p> +<p class="i2">To heave into the deep with those before,</p> +<p>Though the two sharks still followed them, and dashed</p> +<p>The spray into their faces as they splashed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Famine—despair—cold—thirst and heat, had done</p> +<p class="i2">Their work on them by turns, and thinned them to</p> +<p>Such things a mother had not known her son</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew;<a name="FNanchor_144" id="FNanchor_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> +<p>By night chilled, by day scorched, thus one by one</p> +<p class="i2">They perished, until withered to these few,</p> +<p>But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter,</p> +<p>In washing down Pedrillo with salt water.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen</p> +<p class="i2">Unequal in its aspect here and there,</p> +<p>They felt the freshness of its growing green,</p> +<p class="i2">That waved in forest-tops, and smoothed the air,</p> +<p>And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen</p> +<p class="i2">From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare—</p> +<p>Lovely seemed any object that should sweep</p> +<p>Away the vast—salt—dread—eternal Deep.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The shore looked wild, without a trace of man,</p> +<p class="i2">And girt by formidable waves; but they</p> +<p>Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran,</p> +<p class="i2">Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay:</p> +<p>A reef between them also now began</p> +<p class="i2">To show its boiling surf and bounding spray,</p> +<p>But finding no place for their landing better,</p> +<p>They ran the boat for shore,—and overset her.<a name="FNanchor_145" id="FNanchor_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir,</p> +<p class="i2">Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont;</p> +<p>And having learnt to swim in that sweet river,</p> +<p class="i2">Had often turned the art to some account:</p> +<p>A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,</p> +<p class="i2">He could, perhaps, have passed the Hellespont,</p> +<p>As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided)</p> +<p>Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did.<a name="FNanchor_146" id="FNanchor_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark,</p> +<p class="i2">He buoyed his boyish limbs, and strove to ply</p> +<p>With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark,</p> +<p class="i2">The beach which lay before him, high and dry:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> +<p>The greatest danger here was from a shark,</p> +<p class="i2">That carried off his neighbour by the thigh;</p> +<p>As for the other two, they could not swim,</p> +<p>So nobody arrived on shore but him.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, providentially for him, was washed</p> +<p>Just as his feeble arms could strike no more,</p> +<p class="i2">And the hard wave o'erwhelmed him as 't was dashed</p> +<p>Within his grasp; he clung to it, and sore</p> +<p class="i2">The waters beat while he thereto was lashed;</p> +<p>At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he</p> +<p>Rolled on the beach, half-senseless, from the sea:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung</p> +<p class="i2">Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,</p> +<p>From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,</p> +<p class="i2">Should suck him back to her insatiate grave:</p> +<p>And there he lay, full length, where he was flung,</p> +<p class="i2">Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave,</p> +<p>With just enough of life to feel its pain,</p> +<p>And deem that it was saved, perhaps, in vain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With slow and staggering effort he arose,</p> +<p class="i2">But sunk again upon his bleeding knee</p> +<p>And quivering hand; and then he looked for those</p> +<p class="i2">Who long had been his mates upon the sea;</p> +<p>But none of them appeared to share his woes,</p> +<p class="i2">Save one, a corpse, from out the famished three,</p> +<p>Who died two days before, and now had found</p> +<p>An unknown barren beach for burial ground.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast,</p> +<p class="i2">And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand</p> +<p>Swam round and round, and all his senses passed:</p> +<p class="i2">He fell upon his side, and his stretched hand</p> +<p>Drooped dripping on the oar (their jury-mast),</p> +<p class="i2">And, like a withered lily, on the land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> +<p>His slender frame and pallid aspect lay,</p> +<p>As fair a thing as e'er was formed of clay.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How long in his damp trance young Juan lay<a name="FNanchor_147" id="FNanchor_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p> +<p class="i2">He knew not, for the earth was gone for him,</p> +<p>And Time had nothing more of night nor day</p> +<p class="i2">For his congealing blood, and senses dim;</p> +<p>And how this heavy faintness passed away</p> +<p class="i2">He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb,</p> +<p>And tingling vein, seemed throbbing back to life,</p> +<p>For Death, though vanquished, still retired with strife.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His eyes he opened, shut, again unclosed,</p> +<p class="i2">For all was doubt and dizziness; he thought</p> +<p>He still was in the boat, and had but dozed,</p> +<p class="i2">And felt again with his despair o'erwrought,</p> +<p>And wished it Death in which he had reposed,</p> +<p class="i2">And then once more his feelings back were brought,</p> +<p>And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen</p> +<p>A lovely female face of seventeen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was bending close o'er his, and the small mouth</p> +<p class="i2">Seemed almost prying into his for breath;</p> +<p>And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth</p> +<p class="i2">Recalled his answering spirits back from Death:</p> +<p>And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe</p> +<p class="i2">Each pulse to animation, till beneath</p> +<p>Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh</p> +<p>To these kind efforts made a low reply.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then was the cordial poured, and mantle flung</p> +<p class="i2">Around his scarce-clad limbs; and the fair arm</p> +<p>Raised higher the faint head which o'er it hung;</p> +<p class="i2">And her transparent cheek, all pure and warm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> +<p>Pillowed his death-like forehead; then she wrung</p> +<p class="i2">His dewy curls, long drenched by every storm;</p> +<p>And watched with eagerness each throb that drew</p> +<p>A sigh from his heaved bosom—and hers, too.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And lifting him with care into the cave,</p> +<p class="i2">The gentle girl, and her attendant,—one</p> +<p>Young, yet her elder, and of brow less grave,</p> +<p class="i2">And more robust of figure,—then begun</p> +<p>To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave</p> +<p class="i2">Light to the rocks that roofed them, which the sun</p> +<p>Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er</p> +<p>She was, appeared distinct, and tall, and fair.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her brow was overhung with coins of gold,</p> +<p class="i2">That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair—</p> +<p>Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolled</p> +<p class="i2">In braids behind; and though her stature were</p> +<p>Even of the highest for a female mould,</p> +<p class="i2">They nearly reached her heel; and in her air</p> +<p>There was a something which bespoke command,</p> +<p>As one who was a Lady in the land.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes</p> +<p class="i2">Were black as Death, their lashes the same hue,</p> +<p>Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies</p> +<p class="i2">Deepest attraction; for when to the view</p> +<p>Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies,</p> +<p class="i2">Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew;</p> +<p>'T is as the snake late coiled, who pours his length,</p> +<p>And hurls at once his venom and his strength.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her brow was white and low, her cheek's pure dye</p> +<p class="i2">Like twilight rosy still with the set sun;</p> +<p>Short upper lip—sweet lips! that make us sigh</p> +<p class="i2">Ever to have seen such; for she was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_BH" id="FNanchor_BH"></a><a href="#Footnote_BH" class="fnanchor">[BH]</a></p> +<p>Fit for the model of a statuary</p> +<p class="i2">(A race of mere impostors, when all's done—</p> +<p>I've seen much finer women, ripe and real,</p> +<p>Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).<a name="FNanchor_BI" id="FNanchor_BI"></a><a href="#Footnote_BI" class="fnanchor">[BI]</a><a name="FNanchor_148" id="FNanchor_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'll tell you why I say so, for 't is just</p> +<p class="i2">One should not rail without a decent cause:</p> +<p>There was an Irish lady,<a name="FNanchor_149" id="FNanchor_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> to whose bust</p> +<p class="i2">I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was</p> +<p>A frequent model; and if e'er she must</p> +<p class="i2">Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling laws,</p> +<p>They will destroy a face which mortal thought</p> +<p>Ne'er compassed, nor less mortal chisel wrought.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And such was she, the lady of the cave:</p> +<p class="i2">Her dress was very different from the Spanish,</p> +<p>Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave;</p> +<p class="i2">For, as you know, the Spanish women banish</p> +<p>Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while wave</p> +<p class="i2">Around them (what I hope will never vanish)</p> +<p>The basquiña and the mantilla, they</p> +<p>Seem at the same time mystical and gay.<a name="FNanchor_150" id="FNanchor_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But with our damsel this was not the case:</p> +<p class="i2">Her dress was many-coloured, finely spun;</p> +<p>Her locks curled negligently round her face,</p> +<p class="i2">But through them gold and gems profusely shone:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> +<p>Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace</p> +<p class="i2">Flowed in her veil, and many a precious stone</p> +<p>Flashed on her little hand; but, what was shocking,</p> +<p>Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stocking.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The other female's dress was not unlike,</p> +<p class="i2">But of inferior materials: she</p> +<p>Had not so many ornaments to strike,</p> +<p class="i2">Her hair had silver only, bound to be</p> +<p>Her dowry; and her veil, in form alike,</p> +<p class="i2">Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less free;</p> +<p>Her hair was thicker, but less long; her eyes</p> +<p>As black, but quicker, and of smaller size.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And these two tended him, and cheered him both</p> +<p class="i2">With food and raiment, and those soft attentions,</p> +<p>Which are—as I must own—of female growth,</p> +<p class="i2">And have ten thousand delicate inventions:</p> +<p>They made a most superior mess of broth,</p> +<p class="i2">A thing which poesy but seldom mentions,</p> +<p>But the best dish that e'er was cooked since Homer's</p> +<p>Achilles ordered dinner for new comers.<a name="FNanchor_151" id="FNanchor_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'll tell you who they were, this female pair,</p> +<p class="i2">Lest they should seem Princesses in disguise;</p> +<p>Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air</p> +<p class="i2">Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize;</p> +<p>And so, in short, the girls they really were</p> +<p class="i2">They shall appear before your curious eyes,</p> +<p>Mistress and maid; the first was only daughter</p> +<p>Of an old man, who lived upon the water.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A fisherman he had been in his youth,</p> +<p class="i2">And still a sort of fisherman was he;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> +<p>But other speculations were, in sooth,</p> +<p class="i2">Added to his connection with the sea,</p> +<p>Perhaps not so respectable, in truth:</p> +<p class="i2">A little smuggling, and some piracy,</p> +<p>Left him, at last, the sole of many masters</p> +<p>Of an ill-gotten million of piastres.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A fisher, therefore, was he,—though of men,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Peter the Apostle, and he fished</p> +<p>For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then,</p> +<p class="i2">And sometimes caught as many as he wished;</p> +<p>The cargoes he confiscated, and gain</p> +<p class="i2">He sought in the slave-market too, and dished</p> +<p>Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade,</p> +<p>By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a Greek, and on his isle had built</p> +<p class="i2">(One of the wild and smaller Cyclades)</p> +<p>A very handsome house from out his guilt,</p> +<p class="i2">And there he lived exceedingly at ease;</p> +<p>Heaven knows what cash he got, or blood he spilt,</p> +<p class="i2">A sad old fellow was he, if you please;</p> +<p>But this I know, it was a spacious building,</p> +<p>Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had an only daughter, called Haidée,</p> +<p class="i2">The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles;</p> +<p>Besides, so very beautiful was she,</p> +<p class="i2">Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles:</p> +<p>Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree</p> +<p class="i2">She grew to womanhood, and between whiles</p> +<p>Rejected several suitors, just to learn</p> +<p>How to accept a better in his turn.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And walking out upon the beach, below</p> +<p class="i2">The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found,</p> +<p>Insensible,—not dead, but nearly so,—</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan, almost famished, and half drowned;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> +<p>But being naked, she was shocked, you know,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet deemed herself in common pity bound,</p> +<p>As far as in her lay, "to take him in,</p> +<p>A stranger" dying—with so white a skin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But taking him into her father's house</p> +<p class="i2">Was not exactly the best way to save,</p> +<p>But like conveying to the cat the mouse,</p> +<p class="i2">Or people in a trance into their grave;</p> +<p>Because the good old man had so much "<span title="nous">νους</span>,"</p> +<p class="i2">Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave,</p> +<p>He would have hospitably cured the stranger,</p> +<p>And sold him instantly when out of danger.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best</p> +<p class="i2">(A virgin always on her maid relies)</p> +<p>To place him in the cave for present rest:</p> +<p class="i2">And when, at last, he opened his black eyes,</p> +<p>Their charity increased about their guest;</p> +<p class="i2">And their compassion grew to such a size,</p> +<p>It opened half the turnpike-gates to Heaven—</p> +<p>(St. Paul says, 't is the toll which must be given).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They made a fire,—but such a fire as they</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the moment could contrive with such</p> +<p>Materials as were cast up round the bay,—</p> +<p class="i2">Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch</p> +<p>Were nearly tinder, since, so long they lay,</p> +<p class="i2">A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch;</p> +<p>But, by God's grace, here wrecks were in such plenty,</p> +<p>That there was fuel to have furnished twenty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,<a name="FNanchor_BJ" id="FNanchor_BJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_BJ" class="fnanchor">[BJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For Haidée stripped her sables off to make</p> +<p>His couch; and, that he might be more at ease,</p> +<p class="i2">And warm, in case by chance he should awake,</p> +<p>They also gave a petticoat apiece,</p> +<p class="i2">She and her maid,—and promised by daybreak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> +<p>To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish</p> +<p>For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus they left him to his lone repose:</p> +<p class="i2">Juan slept like a top, or like the dead,</p> +<p>Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows),</p> +<p class="i2">Just for the present; and in his lulled head</p> +<p>Not even a vision of his former woes</p> +<p class="i2">Throbbed in accurséd dreams, which sometimes spread<a name="FNanchor_BK" id="FNanchor_BK"></a><a href="#Footnote_BK" class="fnanchor">[BK]</a></p> +<p>Unwelcome visions of our former years,</p> +<p>Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Young Juan slept all dreamless:—but the maid,</p> +<p class="i2">Who smoothed his pillow, as she left the den</p> +<p>Looked back upon him, and a moment stayed,</p> +<p class="i2">And turned, believing that he called again.</p> +<p>He slumbered; yet she thought, at least she said</p> +<p class="i2">(The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen),</p> +<p>He had pronounced her name—but she forgot</p> +<p>That at this moment Juan knew it not.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And pensive to her father's house she went,</p> +<p class="i2">Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who</p> +<p>Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant,</p> +<p class="i2">She being wiser by a year or two:</p> +<p>A year or two's an age when rightly spent,</p> +<p class="i2">And Zoe spent hers, as most women do,</p> +<p>In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge</p> +<p>Which is acquired in Nature's good old college.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still</p> +<p class="i2">Fast in his cave, and nothing clashed upon</p> +<p>His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill,</p> +<p class="i2">And the young beams of the excluded Sun,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> +<p>Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill;</p> +<p class="i2">And need he had of slumber yet, for none</p> +<p>Had suffered more—his hardships were comparative<a name="FNanchor_BL" id="FNanchor_BL"></a><a href="#Footnote_BL" class="fnanchor">[BL]</a></p> +<p>To those related in my grand-dad's "Narrative."<a name="FNanchor_152" id="FNanchor_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Not so Haidée: she sadly tossed and tumbled,</p> +<p class="i2">And started from her sleep, and, turning o'er,</p> +<p>Dreamed of a thousand wrecks, o'er which she stumbled,</p> +<p class="i2">And handsome corpses strewed upon the shore;</p> +<p>And woke her maid so early that she grumbled,</p> +<p class="i2">And called her father's old slaves up, who swore</p> +<p>In several oaths—Armenian, Turk, and Greek—</p> +<p>They knew not what to think of such a freak.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But up she got, and up she made them get,</p> +<p class="i2">With some pretence about the Sun, that makes</p> +<p>Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set;</p> +<p class="i2">And 't is, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks</p> +<p>Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet</p> +<p class="i2">With mist, and every bird with him awakes,</p> +<p>And night is flung off like a mourning suit</p> +<p>Worn for a husband,—or some other brute.<a name="FNanchor_BM" id="FNanchor_BM"></a><a href="#Footnote_BM" class="fnanchor">[BM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I say, the Sun is a most glorious sight,</p> +<p class="i2">I've seen him rise full oft, indeed of late</p> +<p>I have sat up on purpose all the night,<a name="FNanchor_BN" id="FNanchor_BN"></a><a href="#Footnote_BN" class="fnanchor">[BN]</a><a name="FNanchor_153" id="FNanchor_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which hastens, as physicians say, one's fate;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> +<p>And so all ye, who would be in the right</p> +<p class="i2">In health and purse, begin your day to date</p> +<p>From daybreak, and when coffined at fourscore,</p> +<p>Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Haidée met the morning face to face;</p> +<p class="i2">Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush</p> +<p>Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race</p> +<p class="i2">From heart to cheek is curbed into a blush,</p> +<p>Like to a torrent which a mountain's base,</p> +<p class="i2">That overpowers some Alpine river's rush,</p> +<p>Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread;</p> +<p>Or the Red Sea—but the sea is not red.<a name="FNanchor_154" id="FNanchor_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And down the cliff the island virgin came,</p> +<p class="i2">And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew,</p> +<p>While the Sun smiled on her with his first flame,</p> +<p class="i2">And young Aurora kissed her lips with dew,</p> +<p>Taking her for a sister; just the same</p> +<p class="i2">Mistake you would have made on seeing the two,</p> +<p>Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,</p> +<p>Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.<a name="FNanchor_BO" id="FNanchor_BO"></a><a href="#Footnote_BO" class="fnanchor">[BO]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when into the cavern Haidée stepped</p> +<p class="i2">All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw</p> +<p>That like an infant Juan sweetly slept;</p> +<p class="i2">And then she stopped, and stood as if in awe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> +<p>(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept</p> +<p class="i2">And wrapped him closer, lest the air, too raw,</p> +<p>Should reach his blood, then o'er him still as Death</p> +<p>Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his scarce-drawn breath.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus like to an Angel o'er the dying</p> +<p class="i2">Who die in righteousness, she leaned; and there</p> +<p>All tranquilly the shipwrecked boy was lying,</p> +<p class="i2">As o'er him lay the calm and stirless air:</p> +<p>But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying,</p> +<p class="i2">Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair</p> +<p>Must breakfast—and, betimes, lest they should ask it,</p> +<p>She drew out her provision from the basket.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She knew that the best feelings must have victual,</p> +<p class="i2">And that a shipwrecked youth would hungry be;</p> +<p>Besides, being less in love, she yawned a little,</p> +<p class="i2">And felt her veins chilled by the neighbouring sea;</p> +<p>And so, she cooked their breakfast to a tittle;</p> +<p class="i2">I can't say that she gave them any tea,</p> +<p>But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, honey,</p> +<p>With Scio wine,—and all for love, not money.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and</p> +<p class="i2">The coffee made, would fain have wakened Juan;</p> +<p>But Haidée stopped her with her quick small hand,</p> +<p class="i2">And without word, a sign her finger drew on</p> +<p>Her lip, which Zoe needs must understand;</p> +<p class="i2">And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a new one,</p> +<p>Because her mistress would not let her break</p> +<p>That sleep which seemed as it would ne'er awake.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek</p> +<p class="i2">A purple hectic played like dying day</p> +<p>On the snow-tops of distant hills; the streak</p> +<p class="i2">Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay,</p> +<p>Where the blue veins looked shadowy, shrunk, and weak;</p> +<p class="i2">And his black curls were dewy with the spray,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> +<p>Which weighed upon them yet, all damp and salt,</p> +<p>Mixed with the stony vapours of the vault.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath,</p> +<p class="i2">Hushed as the babe upon its mother's breast,</p> +<p>Drooped as the willow when no winds can breathe,</p> +<p class="i2">Lulled like the depth of Ocean when at rest,</p> +<p>Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath,</p> +<p class="i2">Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest;<a name="FNanchor_BP" id="FNanchor_BP"></a><a href="#Footnote_BP" class="fnanchor">[BP]</a></p> +<p>In short, he was a very pretty fellow,</p> +<p>Although his woes had turned him rather yellow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He woke and gazed, and would have slept again,</p> +<p class="i2">But the fair face which met his eyes forbade</p> +<p>Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain</p> +<p class="i2">Had further sleep a further pleasure made:</p> +<p>For Woman's face was never formed in vain</p> +<p class="i2">For Juan, so that even when he prayed</p> +<p>He turned from grisly saints, and martyrs hairy,</p> +<p>To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus upon his elbow he arose,</p> +<p class="i2">And looked upon the lady, in whose cheek</p> +<p>The pale contended with the purple rose,</p> +<p class="i2">As with an effort she began to speak;</p> +<p>Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose,</p> +<p class="i2">Although she told him, in good modern Greek,</p> +<p>With an Ionian accent, low and sweet,</p> +<p>That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now Juan could not understand a word,</p> +<p class="i2">Being no Grecian; but he had an ear,</p> +<p>And her voice was the warble of a bird,<a name="FNanchor_155" id="FNanchor_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p> +<p class="i2">So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> +<p>That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;<a name="FNanchor_BQ" id="FNanchor_BQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_BQ" class="fnanchor">[BQ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The sort of sound we echo with a tear,</p> +<p>Without knowing why—an overpowering tone,</p> +<p>Whence Melody descends as from a throne.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan gazed as one who is awoke</p> +<p class="i2">By a distant organ, doubting if he be</p> +<p>Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke</p> +<p class="i2">By the watchman, or some such reality,</p> +<p>Or by one's early valet's curséd knock;</p> +<p class="i2">At least it is a heavy sound to me,</p> +<p>Who like a morning slumber—for the night</p> +<p>Shows stars and women in a better light.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan, too, was helped out from his dream,</p> +<p class="i2">Or sleep, or whatsoe'er it was, by feeling</p> +<p>A most prodigious appetite; the steam</p> +<p class="i2">Of Zoe's cookery no doubt was stealing</p> +<p>Upon his senses, and the kindling beam</p> +<p class="i2">Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, kneeling,</p> +<p>To stir her viands, made him quite awake</p> +<p>And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But beef is rare within these oxless isles;</p> +<p class="i2">Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,</p> +<p>And, when a holiday upon them smiles,</p> +<p class="i2">A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on:</p> +<p>But this occurs but seldom, between whiles,</p> +<p class="i2">For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut on;</p> +<p>Others are fair and fertile, among which</p> +<p>This, though not large, was one of the most rich.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I say that beef is rare, and can't help thinking</p> +<p class="i2">That the old fable of the Minotaur—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>From which our modern morals, rightly shrinking,</p> +<p class="i2">Condemn the royal lady's taste who wore</p> +<p>A cow's shape for a mask—was only (sinking</p> +<p class="i2">The allegory) a mere type, no more,</p> +<p>That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle,</p> +<p>To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For we all know that English people are</p> +<p class="i2">Fed upon beef—I won't say much of beer,</p> +<p>Because 't is liquor only, and being far</p> +<p class="i2">From this my subject, has no business here;</p> +<p>We know, too, they are very fond of war,</p> +<p class="i2">A pleasure—like all pleasures—rather dear;</p> +<p>So were the Cretans—from which I infer,</p> +<p>That beef and battles both were owing to her.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to resume. The languid Juan raised</p> +<p class="i2">His head upon his elbow, and he saw</p> +<p>A sight on which he had not lately gazed,</p> +<p class="i2">As all his latter meals had been quite raw,</p> +<p>Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised,</p> +<p class="i2">And, feeling still the famished vulture gnaw,</p> +<p>He fell upon whate'er was offered, like</p> +<p>A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He ate, and he was well supplied; and she,</p> +<p class="i2">Who watched him like a mother, would have fed</p> +<p>Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see</p> +<p class="i2">Such appetite in one she had deemed dead:</p> +<p>But Zoe, being older than Haidée,</p> +<p class="i2">Knew (by tradition, for she ne'er had read)</p> +<p>That famished people must be slowly nurst,</p> +<p>And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so she took the liberty to state,</p> +<p class="i2">Rather by deeds than words, because the case</p> +<p>Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate</p> +<p class="i2">Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> +<p>The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless he wished to die upon the place—</p> +<p>She snatched it, and refused another morsel,</p> +<p>Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Next they—he being naked, save a tattered</p> +<p class="i2">Pair of scarce decent trowsers—went to work,</p> +<p>And in the fire his recent rags they scattered,</p> +<p class="i2">And dressed him, for the present, like a Turk,</p> +<p>Or Greek—that is, although it not much mattered,</p> +<p class="i2">Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, dirk,—</p> +<p>They furnished him, entire, except some stitches,</p> +<p>With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then fair Haidée tried her tongue at speaking,</p> +<p class="i2">But not a word could Juan comprehend,</p> +<p>Although he listened so that the young Greek in</p> +<p class="i2">Her earnestness would ne'er have made an end;</p> +<p>And, as he interrupted not, went eking</p> +<p class="i2">Her speech out to her protégé and friend,</p> +<p>Till pausing at the last her breath to take,</p> +<p>She saw he did not understand Romaic.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then she had recourse to nods, and signs,</p> +<p class="i2">And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye,</p> +<p>And read (the only book she could) the lines</p> +<p class="i2">Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy,</p> +<p>The answer eloquent, where the Soul shines</p> +<p class="i2">And darts in one quick glance a long reply;</p> +<p>And thus in every look she saw expressed</p> +<p>A world of words, and things at which she guessed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And words repeated after her, he took</p> +<p>A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise,</p> +<p class="i2">No doubt, less of her language than her look:</p> +<p>As he who studies fervently the skies</p> +<p class="i2">Turns oftener to the stars than to his book,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> +<p>Thus Juan learned his <i>alpha beta</i> better</p> +<p>From Haidée's glance than any graven letter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue</p> +<p class="i2">By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,</p> +<p>When both the teacher and the taught are young,</p> +<p class="i2">As was the case, at least, where I have been;<a name="FNanchor_156" id="FNanchor_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p> +<p>They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong</p> +<p class="i2">They smile still more, and then there intervene</p> +<p>Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss;—<a name="FNanchor_BR" id="FNanchor_BR"></a><a href="#Footnote_BR" class="fnanchor">[BR]</a></p> +<p>I learned the little that I know by this:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek,</p> +<p class="i2">Italian not at all, having no teachers;<a name="FNanchor_BS" id="FNanchor_BS"></a><a href="#Footnote_BS" class="fnanchor">[BS]</a></p> +<p>Much English I cannot pretend to speak,</p> +<p class="i2">Learning that language chiefly from its preachers,</p> +<p>Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week</p> +<p class="i2">I study, also Blair—the highest reachers</p> +<p>Of eloquence in piety and prose—</p> +<p>I hate your poets, so read none of those.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As for the ladies, I have nought to say,</p> +<p class="i2">A wanderer from the British world of Fashion,<a name="FNanchor_157" id="FNanchor_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p> +<p>Where I, like other "dogs, have had my day,"</p> +<p class="i2">Like other men, too, may have had my passion—</p> +<p>But that, like other things, has passed away,</p> +<p class="i2">And all her fools whom I <i>could</i> lay the lash on:</p> +<p>Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me</p> +<p>But dreams of what has been, no more to be.<a name="FNanchor_BT" id="FNanchor_BT"></a><a href="#Footnote_BT" class="fnanchor">[BT]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p><h3>CLXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Return we to Don Juan. He begun<a name="FNanchor_158" id="FNanchor_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To hear new words, and to repeat them; but</p> +<p>Some feelings, universal as the Sun,</p> +<p class="i2">Were such as could not in his breast be shut</p> +<p>More than within the bosom of a nun:</p> +<p class="i2">He was in love,—as you would be, no doubt,</p> +<p>With a young benefactress,—so was she,</p> +<p>Just in the way we very often see.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And every day by daybreak—rather early</p> +<p class="i2">For Juan, who was somewhat fond of rest—</p> +<p>She came into the cave, but it was merely</p> +<p class="i2">To see her bird reposing in his nest;<a name="FNanchor_159" id="FNanchor_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> +<p>And she would softly stir his locks so curly,</p> +<p class="i2">Without disturbing her yet slumbering guest,</p> +<p>Breathing all gently o'er his cheek and mouth,<a name="FNanchor_BU" id="FNanchor_BU"></a><a href="#Footnote_BU" class="fnanchor">[BU]</a></p> +<p>As o'er a bed of roses the sweet South.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And every morn his colour freshlier came,</p> +<p class="i2">And every day helped on his convalescence;</p> +<p>'T was well, because health in the human frame</p> +<p class="i2">Is pleasant, besides being true Love's essence,</p> +<p>For health and idleness to Passion's flame</p> +<p class="i2">Are oil and gunpowder; and some good lessons</p> +<p>Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus,</p> +<p>Without whom Venus will not long attack us.<a name="FNanchor_160" id="FNanchor_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While Venus fills the heart, (without heart really</p> +<p class="i2">Love, though good always, is not quite so good,)</p> +<p>Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,—</p> +<p class="i2">For Love must be sustained like flesh and blood,—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly:</p> +<p class="i2">Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;<a name="FNanchor_BV" id="FNanchor_BV"></a><a href="#Footnote_BV" class="fnanchor">[BV]</a></p> +<p>But who is their purveyor from above</p> +<p>Heaven knows,—it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Juan woke he found some good things ready,</p> +<p class="i2">A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes</p> +<p>That ever made a youthful heart less steady,</p> +<p class="i2">Besides her maid's, as pretty for their size;</p> +<p>But I have spoken of all this already—</p> +<p class="i2">A repetition's tiresome and unwise,—</p> +<p>Well—Juan, after bathing in the sea,</p> +<p>Came always back to coffee and Haidée.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Both were so young, and one so innocent,</p> +<p class="i2">That bathing passed for nothing; Juan seemed</p> +<p>To her, as 't were, the kind of being sent,</p> +<p class="i2">Of whom these two years she had nightly dreamed,</p> +<p>A something to be loved, a creature meant</p> +<p class="i2">To be her happiness, and whom she deemed</p> +<p>To render happy; all who joy would win</p> +<p>Must share it,—Happiness was born a Twin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was such pleasure to behold him, such</p> +<p class="i2">Enlargement of existence to partake</p> +<p>Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch,</p> +<p class="i2">To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake:</p> +<p>To live with him for ever were too much;</p> +<p class="i2">But then the thought of parting made her quake;</p> +<p>He was her own, her ocean-treasure, cast</p> +<p>Like a rich wreck—her first love, and her last.<a name="FNanchor_BW" id="FNanchor_BW"></a><a href="#Footnote_BW" class="fnanchor">[BW]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CLXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus a moon rolled on, and fair Haidée</p> +<p class="i2">Paid daily visits to her boy, and took</p> +<p>Such plentiful precautions, that still he</p> +<p class="i2">Remained unknown within his craggy nook;</p> +<p>At last her father's prows put out to sea,</p> +<p class="i2">For certain merchantmen upon the look,</p> +<p>Not as of yore to carry off an Io,</p> +<p>But three Ragusan vessels, bound for Scio.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then came her freedom, for she had no mother,</p> +<p class="i2">So that, her father being at sea, she was</p> +<p>Free as a married woman, or such other</p> +<p class="i2">Female, as where she likes may freely pass,</p> +<p>Without even the encumbrance of a brother,</p> +<p class="i2">The freest she that ever gazed on glass:</p> +<p>I speak of Christian lands in this comparison,</p> +<p>Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garrison.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now she prolonged her visits and her talk</p> +<p class="i2">(For they must talk), and he had learnt to say</p> +<p>So much as to propose to take a walk,—</p> +<p class="i2">For little had he wandered since the day</p> +<p>On which, like a young flower snapped from the stalk,</p> +<p class="i2">Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay,—</p> +<p>And thus they walked out in the afternoon,</p> +<p>And saw the sun set opposite the moon.<a name="FNanchor_BX" id="FNanchor_BX"></a><a href="#Footnote_BX" class="fnanchor">[BX]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast,</p> +<p class="i2">With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore,</p> +<p>Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host,</p> +<p class="i2">With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore</p> +<p>A better welcome to the tempest-tost;</p> +<p class="i2">And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar,</p> +<p>Save on the dead long summer days, which make</p> +<p>The outstretched Ocean glitter like a lake.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And the small ripple spilt upon the beach</p> +<p class="i2">Scarcely o'erpassed the cream of your champagne,</p> +<p>When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach,</p> +<p class="i2">That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain!</p> +<p>Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach</p> +<p class="i2">Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,—</p> +<p>Let us have Wine and Woman,<a name="FNanchor_161" id="FNanchor_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> Mirth and Laughter,</p> +<p>Sermons and soda-water the day after.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;</p> +<p class="i2">The best of Life is but intoxication:</p> +<p>Glory, the Grape, Love, Gold, in these are sunk</p> +<p class="i2">The hopes of all men, and of every nation;</p> +<p>Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk</p> +<p class="i2">Of Life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion!</p> +<p>But to return,—Get very drunk, and when</p> +<p>You wake with headache—you shall see what then!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ring for your valet—bid him quickly bring</p> +<p class="i2">Some hock and soda-water,<a name="FNanchor_162" id="FNanchor_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> then you'll know</p> +<p>A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king;</p> +<p class="i2">For not the blest sherbet, sublimed with snow,<a name="FNanchor_163" id="FNanchor_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> +<p>Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow,<a name="FNanchor_BY" id="FNanchor_BY"></a><a href="#Footnote_BY" class="fnanchor">[BY]</a></p> +<p>After long travel, Ennui, Love, or Slaughter,</p> +<p>Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water!</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p><h3>CLXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The coast—I think it was the coast that I</p> +<p class="i2">Was just describing—Yes, it <i>was</i> the coast—</p> +<p>Lay at this period quiet as the sky,</p> +<p class="i2">The sands untumbled, the blue waves untossed,</p> +<p>And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry,</p> +<p class="i2">And dolphin's leap, and little billow crossed</p> +<p>By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret</p> +<p>Against the boundary it scarcely wet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And forth they wandered, her sire being gone,</p> +<p class="i2">As I have said, upon an expedition;</p> +<p>And mother, brother, guardian, she had none,</p> +<p class="i2">Save Zoe, who, although with due precision</p> +<p>She waited on her lady with the Sun,</p> +<p class="i2">Thought daily service was her only mission,</p> +<p>Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses,</p> +<p>And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded</p> +<p class="i2">Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,</p> +<p>Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded,</p> +<p class="i2">Circling all Nature, hushed, and dim, and still,</p> +<p>With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded</p> +<p class="i2">On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill</p> +<p>Upon the other, and the rosy sky</p> +<p>With one star sparkling through it like an eye.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus they wandered forth, and hand in hand,</p> +<p class="i2">Over the shining pebbles and the shells,</p> +<p>Glided along the smooth and hardened sand,</p> +<p class="i2">And in the worn and wild receptacles</p> +<p>Worked by the storms, yet worked as it were planned</p> +<p class="i2">In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,</p> +<p>They turned to rest; and, each clasped by an arm,</p> +<p>Yielded to the deep Twilight's purple charm.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow</p> +<p class="i2">Spread like a rosy Ocean, vast and bright;<a name="FNanchor_BZ" id="FNanchor_BZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_BZ" class="fnanchor">[BZ]</a></p> +<p>They gazed upon the glittering sea below,</p> +<p class="i2">Whence the broad Moon rose circling into sight;</p> +<p>They heard the waves' splash, and the wind so low,</p> +<p class="i2">And saw each other's dark eyes darting light</p> +<p>Into each other—and, beholding this,</p> +<p>Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A long, long kiss, a kiss of Youth, and Love,</p> +<p class="i2">And Beauty, all concentrating like rays</p> +<p>Into one focus, kindled from above;</p> +<p class="i2">Such kisses as belong to early days,</p> +<p>Where Heart, and Soul, and Sense, in concert move,</p> +<p class="i2">And the blood's lava, and the pulse a blaze,</p> +<p>Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss's strength,</p> +<p>I think, it must be reckoned by its length.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By length I mean duration; theirs endured</p> +<p class="i2">Heaven knows how long—no doubt they never reckoned;</p> +<p>And if they had, they could not have secured</p> +<p class="i2">The sum of their sensations to a second:</p> +<p>They had not spoken, but they felt allured,</p> +<p class="i2">As if their souls and lips each other beckoned,</p> +<p>Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung—</p> +<p>Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.<a name="FNanchor_CA" id="FNanchor_CA"></a><a href="#Footnote_CA" class="fnanchor">[CA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They were alone, but not alone as they</p> +<p class="i2">Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;</p> +<p>The silent Ocean, and the starlight bay,</p> +<p class="i2">The twilight glow, which momently grew less,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> +<p>The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay</p> +<p class="i2">Around them, made them to each other press,</p> +<p>As if there were no life beneath the sky</p> +<p>Save theirs, and that their life could never die.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They feared no eyes nor ears on that lone beach;</p> +<p class="i2">They felt no terrors from the night; they were</p> +<p>All in all to each other: though their speech</p> +<p class="i2">Was broken words, they <i>thought</i> a language there,—</p> +<p>And all the burning tongues the Passions teach<a name="FNanchor_CB" id="FNanchor_CB"></a><a href="#Footnote_CB" class="fnanchor">[CB]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Found in one sigh the best interpreter</p> +<p>Of Nature's oracle—first love,—that all</p> +<p>Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Haidée spoke not of scruples, asked no vows,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor offered any; she had never heard</p> +<p>Of plight and promises to be a spouse,</p> +<p class="i2">Or perils by a loving maid incurred;</p> +<p>She was all which pure Ignorance allows,</p> +<p class="i2">And flew to her young mate like a young bird;</p> +<p>And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she</p> +<p>Had not one word to say of constancy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She loved, and was belovéd—she adored,</p> +<p class="i2">And she was worshipped after Nature's fashion—</p> +<p>Their intense souls, into each other poured,</p> +<p class="i2">If souls could die, had perished in that passion,—</p> +<p>But by degrees their senses were restored,</p> +<p class="i2">Again to be o'ercome, again to dash on;</p> +<p>And, beating 'gainst <i>his</i> bosom, Haidée's heart</p> +<p>Felt as if never more to beat apart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! they were so young, so beautiful,</p> +<p class="i2">So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour</p> +<p>Was that in which the Heart is always full,</p> +<p class="i2">And, having o'er itself no further power,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> +<p>Prompts deeds Eternity can not annul,</p> +<p class="i2">But pays off moments in an endless shower</p> +<p>Of hell-fire—all prepared for people giving</p> +<p>Pleasure or pain to one another living.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! for Juan and Haidée! they were</p> +<p class="i2">So loving and so lovely—till then never,</p> +<p>Excepting our first parents, such a pair</p> +<p class="i2">Had run the risk of being damned for ever:</p> +<p>And Haidée, being devout as well as fair,</p> +<p class="i2">Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river,</p> +<p>And Hell and Purgatory—but forgot</p> +<p>Just in the very crisis she should not.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They look upon each other, and their eyes</p> +<p class="i2">Gleam in the moonlight; and her white arm clasps</p> +<p>Round Juan's head, and his around her lies</p> +<p class="i2">Half buried in the tresses which it grasps;</p> +<p>She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs,</p> +<p class="i2">He hers, until they end in broken gasps;</p> +<p>And thus they form a group that's quite antique,</p> +<p>Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when those deep and burning moments passed,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms,</p> +<p>She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast,</p> +<p class="i2">Sustained his head upon her bosom's charms;</p> +<p>And now and then her eye to Heaven is cast,</p> +<p class="i2">And then on the pale cheek her breast now warms,</p> +<p>Pillowed on her o'erflowing heart, which pants</p> +<p>With all it granted, and with all it grants.<a name="FNanchor_CC" id="FNanchor_CC"></a><a href="#Footnote_CC" class="fnanchor">[CC]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An infant when it gazes on a light,</p> +<p class="i2">A child the moment when it drains the breast,</p> +<p>A devotee when soars the Host in sight,</p> +<p class="i2">An Arab with a stranger for a guest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> +<p>A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,</p> +<p class="i2">A miser filling his most hoarded chest,</p> +<p>Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping</p> +<p>As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved,</p> +<p class="i2">All that it hath of Life with us is living;</p> +<p>So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved,</p> +<p class="i2">And all unconscious of the joy 't is giving;</p> +<p>All it hath felt, inflicted, passed, and proved,</p> +<p class="i2">Hushed into depths beyond the watcher's diving:</p> +<p>There lies the thing we love with all its errors</p> +<p>And all its charms, like Death without its terrors.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Lady watched her lover—and that hour</p> +<p class="i2">Of Love's, and Night's, and Ocean's solitude</p> +<p>O'erflowed her soul with their united power;</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst the barren sand and rocks so rude</p> +<p>She and her wave-worn love had made their bower,</p> +<p class="i2">Where nought upon their passion could intrude,</p> +<p>And all the stars that crowded the blue space</p> +<p>Saw nothing happier than her glowing face.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! the love of Women! it is known</p> +<p class="i2">To be a lovely and a fearful thing;</p> +<p>For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,</p> +<p class="i2">And if 't is lost, Life hath no more to bring</p> +<p>To them but mockeries of the past alone,</p> +<p class="i2">And their revenge is as the tiger's spring,</p> +<p>Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real</p> +<p>Torture is theirs—what they inflict they feel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They are right; for Man, to man so oft unjust,</p> +<p class="i2">Is always so to Women: one sole bond</p> +<p>Awaits them—treachery is all their trust;</p> +<p class="i2">Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond</p> +<p>Over their idol, till some wealthier lust</p> +<p class="i2">Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> +<p>A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover—</p> +<p>Then dressing, nursing, praying—and all's over.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers,</p> +<p class="i2">Some mind their household, others dissipation,</p> +<p>Some run away, and but exchange their cares,</p> +<p class="i2">Losing the advantage of a virtuous station;</p> +<p>Few changes e'er can better their affairs,</p> +<p class="i2">Theirs being an unnatural situation,</p> +<p>From the dull palace to the dirty hovel:<a name="FNanchor_CD" id="FNanchor_CD"></a><a href="#Footnote_CD" class="fnanchor">[CD]</a></p> +<p>Some play the devil, and then write a novel.<a name="FNanchor_164" id="FNanchor_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Haidée was Nature's bride, and knew not this;</p> +<p class="i2">Haidée was Passion's child, born where the Sun</p> +<p>Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss</p> +<p class="i2">Of his gazelle-eyed daughters; she was one</p> +<p>Made but to love, to feel that she was his</p> +<p class="i2">Who was her chosen: what was said or done</p> +<p>Elsewhere was nothing. She had nought to fear,</p> +<p>Hope, care, nor love, beyond,—her heart beat <i>here</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And oh! that quickening of the heart, that beat!</p> +<p class="i2">How much it costs us! yet each rising throb</p> +<p>Is in its cause as its effect so sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">That Wisdom, ever on the watch to rob</p> +<p>Joy of its alchemy, and to repeat</p> +<p class="i2">Fine truths; even Conscience, too, has a tough job</p> +<p>To make us understand each good old maxim,</p> +<p>So good—I wonder Castlereagh don't tax 'em.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now 't was done—on the lone shore were plighted</p> +<p class="i2">Their hearts; the stars, their nuptial torches, shed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> +<p>Beauty upon the beautiful they lighted:</p> +<p class="i2">Ocean their witness, and the cave their bed,</p> +<p>By their own feelings hallowed and united,</p> +<p class="i2">Their priest was Solitude, and they were wed:<a name="FNanchor_CE" id="FNanchor_CE"></a><a href="#Footnote_CE" class="fnanchor">[CE]</a></p> +<p>And they were happy—for to their young eyes</p> +<p>Each was an angel, and earth Paradise.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, Love! of whom great Cæsar was the suitor,</p> +<p class="i2">Titus the master,<a name="FNanchor_165" id="FNanchor_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> Antony the slave,</p> +<p>Horace, Catullus, scholars—Ovid tutor—</p> +<p class="i2">Sappho the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave</p> +<p>All those may leap who rather would be neuter—</p> +<p class="i2">(Leucadia's rock still overlooks the wave)—</p> +<p>Oh, Love! thou art the very God of evil,</p> +<p>For, after all, we cannot call thee Devil.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou mak'st the chaste connubial state precarious,</p> +<p class="i2">And jestest with the brows of mightiest men:</p> +<p>Cæsar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius,<a name="FNanchor_166" id="FNanchor_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Have much employed the Muse of History's pen:</p> +<p>Their lives and fortunes were extremely various,</p> +<p class="i2">Such worthies Time will never see again;</p> +<p>Yet to these four in three things the same luck holds,</p> +<p>They all were heroes, conquerors, and cuckolds.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thou mak'st philosophers; there's Epicurus</p> +<p class="i2">And Aristippus, a material crew!</p> +<p>Who to immoral courses would allure us</p> +<p class="i2">By theories quite practicable too;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> +<p>If only from the Devil they would insure us,</p> +<p class="i2">How pleasant were the maxim (not quite new),</p> +<p>"Eat, drink, and love, what can the rest avail us?"</p> +<p>So said the royal sage Sardanapalus.<a name="FNanchor_167" id="FNanchor_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan! had he quite forgotten Julia?</p> +<p class="i2">And should he have forgotten her so soon?</p> +<p>I can't but say it seems to me most truly a</p> +<p class="i2">Perplexing question; but, no doubt, the moon</p> +<p>Does these things for us, and whenever newly a</p> +<p class="i2">Strong palpitation rises, 't is her boon,</p> +<p>Else how the devil is it that fresh features</p> +<p>Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest,</p> +<p class="i2">Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made</p> +<p>Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast</p> +<p class="i2">No permanent foundation can be laid;</p> +<p>Love, constant love, has been my constant guest,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet last night, being at a masquerade,</p> +<p>I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan,</p> +<p>Which gave me some sensations like a villain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But soon Philosophy came to my aid,</p> +<p class="i2">And whispered, "Think of every sacred tie!"</p> +<p>"I will, my dear Philosophy!" I said,</p> +<p class="i2">"But then her teeth, and then, oh, Heaven! her eye!</p> +<p>I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid,</p> +<p class="i2">Or neither—out of curiosity."</p> +<p>"Stop!" cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian,</p> +<p>(Though she was masqued then as a fair Venetian;)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Stop!" so I stopped.—But to return: that which</p> +<p class="i2">Men call inconstancy is nothing more</p> +<p>Than admiration due where Nature's rich</p> +<p class="i2">Profusion with young beauty covers o'er<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> +<p>Some favoured object; and as in the niche</p> +<p class="i2">A lovely statue we almost adore,</p> +<p>This sort of adoration of the real</p> +<p>Is but a heightening of the <i>beau ideal</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is the perception of the Beautiful,</p> +<p class="i2">A fine extension of the faculties,</p> +<p>Platonic, universal, wonderful,</p> +<p class="i2">Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies,</p> +<p>Without which Life would be extremely dull;</p> +<p class="i2">In short, it is the use of our own eyes,</p> +<p>With one or two small senses added, just</p> +<p>To hint that flesh is formed of fiery dust.<a name="FNanchor_CF" id="FNanchor_CF"></a><a href="#Footnote_CF" class="fnanchor">[CF]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet 't is a painful feeling, and unwilling,</p> +<p class="i2">For surely if we always could perceive</p> +<p>In the same object graces quite as killing</p> +<p class="i2">As when she rose upon us like an Eve,</p> +<p>'T would save us many a heartache, many a shilling,</p> +<p class="i2">(For we must get them anyhow, or grieve),</p> +<p>Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever,</p> +<p>How pleasant for the heart, as well as liver!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Heart is like the sky, a part of Heaven,</p> +<p class="i2">But changes night and day, too, like the sky;</p> +<p>Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven,</p> +<p class="i2">And Darkness and Destruction as on high:</p> +<p>But when it hath been scorched, and pierced, and riven,</p> +<p class="i2">Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye</p> +<p>Pours forth at last the Heart's blood turned to tears,</p> +<p>Which make the English climate of our years.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The liver is the lazaret of bile,</p> +<p class="i2">But very rarely executes its function,</p> +<p>For the first passion stays there such a while,</p> +<p class="i2">That all the rest creep in and form a junction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> +<p>Like knots of vipers on a dunghill's soil—<a name="FNanchor_168" id="FNanchor_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction—</p> +<p>So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail,</p> +<p>Like Earthquakes from the hidden fire called "central."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CCXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In the mean time, without proceeding more</p> +<p class="i2">In this anatomy, I've finished now</p> +<p>Two hundred and odd stanzas as before,<a name="FNanchor_CG" id="FNanchor_CG"></a><a href="#Footnote_CG" class="fnanchor">[CG]</a></p> +<p class="i2">That being about the number I'll allow</p> +<p>Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four;</p> +<p class="i2">And, laying down my pen, I make my bow,</p> +<p>Leaving Don Juan and Haidée to plead</p> +<p>For them and theirs with all who deign to read.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Begun at Venice, December 13, 1818,-finished January 20, +1819.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AY" id="Footnote_AY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AY"><span class="label">[AY]</span></a> <a name="Note_81" id="Note_81"></a>{81}<i>Lost that most precious stone of stones—his +modesty</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <a name="Note_82" id="Note_82"></a>{82}[Compare "The Girl of Cadiz," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, +iii. 1, and note 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_AZ" id="Footnote_AZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_AZ"><span class="label">[AZ]</span></a> <i>But d——n me if I ever saw the like</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <a name="Note_83" id="Note_83"></a> +{83}<i>Fazzioli</i>—literally, little handkerchiefs—the veils +most availing of St. Mark. +</p><p> +["<i>I fazzioli</i>, or kerchiefs (a white kind of +veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads)."—Letter to Rogers, +March 3, 1818, <i>Letters,</i> 1900, iv. 208.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BA" id="Footnote_BA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BA"><span class="label">[BA]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Their manners mending, and their morals curing</i>.</p> +<p><i>She taught them to suppress their vice—and urine</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> +<a name="Note_84" id="Note_84"></a>{84} [Compare—</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p> "And fast the white rocks faded from his view</p> +<hr style="margin:0.5em auto 0.5em 3em;" /> +<p>And then, it may be, of his wish to roam</p> +<p>Repented he."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto I. stanza xii. lines 3-6, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 24.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100" id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> <a name="Note_87" id="Note_87"></a>{87}["To breathe a vein ... to lance it so as to let +blood." Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Rosalind</i>. Is the fool sick?</p> +<p><i>Biron</i>. Sick at heart.</p> +<p><i>Ros</i>. Alack, let it blood."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Love's Labour's Lost</i>, act ii. sc. I, line 185.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BB" id="Footnote_BB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BB"><span class="label">[BB]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Sea-sickness death; then pardon Juan—how else</i></p> +<p><i>Keep down his stomach ne'er at sea before</i>?—[MS. M.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101" id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> ["With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck, I think +that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was not a +<i>single circumstance</i> of it <i>not</i> taken from <i>fact</i>: not, indeed, from +any <i>single</i> shipwreck, but all from <i>actual</i> facts of different +wrecks."—- Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821. In the <i>Monthly +Magazine</i>, vol. liii. (August, 1821, pp. 19-22, and September, 1821, pp. +105-109), Byron's indebtedness to Sir G. Dalzell's <i>Shipwrecks and +Disasters at Sea</i> (1812, 8vo) is pointed out, and the parallel passages +are printed in full.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102" id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> ["Night came on worse than the day had been; and a +<i>sudden shift of wind,</i> about midnight, <i>threw the ship into the trough +of the sea, which struck her aft, tore away the rudder, started the +stern-post, and shattered the whole of her stern-frame. The pumps</i> were +<i>immediately sounded,</i> and in the course of a few minutes the water had +increased to <i>four feet</i>.... +</p><p> +<i>"One gang was instantly put on them, and the remainder of the people +employed in getting up</i> rice from the run of the ship, and heaving it +over, <i>to come at the leak,</i> if possible. After three or four hundred +bags were thrown into the sea, <i>we did get at it,</i> and found <i>the water +rushing</i> into the ship with astonishing rapidity; therefore we <i>thrust +sheets, shirts, jackets, tales of muslin,</i> and everything of the like +description that could be got, <i>into the opening.</i> +</p><p> +"Notwithstanding the pumps <i>discharged fifty tons of water an hour,</i> the +ship certainly <i>must have gone down,</i> had not our <i>expedients</i> been +attended with some success. <i>The pumps,</i> to the excellent construction +of which I owe the preservation of my life, <i>were made by Mr. Mann of +London. As the next day advanced, the weather appeared to moderate,</i> the +men continued incessantly at the pumps, and every exertion was made to +<i>keep the ship afloat.</i>"—See "Loss of the American ship <i>Hercules,</i> +Captain Benjamin Stout, June 16, 1796," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at +Sea,</i> 1812, iii. 316, 317.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103" id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <a name="Note_90" id="Note_90"></a>{90}["Scarce was this done, when <i>a gust, exceeding in +violence everything of the kind I had ever seen, or could conceive, laid +the ship on her beam ends</i>.... +</p><p> +"The ship <i>lay motionless</i>, and, to all appearance, irrevocably +overset.... <i>The water forsook the hold</i>, and appeared between decks.... +</p><p> +"Immediate directions were given <i>to cut away the main and mizen masts</i>, +trusting when the ship righted, to be able to wear her. On cutting one +or two lanyards, the <i>mizen-mast went first over</i>, but without producing +the smallest effect on the ship, and, on cutting the lanyard of one +shroud, the <i>main-mast followed</i>. I had next the mortification to see +the <i>foremast and bowsprit also go over</i>. On this, <i>the ship immediately +righted with great violence</i>."—"Loss of the <i>Centaur</i> Man-of-War, 1782, +by Captain Inglefield," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. +41.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BC" id="Footnote_BC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BC"><span class="label">[BC]</span></a> <i>Perhaps the whole would have got drunk, but for</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104" id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> <a name="Note_91" id="Note_91"></a>{91}["A midshipman was appointed to guard the +spirit-room, to repress that unhappy desire of a devoted crew <i>to die in +a state of intoxication.</i> The sailors, though in other respects orderly +in conduct, here pressed eagerly upon him. +</p><p> +"<i>'Give us some grog,'</i> they exclaimed, <i>'it will be all one an hour +hence.'—'I know we must die,'</i> replied the gallant officer, coolly, +<i>'but let us die like men!</i>'—<i>Armed with a brace of pistols</i>, he kept his +post, even while the ship was sinking."—"Loss of the <i>Earl of +Abergavenny,</i> February 5, 1805," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, +1812, iii. 418. John Wordsworth, the poet's brother, was captain of the +<i>Abergavenny</i>. See <i>Life of William Wordsworth</i>, by Professor Knight, +1889, i. 370-380; see, too, Coleridge's <i>Anima Poetæ</i>, 1895, p. 132. For +a contemporary report, see a Maltese paper, <i>Il Cartaginense</i>, April 17, +1805.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105" id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> ["However, by great exertions of the chain-pumps, we +<i>held our own</i>.... All who were not seamen by profession, had been +employed in <i>thrumming a sail which was passed under the ship's bottom, +and I thought</i> had some effect.... +</p><p> +"<i>The Centaur laboured so much</i>, that I <i>could scarce hope she would +swim</i> till morning: ... our sufferings <i>for want of water</i> were very +great.... +</p><p> +"<i>The weather again threatened</i>, and by noon <i>it blew a storm</i>. The ship +laboured greatly; <i>the water appeared in the fore and after-hold</i>. I was +informed by the carpenter also that <i>the leathers</i> were nearly consumed, +and the <i>chains of the pumps</i>, by constant exertion, and friction of the +coils, were rendered almost useless.... +</p><p> +"At this period the carpenter acquainted me that the well was stove +in.... and the chain-pumps displaced and totally useless.... Seeing +their efforts useless, many of them [the people] burst into tears, and +wept like children.... +</p><p> +"I perceived <i>the ship settling by the head.</i>"—"Loss of the <i>Centaur</i>," +<i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. pp. 45-49.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BD" id="Footnote_BD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BD"><span class="label">[BD]</span></a> <a name="Note_92" id="Note_92"></a>{92}<i>'T is ugly dying in the Gulf of Lyons</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106" id="Footnote_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <a name="Note_93" id="Note_93"></a>{93}[Byron may have had in mind the story of the +half-inaudible vow of a monster wax candle, to be offered to St. +Christopher of Paris, which Erasmus tells in his <i>Naufragium</i>. The +passage is scored with a pencil-mark in his copy of the <i>Colloquies</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107" id="Footnote_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> [Stanza xliv. recalls Cardinal de Retz's description of +the storm at sea in the Gulf of Lyons: "Everybody were at their prayers, +or were confessing themselves.... The private captain of the galley +caused, in the greatest height of the danger, <i>his embroidered coat and +his red scarf</i> to be brought to him, saying, that a true Spaniard ought +to die bearing his King's Marks of distinction. He sat himself down in a +great elbow chair, and with his foot struck a poor Neapolitan in the +chops, who, not being able to stand upon the Coursey of the Galley, was +crawling along, crying out aloud, <i>'Sennor Don Fernando, por l'amor de +Dios, Confession.'</i> The captain, when he struck him, said to him, +<i>'Inimigo de Dios piedes Confession!'</i> And as I was representing to him, +that his inference was not right, he said that that old man gave offence +to the whole galley. You can't imagine the horror of a great storm; you +can as little imagine the Ridicule mixed with it. A Sicilian +Observantine monk was preaching at the foot of the great mast, that St. +Francis had appeared to him, and had assured him that we should not +perish. I should never have done, should I undertake to describe all the +ridiculous frights that are seen on these occasions."—<i>Memoirs of +Cardinal de Retz</i>, 1723, iii. 353.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108" id="Footnote_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <a name="Note_94" id="Note_94"></a>{94}["Some appeared perfectly resigned, <i>went to their +hammocks,</i> and desired their messmates <i>to lash them in</i>; others were +securing themselves to gratings and small rafts; but the most +predominant idea was that <i>of putting on their best</i> and <i>cleanest +clothes</i>. The boats ... were got over the side."—"Loss of the +<i>Centaur</i>," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 49, 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BE" id="Footnote_BE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BE"><span class="label">[BE]</span></a> <i>Men will prove hungry, even when next perdition</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109" id="Footnote_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> <a name="Note_95" id="Note_95"></a>{95}["Eight bags of rice, <i>six casks of water</i>, and a +<i>small quantity of salted beef and pork</i>, were put into the long-boat, +as provisions for the whole."—"Wreck of the <i>Sidney</i>, 1806," +<i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 434.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110" id="Footnote_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> ["The <i>yawl was stove</i> alongside and sunk."—"Loss of the +<i>Centaur</i>," <i>ibid.</i>, iii. 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111" id="Footnote_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> ["<i>One oar</i> was erected for a <i>main-mast</i>, and the other +broke to the breadth of the <i>blankets for a yard</i>."—"Loss of the <i>Duke +William</i> Transport, 1758," <i>ibid</i>., ii. 387.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BF" id="Footnote_BF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BF"><span class="label">[BF]</span></a> <i>Which being withdrawn, discloses but the frown</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BG" id="Footnote_BG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BG"><span class="label">[BG]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of one who hates us, so the night was shown</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale</i>,</p> +<p><i>And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Gazed dim and desolate</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112" id="Footnote_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> <a name="Note_96" id="Note_96"></a>{96}["As <i>rafts</i> had been mentioned by the carpenter, I +thought it right <i>to make the attempt</i>.... It was impossible for any man +to deceive himself with the hopes of being saved on a raft in such a +sea."—"Loss of the <i>Centaur</i>," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, +iii. 50. 51.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113" id="Footnote_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> ["<i>Spars, booms, hencoops</i>, and <i>every thing</i> buoyant, +was therefore <i>cast loose</i>, that the men might have some chance to save +themselves."—"Loss of the <i>Pandora</i>," ibid., iii. 197.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114" id="Footnote_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> ["We had scarce quitted the ship, when she gave a heavy +<i>lurch to port</i>, and <i>then went down, head foremost.</i>"—"Loss of the +<i>Lady Hobart</i>," ibid., iii. 378.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115" id="Footnote_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> ["At this moment, one of the officers told the captain +that she was going down.... and bidding him farewell, leapt overboard: +... the crew had just time to <i>leap overboard</i>, which they did, uttering +<i>a most dreadful yell</i>."—"Loss of the <i>Pandora</i>," ibid., iii. 198.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116" id="Footnote_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <a name="Note_98" id="Note_98"></a>{98}["The boat, being fastened to the rigging, was no +sooner cleared of the greatest part of the water, than a dog of mine +came to me running along the gunwale. <i>I took him in</i>."—"Shipwreck of +the Sloop <i>Betsy</i>, on the Coast of Dutch Guiana, August 5, 1756 (Philip +Aubin, Commander)," <i>Remarkable Shipwrecks</i>, Hartford, 1813, p. 175.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117" id="Footnote_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> [Qy. "My good Sir! when the sea runs very high this is +the case, as <i>I know</i>, but if <i>my authority</i> is not enough, see Bligh's +account of his run to Timor, after being cut adrift by the mutineers +headed by Christian."—[B.] +</p><p> +"Pray tell me who was the Lubber who put the query? surely not <i>you</i>, +Hobhouse! We have both of us seen too much of the sea for that. You may +rely on my using no nautical word not founded on authority, and no +circumstances not grounded in reality."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118" id="Footnote_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> +<a name="Note_99" id="Note_99"></a>{99} ["It blew a violent storm, and the sea ran very high, +so that between the seas the sail was becalmed; and when <i>on the top of +the sea, it was too much to have set</i>, but I was obliged to carry it, +for we were now in very imminent danger and distress; <i>the sea curling +over the stern</i> of the boat, which obliged us <i>to bale with all our +might</i>."—<i>A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty</i>, +by William Bligh, 1790, p. 23.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119" id="Footnote_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> ["Before it was dark, <i>a blanket</i> was discovered in the +boat. This was immediately bent to one of the stretchers, and under it, +<i>as a sail</i>, we scudded all night, in expectation of being <i>swallowed up +by every wave.</i>"—"Loss of the <i>Centaur</i>," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at +Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 52.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120" id="Footnote_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> ["<i>The sun rose very fiery and red, a sure indication of +a severe gale of wind</i>.—We could do nothing more than keep before the +sea.—<i>I now served a tea-spoonful of rum to each person</i>, ... with a +quarter of a bread-fruit, which was scarce eatable, for dinner."—<i>A +Narrative, etc.</i>, by W. Bligh, 1790, pp. 23, 24.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121" id="Footnote_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> <a name="Note_100" id="Note_100"></a>{100}["[As] our lodgings were very miserable and +confined, I had only in my power to remedy the latter defect, by putting +ourselves <i>at watch and watch</i>; so that <i>one half</i> always sat up, while +the other half <i>lay down</i> on the boat's bottom, with <i>nothing to cover +us but the heavens."—A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty</i>, by +William Bligh, 1790, p. 28.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122" id="Footnote_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> [For Byron's debts to Mrs. Massingberd, "Jew" King, etc., +and for money raised on annuities, see <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 174, note 2, +and letter to Hanson, December 11, 1817, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 187, "The +list of annuities sent by Mr. Kinnaird, including Jews and Sawbridge, +amounts to twelve thousand eight hundred and some odd pounds."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123" id="Footnote_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <a name="Note_101" id="Note_101"></a>{101}["The third day we began to suffer exceedingly ... +from hunger and thirst. I then seized my dog, and plunged the knife in +his throat. We caught his blood in the hat, receiving in our hands and +drinking what ran over; we afterwards drank in turn out of the hat, and +felt ourselves refreshed."—"Shipwreck of the <i>Betsy</i>," <i>Remarkable +Shipwrecks</i>, Hartford, 1813, p. 177.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124" id="Footnote_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> <a name="Note_102" id="Note_102"></a>{102}["One day, when I was at home in my hut with my +Indian dog, a party came to my door, and told me their necessities were +such that they must eat the creature or starve. Though their plea was +urgent, I could not help using some arguments to endeavour to dissuade +them from killing him, as his faithful services and fondness deserved it +at my hands; but, without weighing my arguments, they took him away by +force and killed him.... Three weeks after that I was glad to make a +meal of his paws and skin which, upon recollecting the spot where they +had killed him, I found thrown aside and rotten."—<i>The Narrative of the +Honourable John Byron, etc.</i>, 1768, pp. 47, 48.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125" id="Footnote_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> <a name="Note_103" id="Note_103"></a>{103}[Being driven to distress for want of food, "they +<i>soaked their shoes</i>, and two <i>hairy caps</i> in water; and when +sufficiently softened ate portions of the leather." But day after day +having passed, and the cravings of hunger pressing hard upon them, they +fell upon the horrible and dreadful expedient of eating each other; and +in order to prevent any contention about who should become the food of +the others, "they cast lots to determine the sufferer."—"Sufferings of +the Crew of the <i>Thomas</i> [Twelve Men in an Open Boat, 1797]," +<i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii 356.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126" id="Footnote_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> ["<i>The lots were drawn</i>: 'the captain, summoning all his +strength, wrote upon slips of paper the name of each man, folded them +up, put them into a hat, and shook them together. The crew, meanwhile, +preserved <i>an awful silence</i>; each eye was fixed and each mouth open, +while terror was strongly impressed upon every countenance.' The unhappy +person, with manly fortitude, resigned himself to his miserable +associates."—"Famine in the American Ship <i>Peggy</i>, 1765," <i>Remarkable +Shipwrecks</i>, Hartford, 1813, pp. 358, 359.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127" id="Footnote_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> ["<i>He requested to be bled to death, the surgeon</i> being +with them, and having <i>his case of instruments</i> in his pocket when he +quitted the vessel."—"Sufferings of the Crew of the <i>Thomas," +Shipwrecks, etc.</i>, 1812, iii. 357.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128" id="Footnote_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> <a name="Note_104" id="Note_104"></a>{104}["Yet scarce was the vein divided when the operator, +applying his own parched lips, <i>drank the stream as it flowed</i>, and his +comrades anxiously watched the last breath of the victim, that they +might prey upon his flesh."—<i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, +iii. 357.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129" id="Footnote_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> ["Those who indulged their cannibal appetite to excess +speedily perished in <i>raging madness</i>," etc.—<i>Ibid</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130" id="Footnote_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> <a name="Note_105" id="Note_105"></a>{105}["Another expedient we had frequent recourse to, on +finding it supplied our mouths with temporary moisture, was <i>chewing</i> +any substance we could find, generally a bit of canvas, or even +<i>lead</i>."—"The Shipwreck of the <i>Juno</i> on the Coast of Aracan," 1795, +<i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 270.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131" id="Footnote_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> ["At noon, some noddies came so near to us that one of +them was caught by hand.... I divided it into eighteen portions. In the +evening we saw several <i>boobies</i>."—<i>A Narrative of the Mutiny of the +Bounty</i>, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 41.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132" id="Footnote_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Quand' ebbe detto ciò, con gli occhi torti</p> +<p class="i2">Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,</p> +<p>Che furo all' osso, come d'un can forti."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, canto xxxiii. lines 76-78.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133" id="Footnote_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <a name="Note_106" id="Note_106"></a>{106}["Whenever a heavy shower afforded us a few +mouthfuls of fresh water, either by catching the drops as they fell or +by squeezing them out of our clothes, it infused new life and vigour +into us, and for a while we had almost forgot our misery."—<i>Shipwrecks +and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 270. Compare <i>The Island</i>, Canto I. +stanza ix. lines 193, 194, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 595.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134" id="Footnote_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"With throats unslaked, with black lips baked."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Ancient Mariner</i>, Part III. line 157.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135" id="Footnote_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> <a name="Note_107" id="Note_107"></a>{107}["Mr. Wade's boy, a <i>stout healthy lad, died early</i>, +and almost without a groan; while another, of the same age, but of a +less promising appearance, held out much longer. Their fathers were both +in the fore-top, when the boys were taken ill. [Wade], hearing of his +son's illness, answered, with indifference, that <i>he could do nothing +for him</i>, and left him to his fate."—"Narrative of the Shipwreck of the +<i>Juno</i>, 1795," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 273.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136" id="Footnote_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> ["<i>The other [Father]</i> hurried down.... By that time only +three or four planks of the quarter-deck remained, just over the quarter +gallery. To this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to +the rail, to prevent his being washed away."—<i>Ibid</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137" id="Footnote_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> ["Whenever the <i>boy was seized</i> with a fit of retching, +the father lifted him up and <i>wiped away the foam from his lips</i>; and if +a <i>shower came</i>, he made him open his mouth to <i>receive the drops</i>, or +gently <i>squeezed them into it from a rag."—Ibid</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138" id="Footnote_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <a name="Note_108" id="Note_108"></a>{108}["In this affecting situation both remained four or +five days, till <i>the boy expired</i>. The unfortunate parent, as if +unwilling to believe the fact, raised the body, looked <i>wistfully</i> at +it, and when he could no <i>longer entertain any doubt</i>, watched it in +silence <i>until</i> it was carried <i>off by sea</i>; then wrapping himself in a +piece of canvas, <i>sunk down</i>, and rose no more; though he must have +lived two days longer, as we judged from the <i>quivering of his limbs</i> +when a wave broke over him."—"Narrative of the Shipwreck of the <i>Juno</i>, +1795," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, p. 274.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139" id="Footnote_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> <a name="Note_109" id="Note_109"></a>{109}[<i>"About this time a beautiful white bird, +web-footed, and not unlike a dove in size and plumage</i>, hovered over the +mast-head of the cutter, and, notwithstanding the pitching of the boat, +frequently <i>attempted to perch on it</i>, and continued <i>fluttering there +till dark</i>. Trifling as such an incident may appear, we all considered +it a <i>propitious omen</i>."—"Loss of the <i>Lady Hobart</i>, 1803," <i>Shipwrecks +and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. 389.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140" id="Footnote_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> ["I found it necessary to caution the people against +being deceived by the <i>appearance of land</i>, or calling out till we were +quite convinced of its reality, more especially as <i>fog-banks</i> are often +mistaken for land: several of the poor fellows nevertheless repeatedly +exclaimed <i>they heard breakers</i>, and some the <i>firing of guns</i>."—"Loss +of the <i>Lady Hobart," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii. +391.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141" id="Footnote_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> <a name="Note_110" id="Note_110"></a>{110}["<i>At length one of them broke out into a most +immoderate swearing fit of joy</i>, which I could not restrain, and +declared, that <i>he had never seen land in his life, if what he now saw +was not so</i>."—"Loss of the <i>Centaur," ibid</i>., p. 55.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142" id="Footnote_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> ["The joy at a speedy relief affected us all in a most +remarkable way. Many <i>burst into tears; some looked at each other with a +stupid stare, as if doubtful</i> of the reality of what they saw; while +several were in such a lethargic condition, that no animating words +could rouse them to exertion. At this affecting period, I proposed +offering up our solemn thanks to Heaven for the miraculous +deliverance."—"Loss of the <i>Lady Hobart," ibid</i>., p. 391.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143" id="Footnote_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> [After having suffered the horrors of hunger and thirst +for many days, "they accidentally descried a <i>small</i> turtle <i>floating on +the surface of the water asleep</i>."—"Sufferings of the Crew of the +<i>Thomas," ibid</i>., p. 356.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144" id="Footnote_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> <a name="Note_111" id="Note_111"></a>{111}["An indifferent spectator would have been at a loss +which most to admire; the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, +or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, +whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown, would rather +have excited terror than pity. Our bodies were nothing but skin and +bones, our limbs were full of sores, and we were clothed in +rags."—<i>Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty</i>, by William Bligh, 1790, +p. 80. Compare <i>The Siege of Corinth</i>, lines 1048, 1049, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1900, iii. 494, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145" id="Footnote_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <a name="Note_112" id="Note_112"></a>{112}["They discovered land <i>right ahead</i>, and steered +for it. There being a very <i>heavy surf</i>, they endeavoured to turn the +boat's head to it, which, from weakness, they were unable to accomplish, +and soon afterwards <i>the boat upset</i>."—"Sufferings of Six Deserters +from St. Helena, 1799," <i>Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea</i>, 1812, iii, +371.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146" id="Footnote_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> [Compare lines "Written after swimming from Sestos to +Abydos," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 13, note 1; see, too, <i>Letters</i>, +1898, i. 262, 263, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147" id="Footnote_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> <a name="Note_114" id="Note_114"></a>{114}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"How long in that same fit I lay</p> +<p class="i2">I have not to declare."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Ancient Mariner</i>, Part V. lines 393, 394.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BH" id="Footnote_BH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BH"><span class="label">[BH]</span></a> <a name="Note_115" id="Note_115"></a>{115}—— <i>in short she's one</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BI" id="Footnote_BI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BI"><span class="label">[BI]</span></a> <a name="Note_116" id="Note_116"></a>{116} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>A set of humbug rascals, when all's done</i>—</p> +<p><i>I've seen much finer women, ripe and real</i>,</p> +<p><i>Than all the nonsense of their d——d ideal</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148" id="Footnote_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto IV. stanza 1. lines 6-9, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 366, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149" id="Footnote_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> [Probably that "Alpha and Omega of Beauty," Lady Adelaide +Forbes (daughter of George, sixth Earl of Granard), whom Byron compared +to the Apollo Belvidere. See <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 230, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150" id="Footnote_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> ["The <i>saya</i> or <i>basquiña</i> ... the outer petticoat ... is +always black, and is put over the indoor dress on going out." Compare +<span title="Melanei/mones a(/pantes">Μελανείμονες +ἅπαντες</span> +<span title="to\ ple/on e)n sa/gois">τὸ πλέον +ἐν σάγοις</span>, Strabo, lib. iii. ed. 1807, i. 210. +Ford's <i>Handbook for Spain</i>, 1855, i. 111.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151" id="Footnote_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> <a name="Note_117" id="Note_117"></a>{117}["When Ajax, Ulysses, and Phoenix stand before +Achilles, he rushes forth to greet them, brings them into the tent, +directs Patroclus to mix the wine, cuts up the meat, dresses it, and +sets it before the ambassadors." (<i>Iliad</i>, ix. 193, sq.)—<i>Study of the +Classics</i>, by H.N. Coleridge, 1830, p, 71]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BJ" id="Footnote_BJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BJ"><span class="label">[BJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_119" id="Note_119"></a>{119}<i>And such a bed of furs, and a pelisse</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BK" id="Footnote_BK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BK"><span class="label">[BK]</span></a> <a name="Note_120" id="Note_120"></a>{120} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13">—— <i>which often spread</i>,</p> +<p><i>And come like opening Hell upon the mind</i>,</p> +<p><i>No "baseless fabric" but "a wrack behind."</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BL" id="Footnote_BL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BL"><span class="label">[BL]</span></a> <a name="Note_121" id="Note_121"></a>{121} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Had e'er escaped more dangers on the deep</i>;—</p> +<p><i>And those who are not drowned, at least may sleep</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152" id="Footnote_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> [Entitled "<i>A Narrative of the Honourable John Byron</i> +(Commodore in a late expedition round the world), containing an account +of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the +coast of Patagonia, from the year 1740, till their arrival in England, +1746. Written by Himself," London, 1768, 40. For the Hon. John Byron, +1723-86, younger brother of William, fifth Lord Byron, see <i>Letters</i>, +1898, i. 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BM" id="Footnote_BM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BM"><span class="label">[BM]</span></a> <i>Wore for a husband—or some such like brute</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BN" id="Footnote_BN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BN"><span class="label">[BN]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i18">—— <i>although of late</i></p> +<p><i>I've changed, for some few years, the day to night</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153" id="Footnote_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> [The second canto of <i>Don Juan</i> was finished in January, +1819, when the Venetian Carnival was at its height.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154" id="Footnote_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> <a name="Note_122" id="Note_122"></a>{122}[Strabo (lib. xvi. ed. 1807, p. 1106) gives various +explanations of the name, assigning the supposed redness to the +refraction of the rays of the vertical sun; or to the shadow of the +scorched mountain-sides which form its shores; or, as Ctesias would have +it, to a certain fountain which discharged red oxide of lead into its +waters. "Abyssinian" Bruce had no doubt that "large trees or plants of +coral spread everywhere over the bottom," made the sea "red," and +accounted for the name. But, according to Niebuhr, the Red Sea is the +Sea of Edom, which, being interpreted, is "Red."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BO" id="Footnote_BO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BO"><span class="label">[BO]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i15">—— <i>just the same</i></p> +<p><i>As at this moment I should like to do;—</i></p> +<p><i>But I have done with kisses—having kissed</i></p> +<p><i>All those that would—regretting those I missed</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BP" id="Footnote_BP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BP"><span class="label">[BP]</span></a> <a name="Note_124" id="Note_124"></a>{124} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Fair as the rose just plucked to crown the wreath</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Soft as the unfledged birdling when at rest</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155" id="Footnote_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> [Compare <i>Mazeppa</i>, lines 829, sq., <i>Poetical Works</i>, +1901, iv. 232.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BQ" id="Footnote_BQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BQ"><span class="label">[BQ]</span></a> <a name="Note_125" id="Note_125"></a>{125} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That finer melody was never heard</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>The kind of sound whose echo is a tear</i>,</p> +<p><i>Whose accents are the steps of Music's throne</i>.[*]—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +<p> +[*] ["To the Publisher. Take of these varieties which is thought best. I +have no choice."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156" id="Footnote_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> <a name="Note_128" id="Note_128"></a>{128} [Moore, quoting from memory from one of Byron's MS. +journals, says that he speaks of "making earnest love to the younger of +his fair hostesses at Seville, with the help of a dictionary."—<i>Life,</i> +p. 93. See, too, letter to his mother, August 11, 1809, <i>Letters,</i> 1898, +i. 240.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BR" id="Footnote_BR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BR"><span class="label">[BR]</span></a> <i>Pressure of hands, et cetera—or a kiss</i>.—[MS. +Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BS" id="Footnote_BS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BS"><span class="label">[BS]</span></a> <i>Italian rather more, having more teachers</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157" id="Footnote_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> ["In 1813 ... in the fashionable world of London, of +which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the +unit of a million, the nothing of something.... I had been the lion of +1812."—Extracts from a Diary, January 19, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. +177, 178.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BT" id="Footnote_BT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BT"><span class="label">[BT]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>foes, friends, sex, kind, are nothing more to me</i></p> +<p><i>Than a mere dream of something o'er the sea</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158" id="Footnote_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <a name="Note_129" id="Note_129"></a>{129}[For the same archaism or blunder, compare +<i>Manfred</i>, act i. sc. 4, line 19, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 132.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159" id="Footnote_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> [Compare <i>The Prisoner of Chillon</i>, line 78, <i>ibid</i>., p. +16.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BU" id="Footnote_BU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BU"><span class="label">[BU]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Holding her sweet breath o'er his cheek and mouth</i>,</p> +<p><i>As o'er a bed of roses, etc</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160" id="Footnote_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> +[<i>Vide post</i>, <a href="#c16slxxxvi">Canto XVI. stanza lxxxvi.</a> line 6, <a href="#Footnote_802">p. 598, +note 1</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BV" id="Footnote_BV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BV"><span class="label">[BV]</span></a> <a name="Note_130" id="Note_130"></a>{130} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>For without heart Love is not quite so good</i>;</p> +<p><i>Ceres is commissary to our bellies</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>And Love, which also much depends on food</i>:</p> +<p><i>While Bacchus will provide with wine and jellies</i>—</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Oysters and eggs are also living food</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BW" id="Footnote_BW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BW"><span class="label">[BW]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>He was her own, her Ocean lover, cast</i></p> +<p><i>To be her soul's first idol, and its last</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BX" id="Footnote_BX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BX"><span class="label">[BX]</span></a> <a name="Note_131" id="Note_131"></a>{131}<i>And saw the sunset and the rising moon</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161" id="Footnote_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> <a name="Note_132" id="Note_132"></a>{132}[The MS. and the editions of 1819, 1823, 1828, read +"woman." The edition of 1833 reads "women." The text follows the MS. and +the earlier editions.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162" id="Footnote_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> +[Compare stanza prefixed to Dedication, <i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Page_2">p. 2</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163" id="Footnote_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yes! thy Sherbet to-night will sweetly flow,</p> +<p>See how it sparkles in its vase of snow!"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Corsair</i>, Canto I. lines 427, 428, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 242.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BY" id="Footnote_BY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BY"><span class="label">[BY]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>A pleasure naught but drunkenness can bring:</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>For not the blest sherbet all chilled with snow.</i></p> +<p><i>Nor the full sparkle of the desert-spring,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Nor wine in all the purple of its glow</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_BZ" id="Footnote_BZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_BZ"><span class="label">[BZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_134" id="Note_134"></a>{134}<i>Spread like an Ocean, varied, vast, and +bright.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CA" id="Footnote_CA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CA"><span class="label">[CA]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13"><i>—— I'm sure they never reckoned;</i></p> +<p><i>And being joined—like swarming bees they clung,</i></p> +<p><i>And mixed until the very pleasure stung.</i></p> +</div></div> +<p> +or, +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And one was innocent, but both too young,</i></p> +<p><i>Their hearts the flowers, etc</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CB" id="Footnote_CB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CB"><span class="label">[CB]</span></a> <a name="Note_135" id="Note_135"></a>{135} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>In all the burning tongues the Passions teach</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>They had no further feeling, hope, nor care</i></p> +<p><i>Save one, and that was Love</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CC" id="Footnote_CC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CC"><span class="label">[CC]</span></a> <a name="Note_136" id="Note_136"></a>{136} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Pillowed upon her beating heart—which panted</i></p> +<p><i>With the sweet memory of all it granted</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CD" id="Footnote_CD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CD"><span class="label">[CD]</span></a> <a name="Note_138" id="Note_138"></a>{138} <i>Some drown themselves, some in the vices +grovel</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164" id="Footnote_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> [Lady Caroline Lamb's <i>Glenarvon</i> was published in 1816. +For Byron's farewell letter of dismissal, which Lady Caroline embodied +in her novel (vol. iii. chap. ix.), see <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 135, note +1. According to Medwin (<i>Conversations</i>, 1824, p. 274), Madame de Staël +catechized Byron with regard to the relation of the story to fact.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CE" id="Footnote_CE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CE"><span class="label">[CE]</span></a> <a name="Note_139" id="Note_139"></a>{139} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>In their sweet feelings holily united,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>By Solitude (soft parson) they were wed</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165" id="Footnote_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> [Titus forebore to marry "Incesta" Berenice (see Juv., +<i>Sat</i>. vi. 158), the daughter of Agrippa I., and wife of Herod, King of +Chalcis, out of regard to the national prejudice against intermarriage +with an alien.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166" id="Footnote_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> [Cæsar's third wife, Pompeia, was suspected of infidelity +with Clodius (see Langhorne's <i>Plutarch</i>, 1838, p. 498); Pompey's third +wife, Mucia, intrigued with Cæsar (<i>vide ibid</i>., p. 447); Mahomet's +favourite wife, Ayesha, on one occasion incurred suspicion; Antonina, +the wife of Belisarius, was notoriously profligate (see Gibbon's +<i>Decline and Fall</i>, 1825, iii. 432, 102).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167" id="Footnote_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <a name="Note_140" id="Note_140"></a>{140}[Compare <i>Sardanapalus</i>, act i. sc. 2, line 252, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 23, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CF" id="Footnote_CF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CF"><span class="label">[CF]</span></a> <a name="Note_141" id="Note_141"></a>{141}<i>—of ticklish dust</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168" id="Footnote_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> <a name="Note_142" id="Note_142"></a>{142} ["Mr. Hobhouse is at it again about indelicacy. +There is <i>no indelicacy</i>. If he wants <i>that</i>, let him read Swift, his +great idol; but his imagination must be a dunghill, with a viper's nest +in the middle, to engender such a supposition about this poem."—Letter +to Murray, May 15, 1819, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 295.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CG" id="Footnote_CG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CG"><span class="label">[CG]</span></a> <i>Two hundred stanzas reckoned as before.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_THIRD" id="CANTO_THE_THIRD"></a>CANTO THE THIRD.<a name="FNanchor_169" id="FNanchor_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">Hail</span>, Muse! <i>et cetera.</i>—We left Juan sleeping,</p> +<p class="i2">Pillowed upon a fair and happy breast,</p> +<p>And watched by eyes that never yet knew weeping,</p> +<p class="i2">And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest</p> +<p>To feel the poison through her spirit creeping,</p> +<p class="i2">Or know who rested there, a foe to rest,</p> +<p>Had soiled the current of her sinless years,</p> +<p>And turned her pure heart's purest blood to tears!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, Love! what is it in this world of ours</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah why</p> +<p>With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers,</p> +<p class="i2">And made thy best interpreter a sigh?</p> +<p>As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers,</p> +<p class="i2">And place them on their breast—but place to die—</p> +<p>Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish</p> +<p>Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In her first passion Woman loves her lover,</p> +<p class="i2">In all the others all she loves is Love,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> +<p>Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over,</p> +<p class="i2">And fits her loosely—like an easy glove,<a name="FNanchor_CH" id="FNanchor_CH"></a><a href="#Footnote_CH" class="fnanchor">[CH]</a></p> +<p>As you may find, whene'er you like to prove her:</p> +<p class="i2">One man alone at first her heart can move;</p> +<p>She then prefers him in the plural number,</p> +<p>Not finding that the additions much encumber.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I know not if the fault be men's or theirs;</p> +<p class="i2">But one thing's pretty sure; a woman planted</p> +<p>(Unless at once she plunge for life in prayers)—</p> +<p class="i2">After a decent time must be gallanted;</p> +<p>Although, no doubt, her first of love affairs</p> +<p class="i2">Is that to which her heart is wholly granted;</p> +<p>Yet there are some, they say, who have had <i>none</i>,</p> +<p>But those who have ne'er end with only <i>one</i>.<a name="FNanchor_170" id="FNanchor_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is melancholy, and a fearful sign</p> +<p class="i2">Of human frailty, folly, also crime,</p> +<p>That Love and Marriage rarely can combine,</p> +<p class="i2">Although they both are born in the same clime;</p> +<p>Marriage from Love, like vinegar from wine—</p> +<p class="i2">A sad, sour, sober beverage—by Time</p> +<p>Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour</p> +<p>Down to a very homely household savour.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's something of antipathy, as 't were,</p> +<p class="i2">Between their present and their future state;</p> +<p>A kind of flattery that's hardly fair</p> +<p class="i2">Is used until the truth arrives too late—</p> +<p>Yet what can people do, except despair?</p> +<p class="i2">The same things change their names at such a rate;</p> +<p>For instance—Passion in a lover's glorious,</p> +<p>But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Men grow ashamed of being so very fond;</p> +<p class="i2">They sometimes also get a little tired</p> +<p>(But that, of course, is rare), and then despond:</p> +<p class="i2">The same things cannot always be admired,</p> +<p>Yet 't is "so nominated in the bond,"<a name="FNanchor_171" id="FNanchor_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p> +<p class="i2">That both are tied till one shall have expired.</p> +<p>Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorning</p> +<p>Our days, and put one's servants into mourning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's doubtless something in domestic doings</p> +<p class="i2">Which forms, in fact, true Love's antithesis;</p> +<p>Romances paint at full length people's wooings,</p> +<p class="i2">But only give a bust of marriages;</p> +<p>For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,</p> +<p class="i2">There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss:</p> +<p>Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,</p> +<p>He would have written sonnets all his life?<a name="FNanchor_CI" id="FNanchor_CI"></a><a href="#Footnote_CI" class="fnanchor">[CI]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All tragedies are finished by a death,</p> +<p class="i2">All comedies are ended by a marriage;</p> +<p>The future states of both are left to faith,</p> +<p class="i2">For authors fear description might disparage</p> +<p>The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath,</p> +<p class="i2">And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage;</p> +<p>So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready,</p> +<p>They say no more of Death or of the Lady.<a name="FNanchor_172" id="FNanchor_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The only two that in my recollection,</p> +<p class="i2">Have sung of Heaven and Hell, or marriage, are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> +<p>Dante<a name="FNanchor_173" id="FNanchor_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> and Milton,<a name="FNanchor_174" id="FNanchor_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> and of both the affection</p> +<p class="i2">Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar</p> +<p>Of fault or temper ruined the connection</p> +<p class="i2">(Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar);</p> +<p>But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve</p> +<p>Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some persons say that Dante meant Theology</p> +<p class="i2">By Beatrice, and not a mistress—I,</p> +<p>Although my opinion may require apology,</p> +<p class="i2">Deem this a commentator's phantasy,</p> +<p>Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he</p> +<p class="i2">Decided thus, and showed good reason why;</p> +<p>I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics</p> +<p>Meant to personify the Mathematics.<a name="FNanchor_175" id="FNanchor_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Haidée and Juan were not married, but</p> +<p class="i2">The fault was theirs, not mine: it is not fair,</p> +<p>Chaste reader, then, in any way to put</p> +<p class="i2">The blame on me, unless you wish they were;</p> +<p>Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut</p> +<p class="i2">The book which treats of this erroneous pair,</p> +<p>Before the consequences grow too awful;</p> +<p>'T is dangerous to read of loves unlawful.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet they were happy,—happy in the illicit</p> +<p class="i2">Indulgence of their innocent desires;</p> +<p>But more imprudent grown with every visit,</p> +<p class="i2">Haidée forgot the island was her Sire's;</p> +<p>When we have what we like 't is hard to miss it,</p> +<p class="i2">At least in the beginning, ere one tires;</p> +<p>Thus she came often, not a moment losing,</p> +<p>Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange,</p> +<p class="i2">Although he fleeced the flags of every nation,</p> +<p>For into a Prime Minister but change</p> +<p class="i2">His title, and 't is nothing but taxation;</p> +<p>But he, more modest, took an humbler range</p> +<p class="i2">Of Life, and in an honester vocation</p> +<p>Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey,<a name="FNanchor_CJ" id="FNanchor_CJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_CJ" class="fnanchor">[CJ]</a></p> +<p>And merely practised as a sea-attorney.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The good old gentleman had been detained</p> +<p class="i2">By winds and waves, and some important captures;</p> +<p>And, in the hope of more, at sea remained,</p> +<p class="i2">Although a squall or two had damped his raptures,</p> +<p>By swamping one of the prizes; he had chained</p> +<p class="i2">His prisoners, dividing them like chapters</p> +<p>In numbered lots; they all had cuffs and collars,</p> +<p>And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan,</p> +<p class="i2">Among his friends the Mainots; some he sold</p> +<p>To his Tunis correspondents, save one man</p> +<p class="i2">Tossed overboard unsaleable (being old);</p> +<p>The rest—save here and there some richer one,</p> +<p class="i2">Reserved for future ransom—in the hold,</p> +<p>Were linked alike, as, for the common people, he</p> +<p>Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The merchandise was served in the same way,</p> +<p class="i2">Pieced out for different marts in the Levant,</p> +<p>Except some certain portions of the prey,</p> +<p class="i2">Light classic articles of female want,</p> +<p>French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, teapot, tray,<a name="FNanchor_CK" id="FNanchor_CK"></a><a href="#Footnote_CK" class="fnanchor">[CK]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Guitars and castanets from Alicant,</p> +<p>All which selected from the spoil he gathers,</p> +<p>Robbed for his daughter by the best of fathers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,<a name="FNanchor_176" id="FNanchor_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Two parrots, with a Persian cat and kittens,</p> +<p>He chose from several animals he saw—</p> +<p class="i2">A terrier, too, which once had been a Briton's,</p> +<p>Who dying on the coast of Ithaca,</p> +<p class="i2">The peasants gave the poor dumb thing a pittance:</p> +<p>These to secure in this strong blowing weather,</p> +<p>He caged in one huge hamper altogether.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, having settled his marine affairs,</p> +<p class="i2">Despatching single cruisers here and there,</p> +<p>His vessel having need of some repairs,</p> +<p class="i2">He shaped his course to where his daughter fair</p> +<p>Continued still her hospitable cares;</p> +<p class="i2">But that part of the coast being shoal and bare,</p> +<p>And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile,</p> +<p>His port lay on the other side o' the isle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And there he went ashore without delay,</p> +<p class="i2">Having no custom-house nor quarantine</p> +<p>To ask him awkward questions on the way,</p> +<p class="i2">About the time and place where he had been:</p> +<p>He left his ship to be hove down next day,</p> +<p class="i2">With orders to the people to careen;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> +<p>So that all hands were busy beyond measure,</p> +<p>In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treasure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Arriving at the summit of a hill</p> +<p class="i2">Which overlooked the white walls of his home,</p> +<p>He stopped.—What singular emotions fill</p> +<p class="i2">Their bosoms who have been induced to roam!</p> +<p>With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill—</p> +<p class="i2">With love for many, and with fears for some;</p> +<p>All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost,</p> +<p>And bring our hearts back to their starting-post.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The approach of home to husbands and to sires,</p> +<p class="i2">After long travelling by land or water,</p> +<p>Most naturally some small doubt inspires—</p> +<p class="i2">A female family's a serious matter,</p> +<p>(None trusts the sex more, or so much admires—</p> +<p class="i2">But they hate flattery, so I never flatter);</p> +<p>Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler,</p> +<p>And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An honest gentleman at his return</p> +<p class="i2">May not have the good fortune of Ulysses;</p> +<p>Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn,</p> +<p class="i2">Or show the same dislike to suitors' kisses;</p> +<p>The odds are that he finds a handsome urn</p> +<p class="i2">To his memory—and two or three young misses</p> +<p>Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches—</p> +<p>And that <i>his</i> Argus<a name="FNanchor_177" id="FNanchor_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a>—bites him by the breeches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If single, probably his plighted Fair</p> +<p class="i2">Has in his absence wedded some rich miser;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> +<p>But all the better, for the happy pair</p> +<p class="i2">May quarrel, and, the lady growing wiser,</p> +<p>He may resume his amatory care</p> +<p class="i2">As cavalier servente, or despise her;</p> +<p>And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one,</p> +<p>Writes odes on the Inconstancy of Woman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And oh! ye gentlemen who have already</p> +<p class="i2">Some chaste <i>liaison</i> of the kind—I mean</p> +<p>An honest friendship with a married lady—</p> +<p class="i2">The only thing of this sort ever seen</p> +<p>To last—of all connections the most steady,</p> +<p class="i2">And the true Hymen, (the first's but a screen)—</p> +<p>Yet, for all that, keep not too long away—</p> +<p>I've known the absent wronged four times a day.<a name="FNanchor_CL" id="FNanchor_CL"></a><a href="#Footnote_CL" class="fnanchor">[CL]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had</p> +<p class="i2">Much less experience of dry land than Ocean,</p> +<p>On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad;</p> +<p class="i2">But not knowing metaphysics, had no notion</p> +<p>Of the true reason of his not being sad,</p> +<p class="i2">Or that of any other strong emotion;</p> +<p>He loved his child, and would have wept the loss of her,</p> +<p>But knew the cause no more than a philosopher.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He saw his white walls shining in the sun,</p> +<p class="i2">His garden trees all shadowy and green;</p> +<p>He heard his rivulet's light bubbling run,</p> +<p class="i2">The distant dog-bark; and perceived between</p> +<p>The umbrage of the wood, so cool and dun,</p> +<p class="i2">The moving figures, and the sparkling sheen</p> +<p>Of arms (in the East all arm)—and various dyes</p> +<p>Of coloured garbs, as bright as butterflies.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And as the spot where they appear he nears,</p> +<p class="i2">Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> +<p>He hears—alas! no music of the spheres,</p> +<p class="i2">But an unhallowed, earthly sound of fiddling!</p> +<p>A melody which made him doubt his ears,</p> +<p class="i2">The cause being past his guessing or unriddling;</p> +<p>A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after—</p> +<p>A most unoriental roar of laughter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And still more nearly to the place advancing,</p> +<p class="i2">Descending rather quickly the declivity,</p> +<p>Through the waved branches o'er the greensward glancing,</p> +<p class="i2">'Midst other indications of festivity,</p> +<p>Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing</p> +<p class="i2">Like Dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he</p> +<p>Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance<a name="FNanchor_178" id="FNanchor_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> so martial,</p> +<p>To which the Levantines are very partial.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And further on a troop of Grecian girls,<a name="FNanchor_179" id="FNanchor_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,</p> +<p>Were strung together like a row of pearls,</p> +<p class="i2">Linked hand in hand, and dancing; each too having</p> +<p>Down her white neck long floating auburn curls—</p> +<p class="i2">(The least of which would set ten poets raving);<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_CM" id="FNanchor_CM"></a><a href="#Footnote_CM" class="fnanchor">[CM]</a></p> +<p>Their leader sang—and bounded to her song</p> +<p>With choral step and voice the virgin throng.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And here, assembled cross-legged round their trays,</p> +<p class="i2">Small social parties just begun to dine;</p> +<p>Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze,</p> +<p class="i2">And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine,</p> +<p>And sherbet cooling in the porous vase;</p> +<p class="i2">Above them their dessert grew on its vine;—</p> +<p>The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er,</p> +<p>Dropped in their laps, scarce plucked, their mellow store.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A band of children, round a snow-white ram,<a name="FNanchor_180" id="FNanchor_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> +<p class="i2">There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers;</p> +<p>While peaceful as if still an unweaned lamb,</p> +<p class="i2">The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers</p> +<p>His sober head, majestically tame,</p> +<p class="i2">Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers</p> +<p>His brow, as if in act to butt, and then</p> +<p>Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses,</p> +<p class="i2">Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks,</p> +<p>Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses,</p> +<p class="i2">The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks,</p> +<p>The innocence which happy childhood blesses,</p> +<p class="i2">Made quite a picture of these little Greeks;</p> +<p>So that the philosophical beholder</p> +<p>Sighed for their sakes—that they should e'er grow older.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales</p> +<p class="i2">To a sedate grey circle of old smokers,</p> +<p>Of secret treasures found in hidden vales,</p> +<p class="i2">Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> +<p>Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails,</p> +<p class="i2">Of rocks bewitched that open to the knockers,</p> +<p>Of magic ladies who, by one sole act,</p> +<p>Transformed their lords to beasts (but that's a fact).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here was no lack of innocent diversion</p> +<p class="i2">For the imagination or the senses,</p> +<p>Song, dance, wine, music, stories from the Persian,</p> +<p class="i2">All pretty pastimes in which no offence is;</p> +<p>But Lambro saw all these things with aversion,</p> +<p class="i2">Perceiving in his absence such expenses,</p> +<p>Dreading that climax of all human ills,</p> +<p>The inflammation of his weekly bills.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah! what is man? what perils still environ<a name="FNanchor_181" id="FNanchor_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The happiest mortals even after dinner!</p> +<p>A day of gold from out an age of iron</p> +<p class="i2">Is all that Life allows the luckiest sinner;</p> +<p>Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's a Siren,</p> +<p class="i2">That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner;</p> +<p>Lambro's reception at his people's banquet</p> +<p>Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He—being a man who seldom used a word</p> +<p class="i2">Too much, and wishing gladly to surprise</p> +<p>(In general he surprised men with the sword)</p> +<p class="i2">His daughter—had not sent before to advise</p> +<p>Of his arrival, so that no one stirred;</p> +<p class="i2">And long he paused to re-assure his eyes,</p> +<p>In fact much more astonished than delighted,</p> +<p>To find so much good company invited.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He did not know (alas! how men will lie)</p> +<p class="i2">That a report (especially the Greeks)</p> +<p>Avouched his death (such people never die),</p> +<p class="i2">And put his house in mourning several weeks,—</p> +<p>But now their eyes and also lips were dry;</p> +<p class="i2">The bloom, too, had returned to Haidée's cheeks:</p> +<p>Her tears, too, being returned into their fount,</p> +<p>She now kept house upon her own account.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and fiddling,</p> +<p class="i2">Which turned the isle into a place of pleasure;</p> +<p>The servants all were getting drunk or idling,</p> +<p class="i2">A life which made them happy beyond measure.</p> +<p>Her father's hospitality seemed middling,</p> +<p class="i2">Compared with what Haidée did with his treasure;</p> +<p>'T was wonderful how things went on improving,</p> +<p>While she had not one hour to spare from loving.<a name="FNanchor_CN" id="FNanchor_CN"></a><a href="#Footnote_CN" class="fnanchor">[CN]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps you think, in stumbling on this feast,</p> +<p class="i2">He flew into a passion, and in fact</p> +<p>There was no mighty reason to be pleased;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps you prophesy some sudden act,</p> +<p>The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the least,</p> +<p class="i2">To teach his people to be more exact,</p> +<p>And that, proceeding at a very high rate,</p> +<p>He showed the royal <i>penchants</i> of a pirate.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You're wrong.—He was the mildest mannered man</p> +<p class="i2">That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat;</p> +<p>With such true breeding of a gentleman,</p> +<p class="i2">You never could divine his real thought;</p> +<p>No courtier could, and scarcely woman can</p> +<p class="i2">Gird more deceit within a petticoat;</p> +<p>Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,</p> +<p>He was so great a loss to good society.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Advancing to the nearest dinner tray,</p> +<p class="i2">Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest,</p> +<p>With a peculiar smile, which, by the way,</p> +<p class="i2">Boded no good, whatever it expressed,</p> +<p>He asked the meaning of this holiday;</p> +<p class="i2">The vinous Greek to whom he had addressed</p> +<p>His question, much too merry to divine</p> +<p>The questioner, filled up a glass of wine,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And without turning his facetious head,</p> +<p class="i2">Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air,</p> +<p>Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said,</p> +<p class="i2">"Talking's dry work, I have no time to spare."</p> +<p>A second hiccuped, "Our old Master's dead,</p> +<p class="i2">You'd better ask our Mistress who's his heir."</p> +<p>"Our Mistress!" quoth a third: "Our Mistress!—pooh!—</p> +<p>You mean our Master—not the old, but new."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom</p> +<p class="i2">They thus addressed—and Lambro's visage fell—</p> +<p>And o'er his eye a momentary gloom</p> +<p class="i2">Passed, but he strove quite courteously to quell</p> +<p>The expression, and endeavouring to resume</p> +<p class="i2">His smile, requested one of them to tell</p> +<p>The name and quality of his new patron,</p> +<p>Who seemed to have turned Haidée into a matron.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I know not," quoth the fellow, "who or what</p> +<p class="i2">He is, nor whence he came—and little care;</p> +<p>But this I know, that this roast capon's fat,</p> +<p class="i2">And that good wine ne'er washed down better fare;</p> +<p>And if you are not satisfied with that,</p> +<p class="i2">Direct your questions to my neighbour there;</p> +<p>He'll answer all for better or for worse,</p> +<p>For none likes more to hear himself converse."<a name="FNanchor_182" id="FNanchor_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I said that Lambro was a man of patience,</p> +<p class="i2">And certainly he showed the best of breeding,</p> +<p>Which scarce even France, the Paragon of nations,</p> +<p class="i2">E'er saw her most polite of sons exceeding;</p> +<p>He bore these sneers against his near relations,</p> +<p class="i2">His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding,</p> +<p>The insults, too, of every servile glutton,</p> +<p>Who all the time was eating up his mutton.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now in a person used to much command—</p> +<p class="i2">To bid men come, and go, and come again—</p> +<p>To see his orders done, too, out of hand—</p> +<p class="i2">Whether the word was death, or but the chain—</p> +<p>It may seem strange to find his manners bland;</p> +<p class="i2">Yet such things are, which I cannot explain,</p> +<p>Though, doubtless, he who can command himself</p> +<p>Is good to govern—almost as a Guelf.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Not that he was not sometimes rash or so,</p> +<p class="i2">But never in his real and serious mood;</p> +<p>Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow,</p> +<p class="i2">He lay coiled like the Boa in the wood;</p> +<p>With him it never was a word and blow,</p> +<p class="i2">His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood,</p> +<p>But in his silence there was much to rue,</p> +<p>And his <i>one</i> blow left little work for <i>two</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He asked no further questions, and proceeded</p> +<p class="i2">On to the house, but by a private way,</p> +<p>So that the few who met him hardly heeded,</p> +<p class="i2">So little they expected him that day;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> +<p>If love paternal in his bosom pleaded</p> +<p class="i2">For Haidée's sake, is more than I can say,</p> +<p>But certainly to one deemed dead returning,</p> +<p>This revel seemed a curious mode of mourning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If all the dead could now return to life,</p> +<p class="i2">(Which God forbid!) or some, or a great many,</p> +<p>For instance, if a husband or his wife<a name="FNanchor_CO" id="FNanchor_CO"></a><a href="#Footnote_CO" class="fnanchor">[CO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(Nuptial examples are as good as any),</p> +<p>No doubt whate'er might be their former strife,</p> +<p class="i2">The present weather would be much more rainy—</p> +<p>Tears shed into the grave of the connection</p> +<p>Would share most probably its resurrection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He entered in the house no more his home,</p> +<p class="i2">A thing to human feelings the most trying,</p> +<p>And harder for the heart to overcome,</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;</p> +<p>To find our hearthstone turned into a tomb,</p> +<p class="i2">And round its once warm precincts palely lying</p> +<p>The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief,</p> +<p>Beyond a <i>single gentleman's</i> belief.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He entered in the house—his home no more,</p> +<p class="i2">For without hearts there is no home;—and felt</p> +<p>The solitude of passing his own door</p> +<p class="i2">Without a welcome: <i>there</i> he long had dwelt,</p> +<p>There his few peaceful days Time had swept o'er,</p> +<p class="i2">There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt</p> +<p>Over the innocence of that sweet child,</p> +<p>His only shrine of feelings undefiled.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a man of a strange temperament,</p> +<p class="i2">Of mild demeanour though of savage mood,</p> +<p>Moderate in all his habits, and content</p> +<p class="i2">With temperance in pleasure, as in food,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p> +<p>Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meant</p> +<p class="i2">For something better, if not wholly good;</p> +<p>His Country's wrongs and his despair to save her</p> +<p>Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The love of power, and rapid gain of gold,</p> +<p class="i2">The hardness by long habitude produced,</p> +<p>The dangerous life in which he had grown old,</p> +<p class="i2">The mercy he had granted oft abused,</p> +<p>The sights he was accustomed to behold,</p> +<p class="i2">The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised,</p> +<p>Had cost his enemies a long repentance,</p> +<p>And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But something of the spirit of old Greece</p> +<p class="i2">Flashed o'er his soul a few heroic rays,</p> +<p>Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece</p> +<p class="i2">His predecessors in the Colchian days;</p> +<p>'T is true he had no ardent love for peace—</p> +<p class="i2">Alas! his country showed no path to praise:</p> +<p>Hate to the world and war with every nation</p> +<p>He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Still o'er his mind the influence of the clime</p> +<p class="i2">Shed its Ionian elegance, which showed</p> +<p>Its power unconsciously full many a time,—</p> +<p class="i2">A taste seen in the choice of his abode,</p> +<p>A love of music and of scenes sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">A pleasure in the gentle stream that flowed</p> +<p>Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,</p> +<p>Bedewed his spirit in his calmer hours.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed</p> +<p class="i2">On that belovéd daughter; she had been</p> +<p>The only thing which kept his heart unclosed</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen,</p> +<p>A lonely pure affection unopposed:</p> +<p class="i2">There wanted but the loss of this to wean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> +<p>His feelings from all milk of human kindness,</p> +<p>And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.<a name="FNanchor_CP" id="FNanchor_CP"></a><a href="#Footnote_CP" class="fnanchor">[CP]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The cubless tigress in her jungle raging</p> +<p class="i2">Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;</p> +<p>The Ocean when its yeasty war is waging</p> +<p class="i2">Is awful to the vessel near the rock;</p> +<p>But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,</p> +<p class="i2">Their fury being spent by its own shock,</p> +<p>Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire<a name="FNanchor_CQ" id="FNanchor_CQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_CQ" class="fnanchor">[CQ]</a></p> +<p>Of a strong human heart, and in a Sire.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is a hard although a common case</p> +<p class="i2">To find our children running restive—they</p> +<p>In whom our brightest days we would retrace,</p> +<p class="i2">Our little selves re-formed in finer clay,</p> +<p>Just as old age is creeping on apace,</p> +<p class="i2">And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day,</p> +<p>They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,</p> +<p>But in good company—the gout or stone.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet a fine family is a fine thing</p> +<p class="i2">(Provided they don't come in after dinner);</p> +<p>'T is beautiful to see a matron bring</p> +<p class="i2">Her children up (if nursing them don't thin her);</p> +<p>Like cherubs round an altar-piece they cling</p> +<p class="i2">To the fire-side (a sight to touch a sinner).</p> +<p>A lady with her daughters or her nieces</p> +<p>Shine like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Old Lambro passed unseen a private gate,</p> +<p class="i2">And stood within his hall at eventide;</p> +<p>Meantime the lady and her lover sate</p> +<p class="i2">At wassail in their beauty and their pride:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> +<p>An ivory inlaid table spread with state</p> +<p class="i2">Before them, and fair slaves on every side;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_183" id="FNanchor_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> +<p>Gems, gold, and silver, formed the service mostly,</p> +<p>Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The dinner made about a hundred dishes;</p> +<p class="i2">Lamb and pistachio nuts—in short, all meats,</p> +<p>And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fishes</p> +<p class="i2">Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets,</p> +<p>Dressed to a Sybarite's most pampered wishes;</p> +<p class="i2">The beverage was various sherbets</p> +<p>Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice,</p> +<p>Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best for use.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These were ranged round, each in its crystal ewer,</p> +<p class="i2">And fruits, and date-bread loaves closed the repast,</p> +<p>And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure,</p> +<p class="i2">In small fine China cups, came in at last;</p> +<p>Gold cups of filigree, made to secure</p> +<p class="i2">The hand from burning, underneath them placed;</p> +<p>Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boiled</p> +<p>Up with the coffee, which (I think) they spoiled.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The hangings of the room were tapestry, made</p> +<p class="i2">Of velvet panels, each of different hue,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> +<p>And thick with damask flowers of silk inlaid;</p> +<p class="i2">And round them ran a yellow border too;</p> +<p>The upper border, richly wrought, displayed,</p> +<p class="i2">Embroidered delicately o'er with blue,</p> +<p>Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters,</p> +<p>From poets, or the moralists their betters.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These Oriental writings on the wall,</p> +<p class="i2">Quite common in those countries, are a kind</p> +<p>Of monitors adapted to recall,</p> +<p class="i2">Like skulls at Memphian banquets, to the mind,</p> +<p>The words which shook Belshazzar in his hall,</p> +<p class="i2">And took his kingdom from him: You will find,</p> +<p>Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure,</p> +<p>There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A Beauty at the season's close grown hectic,</p> +<p class="i2">A Genius who has drunk himself to death,</p> +<p>A Rake turned methodistic, or Eclectic—<a name="FNanchor_184" id="FNanchor_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(For that's the name they like to pray beneath)—<a name="FNanchor_CR" id="FNanchor_CR"></a><a href="#Footnote_CR" class="fnanchor">[CR]</a></p> +<p>But most, an Alderman struck apoplectic,</p> +<p class="i2">Are things that really take away the breath,—</p> +<p>And show that late hours, wine, and love are able</p> +<p>To do not much less damage than the table.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Haidée and Juan carpeted their feet</p> +<p class="i2">On crimson satin, bordered with pale blue;</p> +<p>Their sofa occupied three parts complete</p> +<p class="i2">Of the apartment—and appeared quite new;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> +<p>The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet)</p> +<p class="i2">Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew</p> +<p>A sun embossed in gold, whose rays of tissue,</p> +<p>Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.<a name="FNanchor_CS" id="FNanchor_CS"></a><a href="#Footnote_CS" class="fnanchor">[CS]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,</p> +<p class="i2">Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats</p> +<p>And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain,</p> +<p class="i2">Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats,</p> +<p>And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, that gain</p> +<p class="i2">Their bread as ministers and favourites (that's</p> +<p>To say, by degradation) mingled there</p> +<p>As plentiful as in a court, or fair.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was no want of lofty mirrors, and</p> +<p class="i2">The tables, most of ebony inlaid</p> +<p>With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand,</p> +<p class="i2">Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made,</p> +<p>Fretted with gold or silver:—by command</p> +<p class="i2">The greater part of these were ready spread</p> +<p>With viands and sherbets in ice—and wine—</p> +<p>Kept for all comers at all hours to dine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of all the dresses I select Haidée's:</p> +<p class="i2">She wore two jelicks—one was of pale yellow;</p> +<p>Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise—</p> +<p class="i2">'Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow:</p> +<p>With buttons formed of pearls as large as peas,</p> +<p class="i2">All gold and crimson shone her jelick's fellow,</p> +<p>And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her,</p> +<p>Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flowed round her.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One large gold bracelet clasped each lovely arm,</p> +<p class="i2">Lockless—so pliable from the pure gold</p> +<p>That the hand stretched and shut it without harm,</p> +<p class="i2">The limb which it adorned its only mould;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> +<p>So beautiful—its very shape would charm,</p> +<p class="i2">And clinging, as if loath to lose its hold,</p> +<p>The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin</p> +<p>That e'er by precious metal was held in.<a name="FNanchor_185" id="FNanchor_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Around, as Princess of her father's land,</p> +<p class="i2">A like gold bar above her instep rolled<a name="FNanchor_186" id="FNanchor_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p> +<p>Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand;</p> +<p class="i2">Her hair was starred with gems; her veil's fine fold</p> +<p>Below her breast was fastened with a band</p> +<p class="i2">Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told;</p> +<p>Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furled</p> +<p>About the prettiest ankle in the world.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel</p> +<p class="i2">Flowed like an Alpine torrent which the sun</p> +<p>Dyes with his morning light,—and would conceal</p> +<p class="i2">Her person<a name="FNanchor_187" id="FNanchor_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> if allowed at large to run,</p> +<p>And still they seemed resentfully to feel</p> +<p class="i2">The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun</p> +<p>Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr caught began</p> +<p>To offer his young pinion as her fan.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Round her she made an atmosphere of life,<a name="FNanchor_188" id="FNanchor_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The very air seemed lighter from her eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> +<p>They were so soft and beautiful, and rife</p> +<p class="i2">With all we can imagine of the skies,</p> +<p>And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife—</p> +<p class="i2">Too pure even for the purest human ties;</p> +<p>Her overpowering presence made you feel</p> +<p>It would not be idolatry to kneel.<a name="FNanchor_189" id="FNanchor_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged</p> +<p class="i2">(It is the country's custom, but in vain),</p> +<p>For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed,</p> +<p class="i2">The glossy rebels mocked the jetty stain,</p> +<p>And in their native beauty stood avenged:</p> +<p class="i2">Her nails were touched with henna; but, again,</p> +<p>The power of Art was turned to nothing, for</p> +<p>They could not look more rosy than before.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The henna should be deeply dyed to make</p> +<p class="i2">The skin relieved appear more fairly fair;</p> +<p>She had no need of this, day ne'er will break</p> +<p class="i2">On mountain tops more heavenly white than her:</p> +<p>The eye might doubt if it were well awake,</p> +<p class="i2">She was so like a vision; I might err,</p> +<p>But Shakespeare also says, 't is very silly</p> +<p>"To gild refinéd gold, or paint the lily."<a name="FNanchor_190" id="FNanchor_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,</p> +<p class="i2">But a white baracan, and so transparent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> +<p>The sparkling gems beneath you might behold,</p> +<p class="i2">Like small stars through the milky way apparent;</p> +<p>His turban, furled in many a graceful fold,</p> +<p class="i2">An emerald aigrette, with Haidée's hair in't,</p> +<p>Surmounted as its clasp—a glowing crescent,</p> +<p>Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now they were diverted by their suite,</p> +<p class="i2">Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet,</p> +<p>Which made their new establishment complete;</p> +<p class="i2">The last was of great fame, and liked to show it;</p> +<p>His verses rarely wanted their due feet—</p> +<p class="i2">And for his theme—he seldom sung below it,</p> +<p>He being paid to satirise or flatter,</p> +<p>As the Psalm says, "inditing a good matter."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He praised the present, and abused the past,</p> +<p class="i2">Reversing the good custom of old days,</p> +<p>An Eastern anti-jacobin at last</p> +<p class="i2">He turned, preferring pudding to <i>no</i> praise—</p> +<p>For some few years his lot had been o'ercast</p> +<p class="i2">By his seeming independent in his lays,</p> +<p>But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha—</p> +<p>With truth like Southey, and with verse<a name="FNanchor_191" id="FNanchor_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> like Crashaw.<a name="FNanchor_CT" id="FNanchor_CT"></a><a href="#Footnote_CT" class="fnanchor">[CT]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a man who had seen many changes,</p> +<p class="i2">And always changed as true as any needle;</p> +<p>His Polar Star being one which rather ranges,</p> +<p class="i2">And not the fixed—he knew the way to wheedle:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> +<p>So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges;</p> +<p class="i2">And being fluent (save indeed when fee'd ill),</p> +<p>He lied with such a fervour of intention—</p> +<p>There was no doubt he earned his laureate pension.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But <i>he</i> had genius,—when a turncoat has it,</p> +<p class="i2">The <i>Vates irritabilis</i><a name="FNanchor_192" id="FNanchor_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> takes care</p> +<p>That without notice few full moons shall pass it;</p> +<p class="i2">Even good men like to make the public stare:—</p> +<p>But to my subject—let me see—what was it?—</p> +<p class="i2">Oh!—the third canto—and the pretty pair—</p> +<p>Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode</p> +<p>Of living in their insular abode.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their poet, a sad trimmer, but, no less,<a name="FNanchor_CU" id="FNanchor_CU"></a><a href="#Footnote_CU" class="fnanchor">[CU]</a></p> +<p class="i2">In company a very pleasant fellow,</p> +<p>Had been the favourite of full many a mess</p> +<p class="i2">Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;<a name="FNanchor_CV" id="FNanchor_CV"></a><a href="#Footnote_CV" class="fnanchor">[CV]</a></p> +<p>And though his meaning they could rarely guess,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet still they deigned to hiccup or to bellow</p> +<p>The glorious meed of popular applause,</p> +<p>Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause.<a name="FNanchor_CW" id="FNanchor_CW"></a><a href="#Footnote_CW" class="fnanchor">[CW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But now being lifted into high society,</p> +<p class="i2">And having picked up several odds and ends</p> +<p>Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,</p> +<p class="i2">He deemed, being in a lone isle, among friends,</p> +<p>That, without any danger of a riot, he</p> +<p class="i2">Might for long lying make himself amends;</p> +<p>And, singing as he sung in his warm youth,</p> +<p>Agree to a short armistice with Truth.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had travelled 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,</p> +<p class="i2">And knew the self-loves of the different nations;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> +<p>And having lived with people of all ranks,</p> +<p class="i2">Had something ready upon most occasions—</p> +<p>Which got him a few presents and some thanks.</p> +<p class="i2">He varied with some skill his adulations;</p> +<p>To "do at Rome as Romans do,"<a name="FNanchor_193" id="FNanchor_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> a piece</p> +<p>Of conduct was which <i>he</i> observed in Greece.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus, usually, when <i>he</i> was asked to sing,</p> +<p class="i2">He gave the different nations something national;</p> +<p>'T was all the same to him—"God save the King,"</p> +<p class="i2">Or "Ça ira," according to the fashion all:</p> +<p>His Muse made increment of anything,</p> +<p class="i2">From the high lyric down to the low rational;<a name="FNanchor_CX" id="FNanchor_CX"></a><a href="#Footnote_CX" class="fnanchor">[CX]</a><a name="FNanchor_194" id="FNanchor_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p> +<p>If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder</p> +<p>Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;</p> +<p class="i2">In England a six canto quarto tale;</p> +<p>In Spain he'd make a ballad or romance on</p> +<p class="i2">The last war—much the same in Portugal;</p> +<p>In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on</p> +<p class="i2">Would be old Goethe's—(see what says De Staël);<a name="FNanchor_195" id="FNanchor_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> +<p>In Italy he'd ape the "Trecentisti;"</p> +<p>In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye:<a name="FNanchor_196" id="FNanchor_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> +<h3>1.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!</p> +<p class="i2">Where burning Sappho loved and sung,</p> +<p>Where grew the arts of War and Peace,</p> +<p class="i2">Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!</p> +<p>Eternal summer gilds them yet,</p> +<p>But all, except their Sun, is set.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>2.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Scian and the Teian muse,</p> +<p class="i2">The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute,</p> +<p>Have found the fame your shores refuse:</p> +<p class="i2">Their place of birth alone is mute</p> +<p>To sounds which echo further west</p> +<p>Than your Sires' "Islands of the Blest."<a name="FNanchor_197" id="FNanchor_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>3.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The mountains look on Marathon—<a name="FNanchor_CY" id="FNanchor_CY"></a><a href="#Footnote_CY" class="fnanchor">[CY]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And Marathon looks on the sea;</p> +<p>And musing there an hour alone,</p> +<p class="i2">I dreamed that Greece might still be free;</p> +<p>For standing on the Persians' grave,</p> +<p>I could not deem myself a slave.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>4.<a name="FNanchor_198" id="FNanchor_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A King sate on the rocky brow</p> +<p class="i2">Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> +<p>And ships, by thousands, lay below,</p> +<p class="i2">And men in nations;—all were his!</p> +<p>He counted them at break of day—</p> +<p>And, when the Sun set, where were they?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>5.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And where are they? and where art thou,</p> +<p class="i2">My Country? On thy voiceless shore</p> +<p>The heroic lay is tuneless now—</p> +<p class="i2">The heroic bosom beats no more!<a name="FNanchor_CZ" id="FNanchor_CZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_CZ" class="fnanchor">[CZ]</a></p> +<p>And must thy Lyre, so long divine,</p> +<p>Degenerate into hands like mine?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>6.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is something, in the dearth of Fame,</p> +<p class="i2">Though linked among a fettered race,</p> +<p>To feel at least a patriot's shame,</p> +<p class="i2">Even as I sing, suffuse my face;</p> +<p>For what is left the poet here?</p> +<p>For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>7.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Must <i>we</i> but weep o'er days more blest?</p> +<p class="i2">Must <i>we</i> but blush?—Our fathers bled.</p> +<p>Earth! render back from out thy breast</p> +<p class="i2">A remnant of our Spartan dead!</p> +<p>Of the three hundred grant but three,</p> +<p>To make a new Thermopylæ!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>8.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What, silent still? and silent all?</p> +<p class="i2">Ah! no;—the voices of the dead</p> +<p>Sound like a distant torrent's fall,</p> +<p class="i2">And answer, "Let one living head,</p> +<p>But one arise,—we come, we come!"</p> +<p>'T is but the living who are dumb.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>9.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In vain—in vain: strike other chords;</p> +<p class="i2">Fill high the cup with Samian wine!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> +<p>Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,</p> +<p class="i2">And shed the blood of Scio's vine!</p> +<p>Hark! rising to the ignoble call—</p> +<p>How answers each bold Bacchanal!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>10.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,<a name="FNanchor_199" id="FNanchor_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?</p> +<p>Of two such lessons, why forget</p> +<p class="i2">The nobler and the manlier one?</p> +<p>You have the letters Cadmus gave—</p> +<p>Think ye he meant them for a slave?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>11.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!</p> +<p class="i2">We will not think of themes like these!</p> +<p>It made Anacreon's song divine:</p> +<p class="i2">He served—but served Polycrates—<a name="FNanchor_200" id="FNanchor_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p> +<p>A Tyrant; but our masters then</p> +<p>Were still, at least, our countrymen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>12.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Tyrant of the Chersonese</p> +<p class="i2">Was Freedom's best and bravest friend;</p> +<p><i>That</i> tyrant was Miltiades!</p> +<p class="i2">Oh! that the present hour would lend</p> +<p>Another despot of the kind!</p> +<p>Such chains as his were sure to bind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>13.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!</p> +<p class="i2">On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,</p> +<p>Exists the remnant of a line</p> +<p class="i2">Such as the Doric mothers bore;</p> +<p>And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,</p> +<p>The Heracleidan blood might own.<a name="FNanchor_DA" id="FNanchor_DA"></a><a href="#Footnote_DA" class="fnanchor">[DA]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> + +<h3>14.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Trust not for freedom to the Franks—<a name="FNanchor_201" id="FNanchor_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p> +<p class="i2">They have a king who buys and sells;</p> +<p>In native swords, and native ranks,</p> +<p class="i2">The only hope of courage dwells;</p> +<p>But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,</p> +<p>Would break your shield, however broad.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>15.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!</p> +<p class="i2">Our virgins dance beneath the shade—</p> +<p>I see their glorious black eyes shine;</p> +<p class="i2">But gazing on each glowing maid,</p> +<p>My own the burning tear-drop laves,</p> +<p>To think such breasts must suckle slaves.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>16.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,<a name="FNanchor_202" id="FNanchor_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Where nothing, save the waves and I,</p> +<p>May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;</p> +<p class="i2">There, swan-like, let me sing and die:</p> +<p>A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine—</p> +<p>Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung,</p> +<p class="i2">The modern Greek, in tolerable verse;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> +<p>If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet in these times he might have done much worse:</p> +<p>His strain displayed some feeling—right or wrong;</p> +<p class="i2">And feeling,<a name="FNanchor_203" id="FNanchor_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> in a poet, is the source</p> +<p>Of others' feeling; but they are such liars,</p> +<p>And take all colours—like the hands of dyers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But words are things,<a name="FNanchor_204" id="FNanchor_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> and a small drop of ink,</p> +<p class="i2">Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces</p> +<p>That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;</p> +<p class="i2">'T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses</p> +<p>Instead of speech, may form a lasting link</p> +<p class="i2">Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces</p> +<p>Frail man, when paper—even a rag like this,</p> +<p>Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank,</p> +<p class="i2">His station, generation, even his nation,</p> +<p>Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank</p> +<p class="i2">In chronological commemoration,</p> +<p>Some dull MS. Oblivion long has sank,</p> +<p class="i2">Or graven stone found in a barrack's station</p> +<p>In digging the foundation of a closet,<a name="FNanchor_DB" id="FNanchor_DB"></a><a href="#Footnote_DB" class="fnanchor">[DB]</a></p> +<p>May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Glory long has made the sages smile;</p> +<p class="i2">'T is something, nothing, words, illusion, wind—</p> +<p>Depending more upon the historian's style</p> +<p class="i2">Than on the name a person leaves behind:</p> +<p>Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:<a name="FNanchor_205" id="FNanchor_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The present century was growing blind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> +<p>To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks,</p> +<p>Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe.<a name="FNanchor_206" id="FNanchor_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Milton's the Prince of poets—so we say;</p> +<p class="i2">A little heavy, but no less divine:</p> +<p>An independent being in his day—</p> +<p class="i2">Learned, pious, temperate in love and wine;</p> +<p>But, his life falling into Johnson's way,</p> +<p class="i2">We're told this great High Priest of all the Nine</p> +<p>Was whipped at college—a harsh sire—odd spouse,</p> +<p>For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.<a name="FNanchor_207" id="FNanchor_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All these are, <i>certes</i>, entertaining facts,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Shakespeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's bribes;</p> +<p>Like Titus' youth, and Cæsar's earliest acts;<a name="FNanchor_208" id="FNanchor_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);<a name="FNanchor_209" id="FNanchor_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> +<p>Like Cromwell's pranks;<a name="FNanchor_210" id="FNanchor_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a>—but although Truth exacts</p> +<p class="i2">These amiable descriptions from the scribes,</p> +<p>As most essential to their Hero's story,</p> +<p>They do not much contribute to his glory.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All are not moralists, like Southey, when</p> +<p class="i2">He prated to the world of "Pantisocracy;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_211" id="FNanchor_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> +<p>Or Wordsworth unexcised,<a name="FNanchor_212" id="FNanchor_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> unhired, who then</p> +<p class="i2">Seasoned his pedlar poems with Democracy;<a name="FNanchor_DC" id="FNanchor_DC"></a><a href="#Footnote_DC" class="fnanchor">[DC]</a></p> +<p>Or Coleridge<a name="FNanchor_213" id="FNanchor_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> long before his flighty pen</p> +<p class="i2">Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;<a name="FNanchor_DD" id="FNanchor_DD"></a><a href="#Footnote_DD" class="fnanchor">[DD]</a></p> +<p>When he and Southey, following the same path,</p> +<p>Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).<a name="FNanchor_214" id="FNanchor_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Such names at present cut a convict figure,</p> +<p class="i2">The very Botany Bay in moral geography;</p> +<p>Their loyal treason, renegado rigour,</p> +<p class="i2">Are good manure for their more bare biography;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> +<p>Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger</p> +<p class="i2">Than any since the birthday of typography;</p> +<p>A drowsy, frowzy poem, called the "Excursion,"</p> +<p>Writ in a manner which is my aversion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He there builds up a formidable dyke</p> +<p class="i2">Between his own and others' intellect;</p> +<p>But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like</p> +<p class="i2">Joanna Southcote's Shiloh<a name="FNanchor_215" id="FNanchor_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> and her sect,</p> +<p>Are things which in this century don't strike</p> +<p class="i2">The public mind,—so few are the elect;</p> +<p>And the new births of both their stale Virginities</p> +<p>Have proved but Dropsies, taken for Divinities.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But let me to my story: I must own,</p> +<p class="i2">If I have any fault, it is digression,</p> +<p>Leaving my people to proceed alone,</p> +<p class="i2">While I soliloquize beyond expression:</p> +<p>But these are my addresses from the throne,</p> +<p class="i2">Which put off business to the ensuing session:</p> +<p>Forgetting each omission is a loss to</p> +<p>The world, not quite so great as Ariosto.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I know that what our neighbours call <i>"longueurs,"</i></p> +<p class="i2">(We've not so good a <i>word</i>, but have the <i>thing</i>,</p> +<p>In that complete perfection which insures</p> +<p class="i2">An epic from Bob Southey every spring—)</p> +<p>Form not the true temptation which allures</p> +<p class="i2">The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring</p> +<p>Some fine examples of the <i>Epopée</i>,</p> +<p>To prove its grand ingredient is <i>Ennui</i>.<a name="FNanchor_216" id="FNanchor_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We learn from Horace, "Homer sometimes sleeps;"<a name="FNanchor_217" id="FNanchor_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> +<p class="i2">We feel without him,—Wordsworth sometimes wakes,—</p> +<p>To show with what complacency he creeps,</p> +<p class="i2">With his dear "<i>Waggoners</i>," around his lakes.<a name="FNanchor_218" id="FNanchor_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p> +<p>He wishes for "a boat" to sail the deeps—</p> +<p class="i2">Of Ocean?—No, of air; and then he makes</p> +<p>Another outcry for "a little boat,"</p> +<p>And drivels seas to set it well afloat.<a name="FNanchor_219" id="FNanchor_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain,</p> +<p class="i2">And Pegasus runs restive in his "Waggon,"</p> +<p>Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain?</p> +<p class="i2">Or pray Medea for a single dragon?<a name="FNanchor_220" id="FNanchor_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> +<p>Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,</p> +<p class="i2">He feared his neck to venture such a nag on,</p> +<p>And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,</p> +<p>Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Pedlars," and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades</p> +<p class="i2">Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?</p> +<p>That trash of such sort not alone evades</p> +<p class="i2">Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss</p> +<p>Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades</p> +<p class="i2">Of sense and song above your graves may hiss—</p> +<p>The "little boatman" and his <i>Peter Bell</i></p> +<p>Can sneer at him who drew "Achitophel!"<a name="FNanchor_221" id="FNanchor_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>T' our tale.—The feast was over, the slaves gone,</p> +<p class="i2">The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;</p> +<p>The Arab lore and Poet's song were done,</p> +<p class="i2">And every sound of revelry expired;</p> +<p>The lady and her lover, left alone,</p> +<p class="i2">The rosy flood of Twilight's sky admired;—</p> +<p>Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,</p> +<p>That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ave Maria! blesséd be the hour!</p> +<p class="i2">The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft</p> +<p>Have felt that moment in its fullest power</p> +<p class="i2">Sink o'er the earth—so beautiful and soft—</p> +<p>While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,<a name="FNanchor_DE" id="FNanchor_DE"></a><a href="#Footnote_DE" class="fnanchor">[DE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,</p> +<p>And not a breath crept through the rosy air,</p> +<p>And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer!</p> +<p class="i2">Ave Maria! 't is the hour of Love!</p> +<p>Ave Maria! may our spirits dare</p> +<p class="i2">Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!</p> +<p>Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!</p> +<p class="i2">Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove—</p> +<p>What though 't is but a pictured image?—strike—</p> +<p>That painting is no idol,—'t is too like.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,</p> +<p class="i2">In nameless print<a name="FNanchor_DF" id="FNanchor_DF"></a><a href="#Footnote_DF" class="fnanchor">[DF]</a>—that I have no devotion;</p> +<p>But set those persons down with me to pray,</p> +<p class="i2">And you shall see who has the properest notion</p> +<p>Of getting into Heaven the shortest way;</p> +<p class="i2">My altars are the mountains and the Ocean,</p> +<p>Earth—air—stars,<a name="FNanchor_222" id="FNanchor_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a>—all that springs from the great Whole,</p> +<p>Who hath produced, and will receive the Soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sweet Hour of Twilight!—in the solitude</p> +<p class="i2">Of the pine forest, and the silent shore</p> +<p>Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,</p> +<p class="i2">Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er,</p> +<p>To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,<a name="FNanchor_223" id="FNanchor_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore</p> +<p>And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,</p> +<p>How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!<a name="FNanchor_224" id="FNanchor_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,</p> +<p class="i2">Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> +<p>Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,</p> +<p class="i2">And Vesper bell's that rose the boughs along;</p> +<p>The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,</p> +<p class="i2">His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng</p> +<p>Which learned from this example not to fly</p> +<p>From a true lover,—shadowed my mind's eye.<a name="FNanchor_225" id="FNanchor_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things—<a name="FNanchor_226" id="FNanchor_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,</p> +<p>To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,</p> +<p class="i2">The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer;</p> +<p>Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,</p> +<p class="i2">Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,</p> +<p>Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;</p> +<p>Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart</p> +<p class="i2">Of those who sail the seas, on the first day</p> +<p>When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;</p> +<p class="i2">Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way</p> +<p>As the far bell of Vesper makes him start,</p> +<p class="i2">Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;<a name="FNanchor_227" id="FNanchor_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a></p> +<p>Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?</p> +<p>Ah! surely Nothing dies but Something mourns!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Nero perished by the justest doom</p> +<p class="i2">Which ever the Destroyer yet destroyed,</p> +<p>Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,</p> +<p class="i2">Of nations freed, and the world overjoyed,</p> +<p>Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb:<a name="FNanchor_228" id="FNanchor_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void</p> +<p>Of feeling for some kindness done, when Power</p> +<p>Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero,</p> +<p class="i2">Or any such like sovereign buffoons,<a name="FNanchor_DG" id="FNanchor_DG"></a><a href="#Footnote_DG" class="fnanchor">[DG]</a></p> +<p>To do with the transactions of my hero,</p> +<p class="i2">More than such madmen's fellow man—the moon's?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> +<p>Sure my invention must be down at zero,</p> +<p class="i2">And I grown one of many "Wooden Spoons"</p> +<p>Of verse, (the name with which we Cantabs please</p> +<p>To dub the last of honours in degrees).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I feel this tediousness will never do—</p> +<p class="i2">T' is being <i>too</i> epic, and I must cut down</p> +<p>(In copying) this long canto into two;</p> +<p class="i2">They'll never find it out, unless I own</p> +<p>The fact, excepting some experienced few;</p> +<p class="i2">And then as an improvement 't will be shown:</p> +<p>I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is</p> +<p>From Aristotle <i>passim</i>.—See +<span title="POIÊTIKÊS">ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗΣ</span>.<a name="FNanchor_229" id="FNanchor_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169" id="Footnote_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> [November 30, 1819. Copied in 1820 (MS.D.). Moore +(<i>Life</i>, 421) says that Byron was at work on the third canto when he +stayed with him at Venice, in October, 1819. "One day, before dinner, +[he] read me two or three hundred lines of it; beginning with the +stanzas "Oh Wellington," etc., which, at the time, formed the opening of +the third canto, but were afterwards reserved for the commencement of +the ninth." The third canto, as it now stands, was completed by November +8, 1819; see <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 375. The date on the MS. may refer to +the first fair copy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CH" id="Footnote_CH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CH"><span class="label">[CH]</span></a> <a name="Note_144" id="Note_144"></a>{144}<i>And fits her like a stocking or a glove</i>.—[MS. D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170" id="Footnote_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> ["On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de +galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu +qu'une."—<i>Réflexions</i> ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii. +</p><p> +Byron prefixed the maxim as a motto to his "Ode to a Lady whose Lover +was killed by a Ball, which at the same time shivered a Portrait next +his Heart."—<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 552.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171" id="Footnote_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> <a name="Note_145" id="Note_145"></a>{145}[<i>Merchant of Venice</i>, act iv. sc. 1, line 254.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CI" id="Footnote_CI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CI"><span class="label">[CI]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Had Petrarch's passion led to Petrarch's wedding,</i></p> +<p><i>How many sonnets had ensued the bedding?</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172" id="Footnote_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> [The Ballad of "Death and the Lady" was printed in a +small volume, entitled <i>A Guide to Heaven</i>, 1736, 12mo. It is mentioned +in <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i> (chap. xvii.), <i>Works of Oliver Goldsmith</i>, +1854, i. 369. See <i>Old English Popular Music</i>, by William Chappell, +F.S.A., 1893, ii. 170, 171.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173" id="Footnote_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> <a name="Note_146" id="Note_146"></a>{146}[See <i>The Prophecy of Dante,</i> Canto I. lines +172-174, <i>Poetical Works,</i> 1901, iv. 253, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174" id="Footnote_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> +Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first +month. If she had not, what would John Milton have done? +</p><p> +[Mary Powell did not "run away," but at the end of the honeymoon +obtained her husband's consent to visit her family at Shotover, "upon a +promise of returning at Michaelmas." "And in the mean while his studies +went on very vigorously; and his chief diversion, after the business of +the day, was now and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret +Lee.... This lady, being a woman of excellent wit and understanding, had +a particular honour for our author, and took great delight in his +conversation; as likewise did her husband, Captain Hobson." See, too, +his sonnet "To the Lady Margaret Ley."—<i>The Life of Milton</i> (by Thomas +Newton, D.D.), <i>Paradise Regained,</i> ed. (Baskerville), 1758, pp. xvii., +xviii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175" id="Footnote_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> ["Yesterday a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She +is a poetess—a mathematician—a metaphysician."—<i>Journal</i> November 30, +1813, <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 357.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CJ" id="Footnote_CJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CJ"><span class="label">[CJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_147" id="Note_147"></a>{147} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Displayed much more of nerve, perhaps, of wit,</i></p> +<p><i>Than any of the parodies of Pitt</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CK" id="Footnote_CK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CK"><span class="label">[CK]</span></a> <a name="Note_148" id="Note_148"></a>{148} <i>—— toothpicks, a bidet</i>.—[MS. Alternative +reading.] +</p><p> +"<i>Dr. Murray—As you are squeamish you may put 'teapot, tray,' in case +the other piece of feminine furniture frightens you.—B.</i>"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176" id="Footnote_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> [For Byron's menagerie, see <i>Werner</i>, act i. sc. 1, line +216, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1902, v. 348, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177" id="Footnote_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> <a name="Note_149" id="Note_149"></a>{149}["But as for canine recollections ... I had one +(half a <i>wolf</i> by the she-side) that doted on me at ten years old, and +very nearly ate me at twenty. When I thought he was going to enact +Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent +to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I +offered him."—Letter to Moore, January 19, 1815, <i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. +171, 172. Compare, too, <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto I. Song, stanza ix., +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 30.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CL" id="Footnote_CL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CL"><span class="label">[CL]</span></a> <a name="Note_150" id="Note_150"></a>{150} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Yet for all that don't stay away too long,</i></p> +<p><i>A sofa, like a bed, may come by wrong</i>.—[MS.]</p> +<p><i>I've known the friend betrayed</i>——.—[MS. D.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178" id="Footnote_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> <a name="Note_151" id="Note_151"></a>{151}[The Pyrrhic war-dance represented "by rapid +movements of the body, the way in which missiles and blows from weapons +were avoided, and also the mode in which the enemy was attacked" (<i>Dict. +of Ant.</i>). Dodwell (<i>Tour through Greece</i>, 1819, ii. 21, 22) observes +that in Thessaly and Macedon dances are performed at the present day by +men armed with their musket and sword. See, too, Hobhouse's description +(<i>Travels in Albania</i>, 1858, i. 166, 167) of the Albanian war-dance at +Loutráki.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179" id="Footnote_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> ["Their manner of dancing is certainly the same that +Diana is <i>sung</i> to have danced on the banks of Eurotas. The great lady +still leads the dance, and is followed by a troop of young girls, who +imitate her steps, and, if she sings, make up the chorus. The tunes are +extremely gay and lively, yet with something in them wonderfully soft. +The steps are varied according to the pleasure of her that leads the +dance, but always in exact time, and infinitely more agreeable than any +of our dances."—Lady M.W. Montagu to Pope, April 1, O.S., 1817, +<i>Letters, etc.</i>, 1816, p. 138. The "kerchief-waving" dance is the +<i>Romaika</i>. See <i>The Waltz</i>, line 125, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 492, +note 1. See, too, <i>Voyage Pittoresque</i> ... by the Comte de +Choiseul-Gouffier, 1782, vol. i. Planche 33.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CM" id="Footnote_CM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CM"><span class="label">[CM]</span></a> <i>That would have set Tom Moore, though married, +raving.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180" id="Footnote_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> <a name="Note_152" id="Note_152"></a>{152}["Upon the whole, I think the part of <i>Don Juan</i> in +which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself are described, is +the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I know of Lord B.'s +works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of Nicholas Poussin's +pictures."—<i>Table Talk</i> of S.T. Coleridge, June 7, 1824.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181" id="Footnote_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <a name="Note_153" id="Note_153"></a>{153}[Compare <i>Hudibras</i>, Part I. canto iii. lines 1, 2— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Ay me! what perils do environ</p> +<p>The man that meddles with cold iron!"</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Byron's friend, C.S. Matthews, shouted these lines, <i>con intenzione</i>, +under the windows of a Cambridge tradesman named Hiron, who had been +instrumental in the expulsion from the University of Sir Henry Smyth, a +riotous undergraduate. (See letter to Murray, October 19, 1820.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CN" id="Footnote_CN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CN"><span class="label">[CN]</span></a> <a name="Note_154" id="Note_154"></a>{154} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>All had been open, heart, and open house,</i></p> +<p><i>Ever since Juan served her for a spouse.</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182" id="Footnote_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> <a name="Note_155" id="Note_155"></a>{155} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Rispose allor Margutte: a dirtel tosto,</p> +<p class="i4">Io non credo più al nero ch' all' azzurro;</p> +<p>Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogli arrosto,</p> +<p>E credo alcuna volta anche nel burro;</p> +<p>Nella cervogia, e quando io n' ho nel mosto,</p> +<p>E molto più nell' aspro che il mangurro;</p> +<p>Ma sopra tutto nel buon vino ho fede,</p> +<p>E credo che sia salvo chi gli crede."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Pulci, <i>Morgante Maggiore</i>, Canto XVIII. stanza cxv.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CO" id="Footnote_CO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CO"><span class="label">[CO]</span></a> <a name="Note_157" id="Note_157"></a>{157}<i>For instance, if a first or second wife.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CP" id="Footnote_CP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CP"><span class="label">[CP]</span></a> <a name="Note_159" id="Note_159"></a>{159} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And send him forth like Samson strong in blindness</i>.—[MS. D.]</p> +<p><i>And make him Samson-like—more fierce with blindness</i>.—[MS. M.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CQ" id="Footnote_CQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CQ"><span class="label">[CQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Not so the single, deep, and wordless ire,</i></p> +<p><i>Of a strong human heart</i>—.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183" id="Footnote_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> <a name="Note_160" id="Note_160"></a>{160}["Almost all <i>Don Juan</i> is <i>real</i> life, either my +own, or from people I knew. By the way, much of the description of the +<i>furniture</i>, in Canto Third, is taken from <i>Tully's Tripoli</i> (pray <i>note +this</i>), and the rest from my own observation. Remember, I never meant to +conceal this at all, and have only not stated it, because <i>Don Juan</i> had +no preface, nor name to it."—Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821, +<i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 346. +</p><p> +The first edition of <i>"Tully's Tripoli"</i> is entitled <i>Narrative of a Ten +Years' Residence in Tripoli In Africa: From the original correspondence +in the possession of the Family of the late Richard Tully, Esq., the +British Consul</i>, 1816, 410. The book is in the form of letters (so says +the <i>Preface</i>) written by the Consul's sister. The description of +Haidée's <i>dress</i> is taken from the account of a visit to Lilla Kebbiera, +the wife of the Bashaw (p. 30); the description of the furniture and +refreshments from the account of a visit to "Lilla Amnani," Hadgi +Abderrahmam's Greek wife (pp. 132-137). It is evident that the "Chiel" +who took <i>these</i> "notes" was the Consul's <i>sister</i>, not the Consul: +"Lilla Aisha, the Bey's wife, is thought to be very sensible, though +rather haughty. Her apartments were grand, and herself superbly habited. +Her chemise was covered with gold embroidery at the neck; over it she +wore a gold and silver tissue <i>jileck</i>, or jacket without sleeves, and +over that another of purple velvet richly laced with gold, with coral +and pearl buttons set quite close together down the front; it had short +sleeves finished with a gold band not far below the shoulder, and +discovered a wide loose chemise of transparent gauze, with gold, silver, +and ribband strips. She wore round her ancles ... a sort of fetter made +of a thick bar of gold so fine that they bound it round the leg with one +hand; it is an inch and a half wide, and as much in thickness: each of +these weighs four pounds. Just above this a band three inches wide of +gold thread finished the ends of a pair of trousers made of pale yellow +and white silk." +</p><p> +Page 132. "[Lilla] rose to take coffee, which was served in very small +china cups, placed in silver filigree cups; and gold filigree cups were +put under those presented to the married ladies. They had introduced +cloves, cinnamon, and saffron into the coffee, which was abundantly +sweetened; but this mixture was very soon changed, and replaced by +excellent simple coffee for the European ladies...." +</p><p> +Page 133. "The Greek then shewed us the gala furniture of her own +room.... The hangings of the room were of tapestry, made in pannels of +different coloured velvets, thickly inlaid with flowers of silk damask; +a yellow border, of about a foot in depth, finished the tapestry at top +and bottom, the upper border being embroidered with Moorish sentences +from the Koran in lilac letters. The carpet was of crimson satin, with a +deep border of pale blue quilted; this is laid over Indian mats and +other carpets. In the best part of the room the sofa is placed, which +occupies three sides in an alcove, the floor of which is raised. The +sofa and the cushions that lay around were of crimson velvet, the centre +cushions were embroidered with a sun in gold of highly embossed work, +the rest were of gold and silver tissue. The curtains of the alcove were +made to match those before the bed. A number of looking-glasses, and a +profusion of fine china and chrystal completed the ornaments and +furniture of the room, in which were neither tables nor chairs. A small +table, about six inches high, is brought in when refreshments are +served; it is of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, +ivory, gold and silver, of choice woods, or of plain mahogany, according +to the circumstances of the proprietor." +</p><p> +Page 136. "On the tables were placed all sorts of refreshments, and +thirty or forty dishes of meat and poultry, dressed different ways; +there were no knives nor forks, and only a few spoons of gold, silver, +ivory, or coral...." +</p><p> +Page 137. "The beverage was various sherbets, some composed of the juice +of boiled raisins, very sweet; some of the juice of pomegranates +squeezed through the rind; and others of the pure juice of oranges. +These sherbets were copiously supplied in high glass ewers, placed in +great numbers on the ground.... After the dishes of meat were removed, a +dessert of Arabian fruits, confectionaries, and sweetmeats was served; +among the latter was the date-bread. This sweetmeat is made in +perfection only by the blacks at Fezzan, of the ripe date of the +country.... They make it in the shape of loaves, weighing from twenty to +thirty pounds; the stones of the fruit are taken out, and the dates +simply pressed together with great weights; thus preserved, it keeps +perfectly good for a year."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184" id="Footnote_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> <a name="Note_162" id="Note_162"></a>{162}["He writes like a man who has that clear perception +of the truth of things which is the result of the guilty knowledge of +good and evil; and who, by the light of that knowledge, has deliberately +preferred the evil with a proud malignity of purpose, which would seem +to leave little for the last consummating change to accomplish. When he +calculates that the reader is on the verge of pitying him, he takes care +to throw him back the defiance of laughter, as if to let him know that +all the Poet's pathos is but the sentimentalism of the drunkard between +his cups, or the relenting softness of the courtesan, who the next +moment resumes the bad boldness of her degraded character. With such a +man, who would wish either to laugh or to weep?"—<i>Eclectic Review</i> +(Lord Byron's <i>Mazeppa</i>), August, 1819, vol. xii. p. 150.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CR" id="Footnote_CR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CR"><span class="label">[CR]</span></a> <i>For that's the name they like to cant beneath.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CS" id="Footnote_CS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CS"><span class="label">[CS]</span></a> <a name="Note_163" id="Note_163"></a>{163}<i>The upholsterer's</i> "fiat lux" <i>had bade to +issue.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185" id="Footnote_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> <a name="Note_164" id="Note_164"></a>{164}This dress is Moorish, and the bracelets and bar are +worn in the manner described. The reader will perceive hereafter, that +as the mother of Haidée was of Fez, her daughter wore the garb of the +country. [<i>Vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_183">p. 160, note 1</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186" id="Footnote_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> The bar of gold above the instep is a mark of sovereign +rank in the women of the families of the Deys, and is worn as such by +their female relatives. [<i>Vide ibid.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187" id="Footnote_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> This is no exaggeration: there were four women whom I +remember to have seen, who possessed their hair in this profusion; of +these, three were English, the other was a Levantine. Their hair was of +that length and quantity, that, when let down, it almost entirely shaded +the person, so as nearly to render dress a superfluity. Of these, only +one had dark hair; the Oriental's had, perhaps, the lightest colour of +the four.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188" id="Footnote_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yet there was round thee such a dawn</p> +<p class="i2">Of Light ne'er seen before,</p> +<p>As Fancy never could have drawn,</p> +<p class="i2">And never can restore."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Song by Rev. C. Wolfe (1791-1823). +</p><p> +Compare, too— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"She was a form of Life and Light</p> +<p>That, seen, became a part of sight."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Giaour</i>, lines 1127, 1128.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189" id="Footnote_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> <a name="Note_165" id="Note_165"></a>{165} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>[" ... but Psyche owns no lord—</p> +<p class="i2">She walks a goddess from above;</p> +<p>All saw, all praised her, all adored,</p> +<p class="i2">But no one ever dared to love."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +<i>The Golden Ass of Apuleius; in English verse, entitled Cupid and +Psyche</i>, by Hudson Gurney, 1799.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190" id="Footnote_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> [<i>King John</i>, act iv. sc. 2, line 11.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191" id="Footnote_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <a name="Note_166" id="Note_166"></a>{166} ["Richard Crashaw (died 1650), the friend of +Cowley, was honoured," says Warton, "with the praise of Pope; who both +read his poems and borrowed from them. After he was ejected from his +Fellowship at Peterhouse for denying the covenant, he turned Roman +Catholic, and died canon of the church at Loretto." Cowley sang his <i>In +Memoriam</i>— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Angels</i> (they say) brought the famed <i>Chappel</i> there;</p> +<p>And bore the sacred Load in Triumph through the air:—</p> +<p>'T is surer much they brought thee there, and <i>They</i>,</p> +<p>And <i>Thou</i>, their charge, went <i>singing</i> all the way."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Works, etc.</i>, 1668, pp. 29, 30.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CT" id="Footnote_CT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CT"><span class="label">[CT]</span></a> <i>Believed like Southey—and perused like Crashaw.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192" id="Footnote_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <a name="Note_167" id="Note_167"></a>{167}[The second chapter of Coleridge's <i>Biographia +Literaria</i> is on the "supposed irritability of men of genius." Ed. 1847, +i. 29.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CU" id="Footnote_CU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CU"><span class="label">[CU]</span></a> <i>Their poet a sad Southey</i>.—[MS. D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CV" id="Footnote_CV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CV"><span class="label">[CV]</span></a> <i>Of rogues</i>—.—[MS. D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CW" id="Footnote_CW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CW"><span class="label">[CW]</span></a> <i>Of which the causers never know the cause</i>.—[MS. D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193" id="Footnote_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> <a name="Note_168" id="Note_168"></a>{168}[<i>Vide St. August. Epist.</i>, xxxvi., cap. xiv., "Ille +[Ambrosius, Mediolanensis Episcopus] adjecit; Quando hic sum, non jejuno +sabbato; quando Romae sum, jejuno sabbato."—Migne's <i>Patrologiæ +Cursus</i>, 1845, xxxiii. 151.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CX" id="Footnote_CX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CX"><span class="label">[CX]</span></a> <i>From the high lyrical to the low rational</i>.—[MS.D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194" id="Footnote_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> [The allusion is to Coleridge's eulogy of Southey in the +Biographia Literaria (ed. 1847, i. 61): "In poetry he has attempted +almost every species of composition known before, and he has added new +ones; and if we except the very highest lyric ... he has attempted every +species successfully." But the satire, primarily and ostensibly aimed at +Southey, now and again glances at Southey's eulogist.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195" id="Footnote_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> ["Goethe pourroit représenter la littérature allemande +toute entière."—<i>De L'Allemagne</i>, par Mme. la Baronne de +Staël-Holstein, 1818, i. 227.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196" id="Footnote_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> [The poet is not "a sad Southey," but is sketched from +memory. "Lord Byron," writes Finlay (<i>History of Greece</i>, vi. 335, +note), "used to describe an evening passed in the company of Londos [a +Morean landowner, who took part in the first and second Greek Civil +Wars], at Vostitza (in 1809), when both were young men, with a spirit +that rendered the scene worthy of a place in <i>Don Juan</i>. After supper +Londos, who had the face and figure of a chimpanzee, sprang upon a +table, ... and commenced singing through his nose Rhiga's Hymn to +Liberty. A new cadi, passing near the house, inquired the cause of the +discordant hubbub. A native Mussulman replied, 'It is only the young +primate Londos, who is drunk, and is singing hymns to the new panaghia +of the Greeks, whom they call Eleutheria.'" (See letter to Andreas +Londos (undated), <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 320, note 1.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197" id="Footnote_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> +<a name="Note_169" id="Note_169"></a>{169}The +<span title="Maka/rôn nê~soi">Μακάρων νῆσοι</span> +[Hesiod, <i>Works and Days</i>, line 169] of the Greek poets were supposed to +have been the Cape de Verd Islands, or the Canaries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CY" id="Footnote_CY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CY"><span class="label">[CY]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Euboea looks on Marathon,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And Marathon looks on the sea, etc.</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198" id="Footnote_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> [See Æschylus, <i>Persæ</i>, 463, sq.; and Herodotus, viii. +90. Harpocration records the preservation, in the Acropolis, of the +silver-footed throne on which Xerxes sat when he watched the battle of +Salamis from the slope of Mount Ægaleos.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_CZ" id="Footnote_CZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_CZ"><span class="label">[CZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_170" id="Note_170"></a>{170}<i>The Heroic heart awakes no more</i>.—[MS. D.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199" id="Footnote_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <a name="Note_171" id="Note_171"></a>{171}[For "that most ancient military dance, the +<i>Pyrrhica</i>," see <i>Travels</i>, by E.D. Clarke, 1814, part ii. sect. 11, p. +641; and for specimens of "Cadmean characters," <i>vide ibid.</i>, p. 593.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200" id="Footnote_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> [After his birthplace Teos was taken by the Persians, +B.C. 510, Anacreon migrated to Abdera, but afterwards lived at Samos, +under the protection of Polycrates.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DA" id="Footnote_DA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DA"><span class="label">[DA]</span></a> <i>Which Hercules might deem his own.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201" id="Footnote_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <a name="Note_172" id="Note_172"></a>{172}[See the translation of a speech delivered to the +Pargiots, in 1815, by an aged citizen: "I exhort you well to consider, +before you yield yourselves up to the English, that the King of England +now has in his pay all the kings of Europe—obtaining money for this +purpose from his merchants; whence, should it become advantageous to the +merchants to sell you, in order to conciliate Ali, and obtain certain +commercial advantages in his harbours, the <i>English will sell you to +Ali.</i>" —"Parga," <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, October, 1819. vol. 32, pp. +263-293. Here, perhaps, the "Franks" are the Russians. Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">"Greeks only should free Greece,</p> +<p>Not the barbarian with his masque of peace."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +<i>The Age of Bronze</i>, lines 298, 299, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 557, +note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202" id="Footnote_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>[<span title="Genoi/man, i(/n' y(la~en e)/pesti po/n-">Γενοίμαν, ἵν' ὑλᾶεν ἔπεστι πόν</span>-</p> +<p><span title="tou pro/blêm' a(li/klyston, a)/">του πρόβλημ' ἁλίκλυστον, ἄ</span>-</p> +<p><span title="kran y(po\ pla/ka Souni/ou, k.t.l.">κραν ὑπὸ πλάκα Σουνίου, κ.τ.λ</span>.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Sophocles, <i>Ajax</i>, lines 1190-1192.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203" id="Footnote_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> <a name="Note_173" id="Note_173"></a>{173}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What poets feel not, when they make,</p> +<p class="i2">A pleasure in creating,</p> +<p>The world, in <i>its</i> turn, will not take</p> +<p class="i2">Pleasure in contemplating."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Matthew Arnold (Motto to <i>Poems</i>, 1869, vol. i. Fly-leaf).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204" id="Footnote_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> [For this "sentence," see <i>Journal</i>, November 16, 1813, +<i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 320, note 1; see, too, letter to Rogers, 1814, +<i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 89, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DB" id="Footnote_DB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DB"><span class="label">[DB]</span></a> <i>In digging drains for a new water-closet.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205" id="Footnote_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> [For Edmund Hoyle (1672-1769), see <i>English Bards, etc.</i>, +lines 966-968, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 372, note 4.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206" id="Footnote_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <a name="Note_174" id="Note_174"></a>{174}[William Coxe (1747-1828), Archdeacon of Wilts, a +voluminous historian and biographer, published <i>Memoirs of John, Duke of +Marlborough</i>, in 1817-1819.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207" id="Footnote_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> +[See <i>Life of Milton, Works</i> of Samuel Johnson, 1825, +vii. pp. 67, 68, 80, <i>et vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_174">p. 146, note 2</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208" id="Footnote_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> [According to Suetonius, the youthful Titus amused +himself by copying handwriting, and boasted that he could have made a +first-rate <i>falsarius</i>. One of Cæsar's "earliest acts" was to crucify +some jovial pirates, who had kidnapped him, and with whom he pretended +to be on pleasant if not friendly terms.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209" id="Footnote_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> [James Currie, M.D. (1756-1805), published, anonymously, +the <i>Works of Robert Burns, with an account of his Life, etc.</i>, in +1800.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210" id="Footnote_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> ["He [Cromwell] was very notorious for robbing orchards, +a puerile crime ... but grown so scandalous and injurious by the +frequent spoyls and damages of Trees, breaking of Hedges, and +Inclosures, committed by this <i>Apple-Dragon</i>, that many solemn +complaints were made both to his Father and Mother for redresse thereof; +which missed not their satisfaction and expiation out of his hide," +etc.—<i>Flagellum</i>, by James Heath, 1663, p. 5. See, too, for his "name +of a Royster" at Cambridge, <i>A Short View of the Late Troubles in +England</i>, by Sir William Dugdale, 1681, p. 459.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211" id="Footnote_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <a name="Note_175" id="Note_175"></a>{175}[In <i>The Friend</i>, 1818, ii. 38, Coleridge refers to +"a plan ... of trying the experiment of human perfectibility on the +banks of the Susquehanna;" and Southey, in his <i>Letter to William Smith, +Esq.</i> (1817), (<i>Essays Moral and Political</i>, by Robert Southey, 1832, +ii. 17), speaks of his "purpose to retire with a few friends into the +wilds of America, and there lay the foundations of a community," etc.; +but the word "<i>Pantisocracy</i>" is not mentioned. It occurs, perhaps, for +the first time in print, in George Dyer's biographical sketch of +Southey, which he contributed to <i>Public Characters of 1799-1800</i>, p. +225, "Coleridge, no less than Southey, possessed a strong passion for +poetry. They commenced, like two young poets, an enthusiastic +friendship, and in connection with others, struck out a plan for +settling in America, and for having all things in common. This scheme +they called Pantisocracy." Hence, the phrase must have "caught on," for, +in a footnote to his review of Coleridge's <i>Literary Life</i> (<i>Edin. +Rev.</i>, August, 1817, vol. xxviii. p. 501), Jeffrey speaks of "the +Pantisocratic or Lake School."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212" id="Footnote_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> [Wordsworth <i>was</i> "hired," but not, like Burns, +"excised." Hazlitt (<i>Lectures on the English Poets</i>, 1870, p. 174) is +responsible for the epithet: "Mr. Wordsworth might have shown the +incompatibility between the Muse and the Excise," etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DC" id="Footnote_DC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DC"><span class="label">[DC]</span></a> <i>Confined his pedlar poems to democracy.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213" id="Footnote_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> [Coleridge began his poetical contributions to the +<i>Morning Post</i> in January, 1798; his poetical articles in 1800.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DD" id="Footnote_DD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DD"><span class="label">[DD]</span></a> <i>Flourished its sophistry for aristocracy.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214" id="Footnote_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> [Coleridge was married to Sarah Fricker, October 5; +Southey to her younger sister Edith, November 15, 1795. Their father, +Stephen Fricker, who had been an innkeeper, and afterwards a potter at +Bristol, migrated to Bath about the year 1780. For the last six years of +his life he was owner and manager of a coal wharf. He had inherited a +small fortune, and his wife brought him money, but he died bankrupt, and +left his family destitute. His widow returned to Bristol, and kept a +school. In a letter to Murray, dated September 11, 1822 (<i>Letters</i>, +1901, vi. 113), Byron quotes the authority of "Luttrell," and "his +friend Mr. Nugent," for the statement that Mrs. Southey and "Coleridge's +Sara ... before they were married ... were milliner's or dressmaker's +apprentices." The story rests upon their evidence. It is certain that in +1794, when Coleridge appeared upon the scene, the sisters earned their +living by going out to work in the houses of friends, and were not, at +that time, "milliners of Bath."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215" id="Footnote_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <a name="Note_176" id="Note_176"></a>{176}[For Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), see <i>Letters</i>, +1899, iii. 128-130, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216" id="Footnote_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> [Here follows, in the original MS.— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Time has approved Ennui to be the best</p> +<p class="i2">Of friends, and opiate draughts; your love and wine,</p> +<p>Which shake so much the human brain and breast,</p> +<p class="i2">Must end in languor;—men must sleep like swine:</p> +<p>The happy lover and the welcome guest</p> +<p class="i2">Both sink at last into a swoon divine;</p> +<p>Full of deep raptures and of bumpers, they</p> +<p>Are somewhat sick and sorry the next day."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217" id="Footnote_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> <a name="Note_177" id="Note_177"></a>{177}["Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."—Hor., <i>Epist. +Ad Pisones</i>, line 359.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218" id="Footnote_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> [Wordsworth's <i>Benjamin the Waggoner</i>, was written in +1805, but was not published till 1819. "Benjamin" was servant to William +Jackson, a Keswick carrier, who built Greta Hall, and let off part of +the house to Coleridge.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219" id="Footnote_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["There's something in a flying horse,</p> +<p>There's something in a huge balloon;</p> +<p>But through the clouds I'll never float</p> +<p>Until I have a little Boat,</p> +<p>Shaped like the crescent-moon."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Wordsworth's <i>Peter Bell</i>, stanza i.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220" id="Footnote_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> [For Medea's escape from the wrath of Jason, "Titaniacis +ablata draconibus," see Ovid., <i>Met.</i>, vii. 398.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221" id="Footnote_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> [In his "Essay, Supplementary to the Preface," to his +"Poems" of 1815, Wordsworth, commenting on a passage on Night in +Dryden's <i>Indian Emperor</i>, says, "Dryden's lines are vague, bombastic, +and senseless.... The verses of Dryden once celebrated are forgotten." +He is not passing any general criticism on "him who drew <i>Achitophel</i>." +In a letter to Sir Walter Scott (November 7, 1805), then engaged on his +great edition of Dryden's <i>Works</i>, he admits that Dryden is not "as a +poet any great favourite of mine. I admire his talents and genius +highly, but he is not a poetical genius. The only qualities I can find +in Dryden that are <i>essentially</i> poetical, are a certain ardour and +impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear" (<i>Life of Wordsworth</i>, by W. +Knight, 1889, ii. 26-29). Scott may have remarked on Wordsworth's +estimate of Dryden in conversation with Byron.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DE" id="Footnote_DE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DE"><span class="label">[DE]</span></a> <a name="Note_178" id="Note_178"></a>{178}<i>While swung the signal from the sacred +tower.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DF" id="Footnote_DF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DF"><span class="label">[DF]</span></a> <a name="Note_179" id="Note_179"></a>{179} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Are not these pretty stanzas?—some folks say—</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Downright in print</i>—.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222" id="Footnote_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> [Compare Coleridge's <i>Lines to Nature</i>, which were +published in the <i>Morning Herald</i>, in 1815, but must have been unknown +to Byron— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"So will I build my altar in the fields,</p> +<p>And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223" id="Footnote_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> ["As early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian +era, the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards, and a +lovely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode +at anchor.... This advantageous situation was fortified by art and +<i>labour</i>, and in the twentieth year of his age, the Emperor of the West +... retired to ... the walls and morasses of Ravenna."—Gibbon's +<i>Decline and Fall</i>, 1825, ii. 244, 245.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224" id="Footnote_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> ["The first time I had a conversation with Lord Byron on +the subject of religion was at Ravenna, my native country, in 1820, +while we were riding on horseback in an extensive solitary wood of +pines. The scene invited to religious meditation. It was a fine day in +spring. 'How,' he said, 'raising our eyes to heaven, or directing them +to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of God?—or how, turning +them to what is within us, can we doubt that there is something more +noble and durable than the clay of which we are formed?'"—Count +Gamba.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225" id="Footnote_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> <a name="Note_180" id="Note_180"></a>{180}[If the <i>Pineta</i> of Ravenna, <i>bois funèbre</i>, invited +Byron "to religious meditation," the mental picture of the "spectre +huntsman" pursuing his eternal vengeance on "the inexorable dame"—"that +fatal she," who had mocked his woes—must have set in motion another +train of thought. Such lines as these would "speak comfortably" to him— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Because she deem'd I well deserved to die,</p> +<p>And <i>made a merit</i> of her cruelty, ...</p> +<p>Mine is the ungrateful maid by heaven design'd:</p> +<p>Mercy she would not give, nor mercy shall she find."</p> +<p></p><p></p> +<p>"By her example warn'd, the rest beware;</p> +<p>More easy, less imperious, were the fair;</p> +<p>And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd</p> +<p>For one fair female, lost him half the kind."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Dryden's <i>Theodore and Honoria</i> (<i>sub fine</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226" id="Footnote_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span title="Espere panta phereis">Εσπερε παντα φερεις</span></p> +<p><span title="Phereis oinon—phereis aiga,">Φερεις οινον—φερεις αιγα</span></p> +<p><span title="Phereis materi paida.">Φερεις ματερι παιδα</span>.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Fragment of Sappho.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>[<span title="We/spere, pa/nta phe/rôn, o(/sa phai/nolis e)ske/das' au)/ôs">Ϝέσπερε, πάντα φέρων, ὅσα φαίνολις ἐσκέδασ' αὔως·</span></p> +<p><span title="Phe/reis oi)/n phe/reis ai~)ga, Phe/reis a)/py mate/ri pai~da.">Φέρεις οἴν φέρεις αἶγα, Φέρεις ἄπυ ματέρι παῖδα</span>.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +<i>Sappho</i>, Memoir, Text, by Henry Thornton Wharton, 1895, p. 136. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Evening, all things thou bringest</p> +<p class="i2">Which dawn spread apart from each other;</p> +<p>The lamb and the kid thou bringest,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou bringest the boy to his mother."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">J.A. Symonds. +</p><p> +Compare Tennyson's <i>Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After</i>—"Hesper, whom the +poet call'd the Bringer home of all good things."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227" id="Footnote_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> <a name="Note_181" id="Note_181"></a>{181} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Era già l'ora che volge il disio</p> +<p class="i2">Ai naviganti, e intenerisce il cuore;</p> +<p class="i2">Lo di ch' han detto ai dolci amici addio;</p> +<p>E che lo nuovo peregrin' damore</p> +<p class="i2">Punge, se ode squilla di lontano,</p> +<p class="i2">Che paia il giorno pianger che si more."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +Dante's <i>Purgatory</i>, canto viii., lines 1-6. +</p><p> +This last line is the first of Gray's Elegy, taken by him without +acknowledgment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228" id="Footnote_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> See Suetonius for this fact. +</p><p> +["The public joy was so great upon the occasion of his death, that the +common people ran up and down with caps upon their heads. And yet there +were some, who for a long time trimmed up his tomb with spring and +summer flowers, and, one while, placed his image upon his rostra dressed +up in state robes, another while published proclamations in his name, as +if he was yet alive, and would shortly come to Rome again, with a +vengeance to all his enemies."—<i>De XII. Cæs.</i>, lib. vi. cap. lvii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DG" id="Footnote_DG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DG"><span class="label">[DG]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But I'm digressing—what on earth have Nero</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And Wordsworth—both poetical buffoons, etc.</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229" id="Footnote_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> +<a name="Note_182" id="Note_182"></a>{182} +[See <i>De Poeticâ</i>, cap. xxiv. See, too, the Preface +to Dryden's "Dedication" of the <i>Æneis</i> (<i>Works</i> of John Dryden, 1821, +xiv. 130-134). Dryden is said to have derived his knowledge of Aristotle +from Dacier's translation, and it is probable that Byron derived his +from Dryden. See letter to Hodgson (<i>Letters</i>, 1891, v. 284), in which +he quotes Aristotle as quoted in Johnson's <i>Life of Dryden</i>.]</p> +</div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_FOURTH" id="CANTO_THE_FOURTH"></a> +CANTO THE FOURTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">Nothing</span> so difficult as a beginning</p> +<p class="i2">In poesy, unless perhaps the end;</p> +<p>For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning</p> +<p class="i2">The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,</p> +<p>Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning;</p> +<p class="i2">Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,</p> +<p>Being Pride,<a name="FNanchor_230" id="FNanchor_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> which leads the mind to soar too far,</p> +<p>Till our own weakness shows us what we are.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Time, which brings all beings to their level,</p> +<p class="i2">And sharp Adversity, will teach at last</p> +<p>Man,—and, as we would hope,—perhaps the Devil,</p> +<p class="i2">That neither of their intellects are vast:</p> +<p>While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,</p> +<p class="i2">We know not this—the blood flows on too fast;</p> +<p>But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean,</p> +<p>We ponder deeply on each past emotion.<a name="FNanchor_231" id="FNanchor_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,</p> +<p class="i2">And wished that others held the same opinion;</p> +<p>They took it up when my days grew more mellow,</p> +<p class="i2">And other minds acknowledged my dominion:</p> +<p>Now my sere Fancy "falls into the yellow</p> +<p class="i2">Leaf,"<a name="FNanchor_232" id="FNanchor_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> and Imagination droops her pinion,</p> +<p>And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk</p> +<p>Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if I laugh at any mortal thing,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,</p> +<p>'T is that our nature cannot always bring</p> +<p class="i2">Itself to apathy, for we must steep<a name="FNanchor_DH" id="FNanchor_DH"></a><a href="#Footnote_DH" class="fnanchor">[DH]</a></p> +<p>Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,<a name="FNanchor_DI" id="FNanchor_DI"></a><a href="#Footnote_DI" class="fnanchor">[DI]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:</p> +<p>Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;</p> +<p>A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some have accused me of a strange design</p> +<p class="i2">Against the creed and morals of the land,</p> +<p>And trace it in this poem every line:</p> +<p class="i2">I don't pretend that I quite understand</p> +<p>My own meaning when I would be <i>very</i> fine;</p> +<p class="i2">But the fact is that I have nothing planned,</p> +<p>Unless it were to be a moment merry—</p> +<p>A novel word in my vocabulary.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To the kind reader of our sober clime</p> +<p class="i2">This way of writing will appear exotic;</p> +<p>Pulci<a name="FNanchor_233" id="FNanchor_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> was sire of the half-serious rhyme,<a name="FNanchor_DJ" id="FNanchor_DJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_DJ" class="fnanchor">[DJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Who sang when Chivalry was more quixotic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> +<p>And revelled in the fancies of the time,</p> +<p class="i2">True Knights, chaste Dames, huge Giants, Kings despotic;</p> +<p>But all these, save the last, being obsolete,</p> +<p>I chose a modern subject as more meet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How I have treated it, I do not know;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps no better than <i>they</i> have treated me,</p> +<p>Who have imputed such designs as show</p> +<p class="i2">Not what they saw, but what they wished to see:</p> +<p>But if it gives them pleasure, be it so;</p> +<p class="i2">This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free:</p> +<p>Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear,</p> +<p>And tells me to resume my story here.<a name="FNanchor_234" id="FNanchor_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Young Juan and his lady-love were left</p> +<p class="i2">To their own hearts' most sweet society;</p> +<p>Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft</p> +<p class="i2">With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he</p> +<p>Sighed to behold them of their hours bereft,</p> +<p class="i2">Though foe to Love; and yet they could not be</p> +<p>Meant to grow old, but die in happy Spring,</p> +<p>Before one charm or hope had taken wing.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their</p> +<p class="i2">Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail;</p> +<p>The blank grey was not made to blast their hair,</p> +<p class="i2">But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail,</p> +<p>They were all summer; lightning might assail</p> +<p class="i2">And shiver them to ashes, but to trail</p> +<p>A long and snake-like life of dull decay</p> +<p>Was not for them—they had too little clay.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They were alone once more; for them to be</p> +<p class="i2">Thus was another Eden; they were never</p> +<p>Weary, unless when separate: the tree</p> +<p class="i2">Cut from its forest root of years—the river<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> +<p>Dammed from its fountain—the child from the knee</p> +<p class="i2">And breast maternal weaned at once for ever,—</p> +<p>Would wither less than these two torn apart;<a name="FNanchor_DK" id="FNanchor_DK"></a><a href="#Footnote_DK" class="fnanchor">[DK]</a></p> +<p>Alas! there is no instinct like the Heart—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Heart—which may be broken: happy they!</p> +<p class="i2">Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,</p> +<p>The precious porcelain of human clay,</p> +<p class="i2">Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold</p> +<p>The long year linked with heavy day on day,</p> +<p class="i2">And all which must be borne, and never told;</p> +<p>While Life's strange principle will often lie</p> +<p>Deepest in those who long the most to die.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore,<a name="FNanchor_235" id="FNanchor_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And many deaths do they escape by this:</p> +<p>The death of friends, and that which slays even more—</p> +<p class="i2">The death of Friendship, Love, Youth, all that is,</p> +<p>Except mere breath; and since the silent shore</p> +<p class="i2">Awaits at last even those who longest miss</p> +<p>The old Archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave<a name="FNanchor_236" id="FNanchor_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p> +<p>Which men weep over may be meant to save.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Haidée and Juan thought not of the dead—</p> +<p class="i2">The Heavens, and Earth, and Air, seemed made for them:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> +<p>They found no fault with Time, save that he fled;</p> +<p class="i2">They saw not in themselves aught to condemn:</p> +<p>Each was the other's mirror, and but read</p> +<p class="i2">Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem.</p> +<p>And knew such brightness was but the reflection</p> +<p>Of their exchanging glances of affection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch,</p> +<p class="i2">The least glance better understood than words,</p> +<p>Which still said all, and ne'er could say too much;</p> +<p class="i2">A language,<a name="FNanchor_237" id="FNanchor_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> too, but like to that of birds,</p> +<p>Known but to them, at least appearing such</p> +<p class="i2">As but to lovers a true sense affords;</p> +<p>Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd</p> +<p>To those who have ceased to hear such, or ne'er heard—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All these were theirs, for they were children still,</p> +<p class="i2">And children still they should have ever been;</p> +<p>They were not made in the real world to fill</p> +<p class="i2">A busy character in the dull scene,</p> +<p>But like two beings born from out a rill,</p> +<p class="i2">A Nymph and her belovéd, all unseen</p> +<p>To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers,</p> +<p>And never know the weight of human hours.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Moons changing had rolled on, and changeless found</p> +<p class="i2">Those their bright rise had lighted to such joys</p> +<p>As rarely they beheld throughout their round;</p> +<p class="i2">And these were not of the vain kind which cloys,</p> +<p>For theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound</p> +<p class="i2">By the mere senses; and that which destroys<a name="FNanchor_DL" id="FNanchor_DL"></a><a href="#Footnote_DL" class="fnanchor">[DL]</a></p> +<p>Most love—possession—unto them appeared</p> +<p>A thing which each endearment more endeared.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh beautiful! and rare as beautiful!</p> +<p class="i2">But theirs was Love in which the Mind delights</p> +<p>To lose itself, when the old world grows dull,</p> +<p class="i2">And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights,</p> +<p>Intrigues, adventures of the common school,</p> +<p class="i2">Its petty passions, marriages, and flights,</p> +<p>Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more,</p> +<p>Whose husband only knows her not a whore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Hard words—harsh truth! a truth which many know.</p> +<p class="i2">Enough.—The faithful and the fairy pair,</p> +<p>Who never found a single hour too slow,</p> +<p class="i2">What was it made them thus exempt from care?</p> +<p>Young innate feelings all have felt below,</p> +<p class="i2">Which perish in the rest, but in them were</p> +<p>Inherent—what we mortals call romantic,</p> +<p>And always envy, though we deem it frantic.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is in others a factitious state,</p> +<p class="i2">An opium dream<a name="FNanchor_238" id="FNanchor_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> of too much youth and reading,</p> +<p>But was in them their nature or their fate:</p> +<p class="i2">No novels e'er had set their young hearts bleeding,<a name="FNanchor_DM" id="FNanchor_DM"></a><a href="#Footnote_DM" class="fnanchor">[DM]</a></p> +<p>For Haidée's knowledge was by no means great,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding;</p> +<p>So that there was no reason for their loves</p> +<p>More than for those of nightingales or doves.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They gazed upon the sunset; 't is an hour</p> +<p class="i2">Dear unto all, but dearest to <i>their</i> eyes,</p> +<p>For it had made them what they were: the power</p> +<p class="i2">Of Love had first o'erwhelmed them from such skies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> +<p>When Happiness had been their only dower,</p> +<p class="i2">And Twilight saw them linked in Passion's ties;</p> +<p>Charmed with each other, all things charmed that brought</p> +<p>The past still welcome as the present thought.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I know not why, but in that hour to-night,</p> +<p class="i2">Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor came,</p> +<p>And swept, as 't were, across their hearts' delight,</p> +<p class="i2">Like the wind o'er a harp-string, or a flame,</p> +<p>When one is shook in sound, and one in sight:</p> +<p class="i2">And thus some boding flashed through either frame,</p> +<p>And called from Juan's breast a faint low sigh,</p> +<p>While one new tear arose in Haidée's eye.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That large black prophet eye seemed to dilate</p> +<p class="i2">And follow far the disappearing sun,</p> +<p>As if their last day of a happy date</p> +<p class="i2">With his broad, bright, and dropping orb were gone;</p> +<p>Juan gazed on her as to ask his fate—</p> +<p class="i2">He felt a grief, but knowing cause for none,</p> +<p>His glance inquired of hers for some excuse</p> +<p>For feelings causeless, or at least abstruse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She turned to him, and smiled, but in that sort</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes not others smile; then turned aside:</p> +<p>Whatever feeling shook her, it seemed short,</p> +<p class="i2">And mastered by her wisdom or her pride;</p> +<p>When Juan spoke, too—it might be in sport—</p> +<p class="i2">Of this their mutual feeling, she replied—</p> +<p>"If it should be so,—but—it cannot be—</p> +<p>Or I at least shall not survive to see."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan would question further, but she pressed</p> +<p class="i2">His lip to hers, and silenced him with this,</p> +<p>And then dismissed the omen from her breast,</p> +<p class="i2">Defying augury with that fond kiss;</p> +<p>And no doubt of all methods 't is the best:</p> +<p class="i2">Some people prefer wine—'t is not amiss;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> +<p>I have tried both—so those who would a part take</p> +<p>May choose between the headache and the heartache.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One of the two, according to your choice,</p> +<p class="i2">Woman or wine, you'll have to undergo;</p> +<p>Both maladies are taxes on our joys:</p> +<p class="i2">But which to choose, I really hardly know;</p> +<p>And if I had to give a casting voice,</p> +<p class="i2">For both sides I could many reasons show,</p> +<p>And then decide, without great wrong to either,</p> +<p>It were much better to have both than neither.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan and Haidée gazed upon each other</p> +<p class="i2">With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,</p> +<p>Which mixed all feelings—friend, child, lover, brother—</p> +<p class="i2">All that the best can mingle and express</p> +<p>When two pure hearts are poured in one another,</p> +<p class="i2">And love too much, and yet can not love less;</p> +<p>But almost sanctify the sweet excess</p> +<p>By the immortal wish and power to bless.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Mixed in each other's arms, and heart in heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Why did they not then die?—they had lived too long</p> +<p>Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart;</p> +<p class="i2">Years could but bring them cruel things or wrong;</p> +<p>The World was not for them—nor the World's art</p> +<p class="i2">For beings passionate as Sappho's song;</p> +<p>Love was born <i>with</i> them, <i>in</i> them, so intense,</p> +<p>It was their very Spirit—not a sense.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They should have lived together deep in woods,</p> +<p class="i2">Unseen as sings the nightingale;<a name="FNanchor_239" id="FNanchor_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> +<p>Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes</p> +<p class="i2">Called social, haunts of Hate, and Vice, and Care:<a name="FNanchor_DN" id="FNanchor_DN"></a><a href="#Footnote_DN" class="fnanchor">[DN]</a></p> +<p>How lonely every freeborn creature broods!</p> +<p class="i2">The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair;</p> +<p>The eagle soars alone; the gull and crow</p> +<p>Flock o'er their carrion, just like men below.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now pillowed cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,</p> +<p class="i2">Haidée and Juan their siesta took,</p> +<p>A gentle slumber, but it was not deep,</p> +<p class="i2">For ever and anon a something shook</p> +<p>Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame would creep;</p> +<p class="i2">And Haidée's sweet lips murmured like a brook</p> +<p>A wordless music, and her face so fair</p> +<p>Stirred with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.<a name="FNanchor_DO" id="FNanchor_DO"></a><a href="#Footnote_DO" class="fnanchor">[DO]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream</p> +<p class="i2">Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind</p> +<p>Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the dream,</p> +<p class="i2">The mystical Usurper of the mind—</p> +<p>O'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem</p> +<p class="i2">Good to the soul which we no more can bind;</p> +<p>Strange state of being! (for 't is still to be)</p> +<p>Senseless to feel, and with sealed eyes to see.<a name="FNanchor_DP" id="FNanchor_DP"></a><a href="#Footnote_DP" class="fnanchor">[DP]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She dreamed of being alone on the sea-shore,</p> +<p class="i2">Chained to a rock; she knew not how, but stir</p> +<p>She could not from the spot, and the loud roar</p> +<p class="i2">Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening her;</p> +<p>And o'er her upper lip they seemed to pour,</p> +<p class="i2">Until she sobbed for breath, and soon they were</p> +<p>Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high—</p> +<p>Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Anon—she was released, and then she strayed</p> +<p class="i2">O'er the sharp shingles with her bleeding feet,</p> +<p>And stumbled almost every step she made:</p> +<p class="i2">And something rolled before her in a sheet,</p> +<p>Which she must still pursue howe'er afraid:</p> +<p class="i2">'T was white and indistinct, nor stopped to meet</p> +<p>Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed and grasped,</p> +<p>And ran, but it escaped her as she clasped.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The dream changed:—in a cave<a name="FNanchor_240" id="FNanchor_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> she stood, its walls</p> +<p class="i2">Were hung with marble icicles; the work</p> +<p>Of ages on its water-fretted halls,</p> +<p class="i2">Where waves might wash, and seals might breed and lurk;</p> +<p>Her hair was dripping, and the very balls</p> +<p class="i2">Of her black eyes seemed turned to tears, and mirk</p> +<p>The sharp rocks looked below each drop they caught,</p> +<p>Which froze to marble as it fell,—she thought.<a name="FNanchor_DQ" id="FNanchor_DQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_DQ" class="fnanchor">[DQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet,</p> +<p class="i2">Pale as the foam that frothed on his dead brow,</p> +<p>Which she essayed in vain to clear, (how sweet</p> +<p class="i2">Were once her cares, how idle seemed they now!)</p> +<p>Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat</p> +<p class="i2">Of his quenched heart: and the sea dirges low</p> +<p>Rang in her sad ears like a Mermaid's song,</p> +<p>And that brief dream appeared a life too long.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And gazing on the dead, she thought his face</p> +<p class="i2">Faded, or altered into something new—</p> +<p>Like to her Father's features, till each trace</p> +<p class="i2">More like and like to Lambro's aspect grew—</p> +<p>With all his keen worn look and Grecian grace;</p> +<p class="i2">And starting, she awoke, and what to view?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> +<p>Oh! Powers of Heaven! what dark eye meets she there?</p> +<p>'T is—'t is her Father's—fixed upon the pair!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking fell,</p> +<p class="i2">With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see</p> +<p>Him whom she deemed a habitant where dwell</p> +<p class="i2">The ocean-buried, risen from death, to be</p> +<p>Perchance the death of one she loved too well:</p> +<p class="i2">Dear as her father had been to Haidée,</p> +<p>It was a moment of that awful kind—</p> +<p>I have seen such—but must not call to mind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Up Juan sprang to Haidée's bitter shriek,</p> +<p class="i2">And caught her falling, and from off the wall</p> +<p>Snatched down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak</p> +<p class="i2">Vengeance on him who was the cause of all:</p> +<p>Then Lambro, who till now forbore to speak,</p> +<p class="i2">Smiled scornfully, and said, "Within my call,</p> +<p>A thousand scimitars await the word;</p> +<p>Put up, young man, put up your silly sword."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Haidée clung around him; "Juan, 't is—</p> +<p class="i2">'T is Lambro—'t is my father! Kneel with me—</p> +<p>He will forgive us—yes—it must be—yes.</p> +<p class="i2">Oh! dearest father, in this agony</p> +<p>Of pleasure and of pain—even while I kiss</p> +<p class="i2">Thy garment's hem with transport, can it be</p> +<p>That doubt should mingle with my filial joy?</p> +<p>Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>High and inscrutable the old man stood,</p> +<p class="i2">Calm in his voice, and calm within his eye—</p> +<p>Not always signs with him of calmest mood:</p> +<p class="i2">He looked upon her, but gave no reply;</p> +<p>Then turned to Juan, in whose cheek the blood</p> +<p class="i2">Oft came and went, as there resolved to die;</p> +<p>In arms, at least, he stood, in act to spring</p> +<p>On the first foe whom Lambro's call might bring.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Young man, your sword;" so Lambro once more said:</p> +<p class="i2">Juan replied, "Not while this arm is free."</p> +<p>The old man's cheek grew pale, but not with dread,</p> +<p class="i2">And drawing from his belt a pistol he</p> +<p>Replied, "Your blood be then on your own head."</p> +<p class="i2">Then looked close at the flint, as if to see</p> +<p>'T was fresh—for he had lately used the lock—</p> +<p>And next proceeded quietly to cock.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,</p> +<p class="i2">That cocking of a pistol, when you know</p> +<p>A moment more will bring the sight to bear</p> +<p class="i2">Upon your person, twelve yards off, or so;</p> +<p>A gentlemanly distance, not too near,</p> +<p class="i2">If you have got a former friend for foe;</p> +<p>But after being fired at once or twice,</p> +<p>The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lambro presented, and one instant more</p> +<p class="i2">Had stopped this Canto, and Don Juan's breath,</p> +<p>When Haidée threw herself her boy before;</p> +<p class="i2">Stern as her sire: "On me," she cried, "let Death</p> +<p>Descend—the fault is mine; this fatal shore</p> +<p class="i2">He found—but sought not. I have pledged my faith;</p> +<p>I love him—I will die with him: I knew</p> +<p>Your nature's firmness—know your daughter's too."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A minute past, and she had been all tears,</p> +<p class="i2">And tenderness, and infancy; but now</p> +<p>She stood as one who championed human fears—</p> +<p class="i2">Pale, statue-like, and stern, she wooed the blow;</p> +<p>And tall beyond her sex, and their compeers,</p> +<p class="i2">She drew up to her height, as if to show</p> +<p>A fairer mark; and with a fixed eye scanned</p> +<p>Her Father's face—but never stopped his hand.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He gazed on her, and she on him; 't was strange</p> +<p class="i2">How like they looked! the expression was the same;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> +<p>Serenely savage, with a little change</p> +<p class="i2">In the large dark eye's mutual-darted flame;</p> +<p>For she, too, was as one who could avenge,</p> +<p class="i2">If cause should be—a Lioness, though tame.</p> +<p>Her Father's blood before her Father's face</p> +<p>Boiled up, and proved her truly of his race.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I said they were alike, their features and</p> +<p class="i2">Their stature, differing but in sex and years;</p> +<p>Even to the delicacy of their hand<a name="FNanchor_241" id="FNanchor_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a></p> +<p class="i2">There was resemblance, such as true blood wears;</p> +<p>And now to see them, thus divided, stand</p> +<p class="i2">In fixed ferocity, when joyous tears</p> +<p>And sweet sensations should have welcomed both,</p> +<p>Shows what the passions are in their full growth.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The father paused a moment, then withdrew</p> +<p class="i2">His weapon, and replaced it; but stood still,</p> +<p>And looking on her, as to look her through,</p> +<p class="i2">"Not <i>I</i>," he said, "have sought this stranger's ill;</p> +<p>Not <i>I</i> have made this desolation: few</p> +<p class="i2">Would bear such outrage, and forbear to kill;</p> +<p>But I must do my duty—how thou hast</p> +<p>Done thine, the present vouches for the past.<a name="FNanchor_DR" id="FNanchor_DR"></a><a href="#Footnote_DR" class="fnanchor">[DR]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Let him disarm; or, by my father's head,</p> +<p class="i2">His own shall roll before you like a ball!"</p> +<p>He raised his whistle, as the word he said,</p> +<p class="i2">And blew; another answered to the call,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> +<p>And rushing in disorderly, though led,</p> +<p class="i2">And armed from boot to turban, one and all,</p> +<p>Some twenty of his train came, rank on rank;</p> +<p>He gave the word,—"Arrest or slay the Frank."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, with a sudden movement, he withdrew</p> +<p class="i2">His daughter; while compressed within his clasp,</p> +<p>Twixt her and Juan interposed the crew;</p> +<p class="i2">In vain she struggled in her father's grasp—</p> +<p>His arms were like a serpent's coil: then flew</p> +<p class="i2">Upon their prey, as darts an angry asp,</p> +<p>The file of pirates—save the foremost, who</p> +<p>Had fallen, with his right shoulder half cut through.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The second had his cheek laid open; but</p> +<p class="i2">The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took</p> +<p>The blows upon his cutlass, and then put</p> +<p class="i2">His own well in; so well, ere you could look,</p> +<p>His man was floored, and helpless at his foot,</p> +<p class="i2">With the blood running like a little brook</p> +<p>From two smart sabre gashes, deep and red—</p> +<p>One on the arm, the other on the head.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then they bound him where he fell, and bore</p> +<p class="i2">Juan from the apartment: with a sign</p> +<p>Old Lambro bade them take him to the shore,</p> +<p class="i2">Where lay some ships which were to sail at nine.<a name="FNanchor_DS" id="FNanchor_DS"></a><a href="#Footnote_DS" class="fnanchor">[DS]</a></p> +<p>They laid him in a boat, and plied the oar</p> +<p class="i2">Until they reached some galliots, placed in line;</p> +<p>On board of one of these, and under hatches,</p> +<p>They stowed him, with strict orders to the watches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The world is full of strange vicissitudes,</p> +<p class="i2">And here was one exceedingly unpleasant:</p> +<p>A gentleman so rich in the world's goods,</p> +<p class="i2">Handsome and young, enjoying all the present,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_DT" id="FNanchor_DT"></a><a href="#Footnote_DT" class="fnanchor">[DT]</a></p> +<p>Just at the very time when he least broods</p> +<p class="i2">On such a thing, is suddenly to sea sent,</p> +<p>Wounded and chained, so that he cannot move,</p> +<p>And all because a lady fell in love.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic,</p> +<p class="i2">Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea!</p> +<p>Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic;</p> +<p class="i2">For if my pure libations exceed three,</p> +<p>I feel my heart become so sympathetic,</p> +<p class="i2">That I must have recourse to black Bohea:</p> +<p>'T is pity wine should be so deleterious,</p> +<p>For tea and coffee leave us much more serious,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Unless when qualified with thee, Cogniac!</p> +<p class="i2">Sweet Naïad of the Phlegethontic rill!</p> +<p>Ah! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,<a name="FNanchor_DU" id="FNanchor_DU"></a><a href="#Footnote_DU" class="fnanchor">[DU]</a>—</p> +<p class="i2">And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?</p> +<p>I would take refuge in weak punch, but <i>rack</i></p> +<p class="i2">(In each sense of the word), whene'er I fill</p> +<p>My mild and midnight beakers to the brim,</p> +<p>Wakes me next morning with its synonym.<a name="FNanchor_242" id="FNanchor_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I leave Don Juan for the present, safe—</p> +<p class="i2">Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded;</p> +<p>Yet could his corporal pangs amount to half</p> +<p class="i2">Of those with which his Haidée's bosom bounded?</p> +<p>She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe,</p> +<p class="i2">And then give way, subdued because surrounded;</p> +<p>Her mother was a Moorish maid from Fez,</p> +<p>Where all is Eden, or a wilderness.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There the large olive rains its amber store</p> +<p class="i2">In marble fonts; there grain, and flower, and fruit,</p> +<p>Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er;<a name="FNanchor_243" id="FNanchor_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But there, too, many a poison-tree has root,</p> +<p>And Midnight listens to the lion's roar,</p> +<p class="i2">And long, long deserts scorch the camel's foot,</p> +<p>Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan;</p> +<p>And as the soil is, so the heart of man.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Afric is all the Sun's, and as her earth</p> +<p class="i2">Her human clay is kindled; full of power</p> +<p>For good or evil, burning from its birth,</p> +<p class="i2">The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour,</p> +<p>And like the soil beneath it will bring forth:</p> +<p class="i2">Beauty and love were Haidée's mother's dower;</p> +<p>But her large dark eye showed deep Passion's force,</p> +<p>Though sleeping like a lion near a source.<a name="FNanchor_DV" id="FNanchor_DV"></a><a href="#Footnote_DV" class="fnanchor">[DV]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her daughter, tempered with a milder ray,</p> +<p class="i2">Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair,</p> +<p>Till slowly charged with thunder they display</p> +<p class="i2">Terror to earth, and tempest to the air,</p> +<p>Had held till now her soft and milky way;</p> +<p class="i2">But overwrought with Passion and Despair,</p> +<p>The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,</p> +<p>Even as the Simoom<a name="FNanchor_244" id="FNanchor_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> sweeps the blasted plains.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore,</p> +<p class="i2">And he himself o'ermastered and cut down;</p> +<p>His blood was running on the very floor</p> +<p class="i2">Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own;</p> +<p>Thus much she viewed an instant and no more,—</p> +<p class="i2">Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan;</p> +<p>On her Sire's arm, which until now scarce held</p> +<p>Her writhing, fell she like a cedar felled.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes<a name="FNanchor_DW" id="FNanchor_DW"></a><a href="#Footnote_DW" class="fnanchor">[DW]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er;<a name="FNanchor_245" id="FNanchor_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p> +<p>And her head drooped, as when the lily lies</p> +<p class="i2">O'ercharged with rain: her summoned handmaids bore</p> +<p>Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes;</p> +<p class="i2">Of herbs and cordials they produced their store,</p> +<p>But she defied all means they could employ,</p> +<p>Like one Life could not hold, nor Death destroy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Days lay she in that state unchanged, though chill—</p> +<p class="i2">With nothing livid, still her lips were red;</p> +<p>She had no pulse, but Death seemed absent still;</p> +<p class="i2">No hideous sign proclaimed her surely dead;</p> +<p>Corruption came not in each mind to kill</p> +<p class="i2">All hope; to look upon her sweet face bred</p> +<p>New thoughts of Life, for it seemed full of soul—</p> +<p>She had so much, Earth could not claim the whole.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The ruling passion, such as marble shows</p> +<p class="i2">When exquisitely chiselled, still lay there,</p> +<p>But fixed as marble's unchanged aspect throws</p> +<p class="i2">O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair;<a name="FNanchor_246" id="FNanchor_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p> +<p>O'er the Laocoon's all eternal throes,</p> +<p class="i2">And ever-dying Gladiator's air,</p> +<p>Their energy like life forms all their fame,</p> +<p>Yet looks not life, for they are still the same.—<a name="FNanchor_DX" id="FNanchor_DX"></a><a href="#Footnote_DX" class="fnanchor">[DX]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake,</p> +<p class="i2">Rather the dead, for Life seemed something new,</p> +<p>A strange sensation which she must partake</p> +<p class="i2">Perforce, since whatsoever met her view</p> +<p>Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache</p> +<p class="i2">Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still true</p> +<p>Brought back the sense of pain without the cause,</p> +<p>For, for a while, the Furies made a pause.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She looked on many a face with vacant eye,</p> +<p class="i2">On many a token without knowing what:</p> +<p>She saw them watch her without asking why,</p> +<p class="i2">And recked not who around her pillow sat;</p> +<p>Not speechless, though she spoke not—not a sigh</p> +<p class="i2">Relieved her thoughts—dull silence and quick chat</p> +<p>Were tried in vain by those who served; she gave</p> +<p>No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;</p> +<p class="i2">Her Father watched, she turned her eyes away;</p> +<p>She recognised no being, and no spot,</p> +<p class="i2">However dear or cherished in their day;</p> +<p>They changed from room to room—but all forgot—</p> +<p class="i2">Gentle, but without memory she lay;</p> +<p>At length those eyes, which they would fain be weaning</p> +<p>Back to old thoughts, waxed full of fearful meaning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then a slave bethought her of a harp;</p> +<p class="i2">The harper came, and tuned his instrument;</p> +<p>At the first notes, irregular and sharp,</p> +<p class="i2">On him her flashing eyes a moment bent,</p> +<p>Then to the wall she turned as if to warp</p> +<p class="i2">Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent;</p> +<p>And he began a long low island-song</p> +<p>Of ancient days, ere Tyranny grew strong.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall</p> +<p class="i2">In time to his old tune: he changed the theme,</p> +<p>And sung of Love; the fierce name struck through all</p> +<p class="i2">Her recollection; on her flashed the dream</p> +<p>Of what she was, and is, if ye could call</p> +<p class="i2">To be so being; in a gushing stream</p> +<p>The tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain,</p> +<p>Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Short solace, vain relief!—Thought came too quick,</p> +<p class="i2">And whirled her brain to madness; she arose</p> +<p>As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick,</p> +<p class="i2">And flew at all she met, as on her foes;</p> +<p>But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,</p> +<p class="i2">Although her paroxysm drew towards its close;—</p> +<p>Hers was a frenzy which disdained to rave,</p> +<p>Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of sense;</p> +<p class="i2">Nothing could make her meet her Father's face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> +<p>Though on all other things with looks intense</p> +<p class="i2">She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;</p> +<p>Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence</p> +<p class="i2">Availed for either; neither change of place,</p> +<p>Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her</p> +<p>Senses to sleep—the power seemed gone for ever.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Twelve days and nights she withered thus; at last,</p> +<p class="i2">Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show</p> +<p>A parting pang, the spirit from her passed:</p> +<p class="i2">And they who watched her nearest could not know</p> +<p>The very instant, till the change that cast</p> +<p class="i2">Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,<a name="FNanchor_DY" id="FNanchor_DY"></a><a href="#Footnote_DY" class="fnanchor">[DY]</a></p> +<p>Glazed o'er her eyes—the beautiful, the black—</p> +<p>Oh! to possess such lustre—and then lack!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She died, but not alone; she held, within,</p> +<p class="i2">A second principle of Life, which might</p> +<p>Have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin;<a name="FNanchor_DZ" id="FNanchor_DZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_DZ" class="fnanchor">[DZ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But closed its little being without light,</p> +<p>And went down to the grave unborn, wherein</p> +<p class="i2">Blossom and bough lie withered with one blight;</p> +<p>In vain the dews of Heaven descend above</p> +<p>The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of Love.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus lived—thus died she; never more on her</p> +<p class="i2">Shall Sorrow light, or Shame. She was not made</p> +<p>Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,</p> +<p class="i2">Which colder hearts endure till they are laid</p> +<p>By age in earth: her days and pleasures were</p> +<p class="i2">Brief, but delightful—such as had not staid</p> +<p>Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well<a name="FNanchor_247" id="FNanchor_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p> +<p>By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That isle is now all desolate and bare,</p> +<p class="i2">Its dwellings down, its tenants passed away;</p> +<p>None but her own and Father's grave is there,</p> +<p class="i2">And nothing outward tells of human clay;</p> +<p>Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,</p> +<p class="i2">No stone is there to show, no tongue to say,</p> +<p>What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea's,<a name="FNanchor_EA" id="FNanchor_EA"></a><a href="#Footnote_EA" class="fnanchor">[EA]</a></p> +<p>Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But many a Greek maid in a loving song</p> +<p class="i2">Sighs o'er her name; and many an islander</p> +<p>With her Sire's story makes the night less long;</p> +<p class="i2">Valour was his, and Beauty dwelt with her:</p> +<p>If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong—</p> +<p class="i2">A heavy price must all pay who thus err,</p> +<p>In some shape; let none think to fly the danger,</p> +<p>For soon or late Love is his own avenger.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But let me change this theme, which grows too sad,</p> +<p class="i2">And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf;</p> +<p>I don't much like describing people mad,</p> +<p class="i2">For fear of seeming rather touched myself—</p> +<p>Besides, I've no more on this head to add;</p> +<p class="i2">And as my Muse is a capricious elf,</p> +<p>We'll put about, and try another tack</p> +<p>With Juan, left half-killed some stanzas back.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Wounded and fettered, "cabined, cribbed, confined,"<a name="FNanchor_248" id="FNanchor_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Some days and nights elapsed before that he</p> +<p>Could altogether call the past to mind;</p> +<p class="i2">And when he did, he found himself at sea,</p> +<p>Sailing six knots an hour before the wind;</p> +<p class="i2">The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> +<p>Another time he might have liked to see 'em,</p> +<p>But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigeum.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is</p> +<p class="i2">(Flanked by the Hellespont, and by the sea)</p> +<p>Entombed the bravest of the brave, Achilles;</p> +<p class="i2">They say so—(Bryant<a name="FNanchor_249" id="FNanchor_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> says the contrary):</p> +<p>And further downward, tall and towering still, is</p> +<p class="i2">The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows! 't may be</p> +<p>Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus—</p> +<p>All heroes, who if living still would slay us.<a name="FNanchor_EB" id="FNanchor_EB"></a><a href="#Footnote_EB" class="fnanchor">[EB]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>High barrows, without marble, or a name,</p> +<p class="i2">A vast, untilled, and mountain-skirted plain,<a name="FNanchor_EC" id="FNanchor_EC"></a><a href="#Footnote_EC" class="fnanchor">[EC]</a></p> +<p>And Ida in the distance, still the same,</p> +<p class="i2">And old Scamander (if 't is he) remain;</p> +<p>The situation seems still formed for fame—</p> +<p class="i2">A hundred thousand men might fight again,</p> +<p>With ease; but where I sought for Ilion's walls,</p> +<p>The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise<a name="FNanchor_250" id="FNanchor_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> crawls;<a name="FNanchor_ED" id="FNanchor_ED"></a><a href="#Footnote_ED" class="fnanchor">[ED]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p><h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Troops of untended horses; here and there</p> +<p class="i2">Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth;</p> +<p>Some shepherds (unlike Paris) led to stare</p> +<p class="i2">A moment at the European youth</p> +<p>Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear;<a name="FNanchor_EE" id="FNanchor_EE"></a><a href="#Footnote_EE" class="fnanchor">[EE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A Turk, with beads in hand, and pipe in mouth,</p> +<p>Extremely taken with his own religion,</p> +<p>Are what I found there—but the devil a Phrygian.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan, here permitted to emerge</p> +<p class="i2">From his dull cabin, found himself a slave;</p> +<p>Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge,</p> +<p class="i2">O'ershadowed there by many a Hero's grave;</p> +<p>Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge</p> +<p class="i2">A few brief questions; and the answers gave</p> +<p>No very satisfactory information</p> +<p>About his past or present situation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He saw some fellow captives, who appeared</p> +<p class="i2">To be Italians (as they were in fact)—</p> +<p>From them, at least, <i>their</i> destiny he heard,</p> +<p class="i2">Which was an odd one; a troop going to act</p> +<p>In Sicily—all singers, duly reared</p> +<p class="i2">In their vocation, had not been attacked</p> +<p>In sailing from Livorno by the pirate,</p> +<p>But sold by the <i>impresario</i> at no high rate.<a name="FNanchor_251" id="FNanchor_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By one of these, the <i>buffo</i><a name="FNanchor_252" id="FNanchor_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> of the party,</p> +<p class="i2">Juan was told about their curious case;</p> +<p>For although destined to the Turkish mart, he</p> +<p class="i2">Still kept his spirits up—at least his face;</p> +<p>The little fellow really looked quite hearty,</p> +<p class="i2">And bore him with some gaiety and grace,</p> +<p>Showing a much more reconciled demeanour,</p> +<p>Than did the prima donna and the tenor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In a few words he told their hapless story,</p> +<p class="i2">Saying, "Our Machiavelian <i>impresario</i>,</p> +<p>Making a signal off some promontory,</p> +<p class="i2">Hailed a strange brig—<i>Corpo di Caio Mario!</i></p> +<p>We were transferred on board her in a hurry,</p> +<p class="i2">Without a single scudo of <i>salario</i>;</p> +<p>But if the Sultan has a taste for song,</p> +<p>We will revive our fortunes before long.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The prima donna, though a little old,</p> +<p class="i2">And haggard with a dissipated life,</p> +<p>And subject, when the house is thin, to cold,</p> +<p class="i2">Has some good notes; and then the tenor's wife,</p> +<p>With no great voice, is pleasing to behold;</p> +<p class="i2">Last carnival she made a deal of strife,</p> +<p>By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna</p> +<p>From an old Roman Princess at Bologna.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And then there are the dancers; there's the Nini,</p> +<p class="i2">With more than one profession gains by all;</p> +<p>Then there's that laughing slut the Pelegrini,</p> +<p class="i2">She, too, was fortunate last Carnival,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> +<p>And made at least five hundred good <i>zecchini</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">But spends so fast, she has not now a paul;</p> +<p>And then there's the Grotesca—such a dancer!</p> +<p>Where men have souls or bodies she must answer.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"As for the <i>figuranti</i>,<a name="FNanchor_253" id="FNanchor_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> they are like</p> +<p class="i2">The rest of all that tribe; with here and there</p> +<p>A pretty person, which perhaps may strike—</p> +<p class="i2">The rest are hardly fitted for a fair;</p> +<p>There's one, though tall and stiffer than a pike,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet has a sentimental kind of air</p> +<p>Which might go far, but she don't dance with vigour—</p> +<p>The more's the pity, with her face and figure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"As for the men, they are a middling set;</p> +<p class="i2">The <i>musico</i> is but a cracked old basin,</p> +<p>But, being qualified in one way yet,</p> +<p class="i2">May the seraglio do to set his face in,<a name="FNanchor_EF" id="FNanchor_EF"></a><a href="#Footnote_EF" class="fnanchor">[EF]</a></p> +<p>And as a servant some preferment get;</p> +<p class="i2">His singing I no further trust can place in:</p> +<p>From all the Pope<a name="FNanchor_254" id="FNanchor_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> makes yearly 't would perplex</p> +<p>To find three perfect pipes of the <i>third</i> sex.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation;</p> +<p class="i2">And for the bass, the beast can only bellow—</p> +<p>In fact, he had no singing education,</p> +<p class="i2">An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> +<p>But being the prima donna's near relation,</p> +<p class="i2">Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow,</p> +<p>They hired him, though to hear him you'd believe</p> +<p>An ass was practising recitative.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'T would not become myself to dwell upon</p> +<p class="i2">My own merits, and though young—I see, Sir—you</p> +<p>Have got a travelled air, which speaks you one</p> +<p class="i2">To whom the opera is by no means new:</p> +<p>You've heard of Raucocanti?—I'm the man;</p> +<p class="i2">The time may come when you may hear me too;</p> +<p>You was<a name="FNanchor_255" id="FNanchor_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> not last year at the fair of Lugo,</p> +<p>But next, when I'm engaged to sing there—do go.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Our baritone I almost had forgot,</p> +<p class="i2">A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit;</p> +<p>With graceful action, science not a jot,</p> +<p class="i2">A voice of no great compass, and not sweet,</p> +<p>He always is complaining of his lot,</p> +<p class="i2">Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street;</p> +<p>In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe,</p> +<p>Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth."<a name="FNanchor_EG" id="FNanchor_EG"></a><a href="#Footnote_EG" class="fnanchor">[EG]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital</p> +<p class="i2">Was interrupted by the pirate crew,</p> +<p>Who came at stated moments to invite all</p> +<p class="i2">The captives back to their sad berths; each threw</p> +<p>A rueful glance upon the waves, (which bright all</p> +<p class="i2">From the blue skies derived a double blue,</p> +<p>Dancing all free and happy in the sun,)</p> +<p>And then went down the hatchway one by one.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They heard next day—that in the Dardanelles,</p> +<p class="i2">Waiting for his Sublimity's firman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_256" id="FNanchor_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a></p> +<p>The most imperative of sovereign spells,</p> +<p class="i2">Which everybody does without who can,</p> +<p>More to secure them in their naval cells,</p> +<p class="i2">Lady to lady, well as man to man,</p> +<p>Were to be chained and lotted out per couple,</p> +<p>For the slave market of Constantinople.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It seems when this allotment was made out,</p> +<p class="i2">There chanced to be an odd male, and odd female,</p> +<p>Who (after some discussion and some doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">If the soprano might be deemed to be male,</p> +<p>They placed him o'er the women as a scout)</p> +<p class="i2">Were linked together, and it happened the male</p> +<p>Was Juan,—who, an awkward thing at his age,</p> +<p>Paired off with a Bacchante blooming visage.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With Raucocanti lucklessly was chained</p> +<p class="i2">The tenor; these two hated with a hate</p> +<p>Found only on the stage, and each more pained</p> +<p class="i2">With this his tuneful neighbour than his fate;</p> +<p>Sad strife arose, for they were so cross-grained,</p> +<p class="i2">Instead of bearing up without debate,</p> +<p>That each pulled different ways with many an oath,</p> +<p>"Arcades ambo," <i>id est</i>—blackguards both.<a name="FNanchor_EH" id="FNanchor_EH"></a><a href="#Footnote_EH" class="fnanchor">[EH]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan's companion was a Romagnole,</p> +<p class="i2">But bred within the march of old Ancona,</p> +<p>With eyes that looked into the very soul</p> +<p class="i2">(And other chief points of a <i>bella donna</i>),</p> +<p>Bright—and as black and burning as a coal;</p> +<p class="i2">And through her clear brunette complexion shone a</p> +<p>Great wish to please—a most attractive dower,</p> +<p>Especially when added to the power.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But all that power was wasted upon him,</p> +<p class="i2">For Sorrow o'er each sense held stern command;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> +<p>Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim:</p> +<p class="i2">And though thus chained, as natural her hand</p> +<p>Touched his, nor that—nor any handsome limb</p> +<p class="i2">(And she had some not easy to withstand)</p> +<p>Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel brittle;</p> +<p>Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No matter; we should ne'er too much inquire,</p> +<p class="i2">But facts are facts: no Knight could be more true,</p> +<p>And firmer faith no Ladye-love desire;</p> +<p class="i2">We will omit the proofs, save one or two:</p> +<p>'T is said no one in hand "can hold a fire</p> +<p class="i2">By thought of frosty Caucasus"<a name="FNanchor_257" id="FNanchor_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>—but few,</p> +<p>I really think—yet Juan's then ordeal</p> +<p>Was more triumphant, and not much less real.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here I might enter on a chaste description,</p> +<p class="i2">Having withstood temptation in my youth,<a name="FNanchor_EI" id="FNanchor_EI"></a><a href="#Footnote_EI" class="fnanchor">[EI]</a></p> +<p>But hear that several people take exception</p> +<p class="i2">At the first two books having too much truth;</p> +<p>Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon,</p> +<p class="i2">Because the publisher declares, in sooth,</p> +<p>Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is</p> +<p>To pass, than those two cantos into families.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is all the same to me; I'm fond of yielding,</p> +<p class="i2">And therefore leave them to the purer page</p> +<p>Of Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding,</p> +<p class="i2">Who say strange things for so correct an age;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_258" id="FNanchor_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p> +<p>I once had great alacrity in wielding</p> +<p class="i2">My pen, and liked poetic war to wage,</p> +<p>And recollect the time when all this cant</p> +<p>Would have provoked remarks—which now it shan't.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble;</p> +<p class="i2">But at this hour I wish to part in peace,</p> +<p>Leaving such to the literary rabble;</p> +<p class="i2">Whether my verse's fame be doomed to cease</p> +<p>While the right hand which wrote it still is able,</p> +<p class="i2">Or of some centuries to take a lease,</p> +<p>The grass upon my grave will grow as long,</p> +<p>And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of poets who come down to us through distance</p> +<p class="i2">Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame,</p> +<p>Life seems the smallest portion of existence;</p> +<p class="i2">Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,</p> +<p>'T is as a snowball which derives assistance</p> +<p class="i2">From every flake, and yet rolls on the same,</p> +<p>Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow;</p> +<p>But, after all, 't is nothing but cold snow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so great names are nothing more than nominal,</p> +<p class="i2">And love of Glory's but an airy lust,</p> +<p>Too often in its fury overcoming all</p> +<p class="i2">Who would as 't were identify their dust</p> +<p>From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all,</p> +<p class="i2">Leaves nothing till "the coming of the just"—</p> +<p>Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb,</p> +<p>And heard Troy doubted;<a name="FNanchor_259" id="FNanchor_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> Time will doubt of Rome.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The very generations of the dead</p> +<p class="i2">Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,</p> +<p>Until the memory of an Age is fled,</p> +<p class="i2">And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom:</p> +<p>Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?</p> +<p class="i2">Save a few gleaned from the sepulchral gloom</p> +<p>Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath,</p> +<p>And lose their own in universal Death.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I canter by the spot each afternoon</p> +<p class="i2">Where perished in his fame the hero-boy,</p> +<p>Who lived too long for men, but died too soon</p> +<p class="i2">For human vanity, the young De Foix!</p> +<p>A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn,</p> +<p class="i2">But which Neglect is hastening to destroy,</p> +<p>Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,</p> +<p>While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.<a name="FNanchor_260" id="FNanchor_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:<a name="FNanchor_261" id="FNanchor_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A little cupola, more neat than solemn,</p> +<p>Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid<a name="FNanchor_EJ" id="FNanchor_EJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_EJ" class="fnanchor">[EJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To the Bard's tomb, and not the Warrior's column:</p> +<p>The time must come, when both alike decayed,</p> +<p class="i2">The Chieftain's trophy, and the Poet's volume,</p> +<p>Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,</p> +<p>Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p><h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With human blood that column was cemented,</p> +<p class="i2">With human filth that column is defiled,</p> +<p>As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented</p> +<p class="i2">To show his loathing of the spot he soiled:<a name="FNanchor_EK" id="FNanchor_EK"></a><a href="#Footnote_EK" class="fnanchor">[EK]</a></p> +<p>Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented</p> +<p class="i2">Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild</p> +<p>Instinct of gore and glory Earth has known</p> +<p>Those sufferings Dante saw in Hell alone.<a name="FNanchor_EL" id="FNanchor_EL"></a><a href="#Footnote_EL" class="fnanchor">[EL]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet there will still be bards: though Fame is smoke,</p> +<p class="i2">Its fumes are frankincense to human thought;</p> +<p>And the unquiet feelings, which first woke</p> +<p class="i2">Song in the world, will seek what then they sought;<a name="FNanchor_EM" id="FNanchor_EM"></a><a href="#Footnote_EM" class="fnanchor">[EM]</a></p> +<p>As on the beach the waves at last are broke,</p> +<p class="i2">Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought</p> +<p>Dash into poetry, which is but Passion,</p> +<p>Or, at least, was so ere it grew a fashion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If in the course of such a life as was</p> +<p class="i2">At once adventurous and contemplative,</p> +<p>Men who partake all passions as they pass,</p> +<p class="i2">Acquire the deep and bitter power to give<a name="FNanchor_EN" id="FNanchor_EN"></a><a href="#Footnote_EN" class="fnanchor">[EN]</a></p> +<p>Their images again as in a glass,</p> +<p class="i2">And in such colours that they seem to live;</p> +<p>You may do right forbidding them to show 'em,</p> +<p>But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.<a name="FNanchor_262" id="FNanchor_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p><h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! ye, who make the fortunes of all books!</p> +<p class="i2">Benign Ceruleans of the second sex!</p> +<p>Who advertise new poems by your looks,</p> +<p class="i2">Your "Imprimatur" will ye not annex?</p> +<p>What! must I go to the oblivious cooks,<a name="FNanchor_EO" id="FNanchor_EO"></a><a href="#Footnote_EO" class="fnanchor">[EO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks?</p> +<p>Ah! must I then the only minstrel be,</p> +<p>Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea!<a name="FNanchor_263" id="FNanchor_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What! can I prove "a lion" then no more?</p> +<p class="i2">A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling?</p> +<p>To bear the compliments of many a bore,</p> +<p class="i2">And sigh, "I can't get out," like Yorick's starling;<a name="FNanchor_264" id="FNanchor_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a></p> +<p>Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore</p> +<p class="i2">(Because the world won't read him, always snarling),</p> +<p>That Taste is gone, that Fame is but a lottery,</p> +<p>Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.<a name="FNanchor_265" id="FNanchor_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p><h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"<a name="FNanchor_266" id="FNanchor_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> +<p class="i2">As some one somewhere sings about the sky,</p> +<p>And I, ye learnéd ladies, say of you;</p> +<p class="i2">They say your stockings are so—(Heaven knows why,</p> +<p>I have examined few pair of that hue);</p> +<p class="i2">Blue as the garters which serenely lie</p> +<p>Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn</p> +<p>The festal midnight, and the levee morn.<a name="FNanchor_EP" id="FNanchor_EP"></a><a href="#Footnote_EP" class="fnanchor">[EP]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures—</p> +<p class="i2">But times are altered since, a rhyming lover,</p> +<p>You read my stanzas, and I read your features:</p> +<p class="i2">And—but no matter, all those things are over;</p> +<p>Still I have no dislike to learnéd natures,</p> +<p class="i2">For sometimes such a world of virtues cover;</p> +<p>I knew one woman of that purple school,</p> +<p>The loveliest, chastest, best, but—quite a fool.<a name="FNanchor_267" id="FNanchor_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Humboldt, "the first of travellers," but not</p> +<p class="i2">The last, if late accounts be accurate,</p> +<p>Invented, by some name I have forgot,</p> +<p class="i2">As well as the sublime discovery's date,</p> +<p>An airy instrument, with which he sought</p> +<p class="i2">To ascertain the atmospheric state,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> +<p>By measuring "the <i>intensity of blue:</i>"<a name="FNanchor_268" id="FNanchor_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p> +<p>Oh, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!<a name="FNanchor_EQ" id="FNanchor_EQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_EQ" class="fnanchor">[EQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to the narrative:—The vessel bound</p> +<p class="i2">With slaves to sell off in the capital,</p> +<p>After the usual process, might be found</p> +<p class="i2">At anchor under the seraglio wall;</p> +<p>Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound,</p> +<p class="i2">Were landed in the market,<a name="FNanchor_269" id="FNanchor_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> one and all;</p> +<p>And, there, with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians,</p> +<p>Bought up for different purposes and passions.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars</p> +<p class="i2">For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,</p> +<p>Warranted virgin; Beauty's brightest colours</p> +<p class="i2">Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven:</p> +<p>Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,</p> +<p class="i2">Who bade on till the hundreds reached eleven;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> +<p>But when the offer went beyond, they knew</p> +<p>'T was for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price</p> +<p class="i2">Which the West Indian market scarce could bring—</p> +<p>Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice</p> +<p class="i2">What 't was ere Abolition; and the thing</p> +<p>Need not seem very wonderful, for Vice</p> +<p class="i2">Is always much more splendid than a King:</p> +<p>The Virtues, even the most exalted, Charity,</p> +<p>Are saving—Vice spares nothing for a rarity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But for the destiny of this young troop,</p> +<p class="i2">How some were bought by Pachas, some by Jews,</p> +<p>How some to burdens were obliged to stoop,</p> +<p class="i2">And others rose to the command of crews</p> +<p>As renegadoes; while in hapless group,</p> +<p class="i2">Hoping no very old Vizier might choose,</p> +<p>The females stood, as one by one they picked 'em,</p> +<p>To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:<a name="FNanchor_ER" id="FNanchor_ER"></a><a href="#Footnote_ER" class="fnanchor">[ER]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All this must be reserved for further song;</p> +<p class="i2">Also our Hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant</p> +<p>(Because this Canto has become too long),<a name="FNanchor_ES" id="FNanchor_ES"></a><a href="#Footnote_ES" class="fnanchor">[ES]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Must be postponed discreetly for the present;</p> +<p>I'm sensible redundancy is wrong,</p> +<p class="i2">But could not for the Muse of me put less in 't:</p> +<p>And now delay the progress of Don Juan,</p> +<p>Till what is called in Ossian the fifth Duan.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="attrib">Written Nov. 1819. Copied January, 1820.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230" id="Footnote_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> <a name="Note_183" id="Note_183"></a>{183} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Till Pride and worse Ambition threw me down,</p> +<p>Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Paradise Lost</i>, iv. 40, 41.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231" id="Footnote_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,</p> +<p>And shuts up all the passages of joy:</p> +<p>In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,</p> +<p>The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r;</p> +<p>With listless eyes the dotard views the store,</p> +<p>He views, and wonders that they please no more."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Johnson's <i>Vanity of Human Wishes.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232" id="Footnote_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> <a name="Note_184" id="Note_184"></a>{184} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13">[" ... my May of Life</p> +<p>Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act v. sc. 3, lines 22, 23.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DH" id="Footnote_DH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DH"><span class="label">[DH]</span></a> <i>Itself to that fit apathy whose deed.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DI" id="Footnote_DI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DI"><span class="label">[DI]</span></a> <i>First in the icy depths of Lethe's spring.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233" id="Footnote_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> [See "Introduction to the <i>Morgante Maggiore</i>," <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 280.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DJ" id="Footnote_DJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DJ"><span class="label">[DJ]</span></a> <i>Pulci being Father</i>—.—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234" id="Footnote_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> <a name="Note_185" id="Note_185"></a>{185} ["Cum canerem reges et prælia, Cynthius aurem +Vellit, et admonuit." Virgil, <i>Ecl.</i> vi. lines 3, 4.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DK" id="Footnote_DK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DK"><span class="label">[DK]</span></a> <a name="Note_186" id="Note_186"></a>{186} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13">—— <i>from its mother's knee</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>When its last weaning draught is drained for ever</i>,</p> +<p><i>The child divided—it were less to see</i>,</p> +<p><i>Than these two from each other torn apart</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235" id="Footnote_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> +[See Herodotus (<i>Cleobis and Biton</i>), i. 31. The sentiment is in a fragment of Menander.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;" title="O(/n oi( theoi\ philou~sin a)pothnê/skei ne/os">Ὅν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνήσκει νέος</span><br /> +or<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;" title="O(/n ga\r philei~ theo\s a)pothnê/skei ne/os.">Ὅν γὰρ φιλεῖ θεὸς ἀποθνήσκει νέος.</span> +</p> +<p class="attrib"><i>Menandri at Philomenis reliquiæ</i>, edidit Augustus Meineke, p. 48. +</p><p> +See <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 22, note 1. Byron applied the saying to Allegra +in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, dated May 4, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. +57.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236" id="Footnote_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto II. stanza xcvi. line 7. +Compare, too, Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i> ("The Complaint," Night I. ed. +1825, p. 5)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237" id="Footnote_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> <a name="Note_187" id="Note_187"></a>{187}[Compare Swift's "little language" in his letter to +Stella: <i>Podefar</i>, for instance, which is supposed to stand for "Poor +dear foolish rogue," and Ppt., which meant "Poor pretty thing."—See +<i>The Journal of Stella</i>, edited by G.A. Aitken, 1901, xxxv. note 1, and +"Journal: March, 1710-11," 165, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DL" id="Footnote_DL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DL"><span class="label">[DL]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>For theirs were buoyant spirits, which would bound</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>'Gainst common failings, etc</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238" id="Footnote_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <a name="Note_188" id="Note_188"></a>{188}[The reference may be to Coleridge's <i>Kubla Khan</i>, +which, to Medwin's wonderment, "delighted" Byron (<i>Conversations</i>, 1824, +p. 264). De Quincy's <i>Confessions of an English Opium Eater</i> appeared in +the <i>London Magazine</i>, October, November, 1821, after Cantos III., IV., +V., of <i>Don Juan</i> were published. But, perhaps, he was contrasting the +"simpler blisses" of Juan and Haidée with Shelley's mystical affinities +and divagations.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DM" id="Footnote_DM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DM"><span class="label">[DM]</span></a> <i>—— had set their hearts a bleeding.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239" id="Footnote_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> <a name="Note_190" id="Note_190"></a>{190} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,</p> +<p>I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:</p> +<p>There can I sit alone, unseen of any,</p> +<p>And to the nightingale's complaining notes</p> +<p>Tune my distresses, and record, my woes."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>, act v. sc. 4, lines 2-6.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DN" id="Footnote_DN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DN"><span class="label">[DN]</span></a> <a name="Note_191" id="Note_191"></a>{191}<i>Called social, where all Vice and Hatred +are.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DO" id="Footnote_DO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DO"><span class="label">[DO]</span></a> <i>Moved with her dream——.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DP" id="Footnote_DP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DP"><span class="label">[DP]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Strange state of being!—for 't is still to be—</i></p> +<p><i>And who can know all false what then we see?</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240" id="Footnote_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> <a name="Note_192" id="Note_192"></a>{192}[Compare the description of the "spacious cave," in +<i>The Island</i>, Canto IV. lines 121, <i>sq., Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 629, +note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DQ" id="Footnote_DQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DQ"><span class="label">[DQ]</span></a>—— <i>methought</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241" id="Footnote_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <a name="Note_195" id="Note_195"></a>{195}[The reader will observe a curious mark of +propinquity which the poet notices, with respect to the hands of the +father and daughter. Lord Byron, we suspect, is indebted for the first +hint of this to Ali Pacha, who, by the bye, is the original of Lambro; +for, when his lordship was introduced, with his friend Hobhouse, to that +agreeable mannered tyrant, the Vizier said that he knew he was the +<i>Megalos Anthropos</i> (i.e. the great Man), by the smallness of his ears +and hands.—Galt. See Byron's letter to his mother, November 12, 1809, +<i>Letters</i>, 1898, i. 251.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DR" id="Footnote_DR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DR"><span class="label">[DR]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And if</i> I <i>did my duty as</i> thou <i>hast</i>,</p> +<p><i>This hour were thine, and thy young minions last</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DS" id="Footnote_DS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DS"><span class="label">[DS]</span></a> <a name="Note_196" id="Note_196"></a>{196}<i>Till further orders should his doom assign</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DT" id="Footnote_DT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DT"><span class="label">[DT]</span></a> <i>Loving and loved</i>—.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DU" id="Footnote_DU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DU"><span class="label">[DU]</span></a> <a name="Note_197" id="Note_197"></a>{197} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>But thou, sweet fury of the fiery rill,</i></p> +<p><i>Makest on the liver a still worse attack;</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Besides, thy price is something dearer still</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242" id="Footnote_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> ["As squire Sullen says, '\My head aches consumedly,' +'Scrub, bring me a dram!' Drank some Imola wine, and some +punch!"—<i>Extracts from a Diary</i>, February 25, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. +209. For rack or "arrack" punch, see Thackeray's <i>Vanity Fair, A Novel +without a Hero</i>, chap. vi. ed. 1892, p. 44.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243" id="Footnote_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <a name="Note_198" id="Note_198"></a>{198}["At Fas [Fez] the houses of the great and wealthy +have, within-side, spacious courts, adorned with sumptuous galleries, +fountains, basons of fine marble, and fish-ponds, shaded with orange, +lemon, pomegranate, and fig trees, abounding with fruit, and ornamented +with roses, hyacinths, jasmine, violets, and orange flowers, emitting a +delectable fragrance."—<i>Account of the Empire of Marocco and Suez</i>, by +James Grey Jackson, 1811, pp. 69, 70.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DV" id="Footnote_DV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DV"><span class="label">[DV]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Beauty and Passion were the natural dower</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Of Haidée's mother, but her climate's force</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Lay at her heart, though sleeping at the source</i>.</p> +<p>or, <i>But in her large eye lay deep Passion's force</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Like to a lion sleeping by a source</i>.</p> +<p>or, <i>But in her large eye lay deep Passion's force</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>As sleeps a lion by a river's source</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244" id="Footnote_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> [Compare <i>Manfred</i>, act iii. sc. 1, line 128, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 125.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DW" id="Footnote_DW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DW"><span class="label">[DW]</span></a> <a name="Note_199" id="Note_199"></a>{199} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>The blood gushed from her lips, and ears, and eyes:</i></p> +<p><i>Those eyes, so beautiful—beheld no more</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245" id="Footnote_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of +conflicting and different passions. The Doge Francis Foscari, on his +deposition in 1457, hearing the bells of St. Mark announce the election +of his successor, "mourut subitement d'une hémorragie causée par une +veine qui s'éclata dans sa poitrine" [see Sismondi, 1815, x. 46, and +Daru, 1821, ii. 536; see, too, <i>The Two Foscari</i>, act v. sc. i, line +306, and Introduction to the <i>Two Foscari</i>, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. +118, 193], at the age of eighty years, when "<i>Who would have thought the +old man had so much blood in him?</i>" (<i>Macbeth</i>, act v. sc. 1, lines +34-36.) Before I was sixteen years of age I was witness to a melancholy +instance of the same effect of mixed passions upon a young person, who, +however, did not die in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim +some years afterwards to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes +intimately connected with agitation of mind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246" id="Footnote_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> <a name="Note_200" id="Note_200"></a>{200}[The view of the Venus of Medici instantly suggests +the lines in the "Seasons" [the description of "Musidora bathing" in +<i>Summer</i>]— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i13">" ... With wild surprise,</p> +<p>As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,</p> +<p>A stupid moment motionless she stood:</p> +<p>So stands the statue that enchants the world."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +Hobhouse. +</p><p> +A still closer parallel to this stanza, and to <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto +IV. stanzas xlix., cxl., cxli., clx., clxi., is to be found in Thomson's +<i>Liberty</i>, pt. iv. lines 131-206, where the "Farnese Hercules," the +"Dying Gladiator," the "Venus of Medici," and the "Laocoon" group, are +commemorated as typical works of art.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DX" id="Footnote_DX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DX"><span class="label">[DX]</span></a> <i>Distinct from life, as being still the same</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DY" id="Footnote_DY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DY"><span class="label">[DY]</span></a> <a name="Note_202" id="Note_202"></a>{202}<i>—working slow.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_DZ" id="Footnote_DZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_DZ"><span class="label">[DZ]</span></a> <i>Have dawned a child of beauty, though of sin.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247" id="Footnote_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">[" ... Duncan is in his grave:</p> +<p>After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iii. sc. 2., lines 22, 23.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EA" id="Footnote_EA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EA"><span class="label">[EA]</span></a> <a name="Note_203" id="Note_203"></a>{203} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>No stone is there to read, nor tongue to say</i>,</p> +<p><i>No dirge—save when arise the stormy seas</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248" id="Footnote_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> ["But now I am cabined, cribbed," etc. <i>Macbeth</i>, act +iii. sc. 4, line 24.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249" id="Footnote_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> +<a name="Note_204" id="Note_204"></a>{204}[Jacob Bryant (1715-1804) published his +<i>Dissertation concerning the War of Troy, etc.</i>, in 1796. See <i>The Bride +of Abydos</i>, Canto II. lines 510, sq., <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 179, +note 1. See, too, <i>Extracts from a Diary</i>, January 11, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, +1901, v. 165, 166, "I have stood upon that plain [of Troy] <i>daily</i>, for +more than a month, in 1810; and if anything diminished my pleasure, it +was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity." Hobhouse, in +his <i>Travels in Albania</i>, 1858, ii. 93, sq., discusses at length the +identity of the barrows of the Troad with the <i>tumuli</i> of Achilles, +Ajax, and Protesilaus, and refutes Bryant's arguments against the +identity of Cape Janissary and the Sigean promontory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EB" id="Footnote_EB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EB"><span class="label">[EB]</span></a> +</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td><i>All heroes</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>who alive perhaps<br />if still alive</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td>.—[MS. Alternative reading]</td> +</tr></table> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EC" id="Footnote_EC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EC"><span class="label">[EC]</span></a> +</p> +<table class="variant"><tr> +<td>—</td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>and mountain-bounded<br />and mountain-outlined</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>plain</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading]</td> +</tr></table> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250" id="Footnote_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> ["The whole region was, in a manner, in possession of the +<i>Salsette's</i> crew, parties of whom, in their white summer dresses, might +be seen scattered over the plains collecting the tortoises, which swarm +on the sides of the rivulets, and are found under every +furze-bush."—<i>Travels in Albania</i>, 1858, ii. 116. See, too, for mention +of "hundreds of tortoises" falling "from the overhanging branches, and +thick underwood," into the waters of the Mender, <i>Travels, etc.</i>, by +E.D. Clarke, 1812, Part II. sect. i. p. 96.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ED" id="Footnote_ED"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ED"><span class="label">[ED]</span></a> +—— <i>and land tortoise crawls</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading.] +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EE" id="Footnote_EE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EE"><span class="label">[EE]</span></a> <a name="Note_205" id="Note_205"></a>{205}—<i>their learned researches bear</i>.—[MS. Alternative +reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251" id="Footnote_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company +for some foreign theatre, embarked them at an Italian port, and carrying +them to Algiers, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her +captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of +<i>L'Italiana in Algieri</i>, at Venice, in the beginning of 1817. +</p><p> +[We have reason to believe that the following, which we take from the +MS. journal of a highly respectable traveller, is a more correct +account: "In 1812 a Signor Guariglia induced several young persons of +both sexes—none of them exceeding fifteen years of age—to accompany +him on an operatic excursion; part to form the opera, and part the +ballet. He contrived to get them on board a vessel, which took them to +Janina, where he sold them for the basest purposes. Some died from the +effect of the climate, and some from suffering. Among the few who +returned were a Signor Molinari, and a female dancer named Bonfiglia, +who afterwards became the wife of Crespi, the tenor singer. The wretch +who so basely sold them was, when Lord Byron resided at Venice, employed +as <i>capo de' vestarj</i>, or head tailor, at the Fenice."—Maria Graham +(Lady Callcot). Ed. 1832.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252" id="Footnote_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> <a name="Note_206" id="Note_206"></a>{206}[A comic singer in the <i>opera buffa</i>. The Italians, +however, distinguish the <i>buffo cantante</i>, which requires good singing, +from the <i>buffo comico</i>, in which there is more acting.—Ed. 1832.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253" id="Footnote_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> <a name="Note_207" id="Note_207"></a>{207}[The figuranti are those dancers of a ballet who do +not dance singly, but many together, and serve to fill up the background +during the exhibition of individual performers. They correspond to the +chorus in the opera.—Maria Graham.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EF" id="Footnote_EF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EF"><span class="label">[EF]</span></a> <i>To help the ladies in their dress and lacing</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254" id="Footnote_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> It is strange that it should be the Pope and the Sultan, +who are the chief encouragers of this branch of trade—women being +prohibited as singers at St. Peter's, and not deemed trustworthy as +guardians of the harem. +</p><p> +["Scarcely a soul of them can read. Pacchierotti was one of the best +informed of the <i>castrati</i> ... Marchesi is so grossly ignorant that he +wrote the word opera, <i>opperra</i>, but Nature has been so bountiful to the +animal, that his ignorance and insolence were forgotten the moment he +sang."—<i>Venice, etc.</i>, by a Lady of Rank, 1824, ii. 86.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255" id="Footnote_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <a name="Note_208" id="Note_208"></a>{208}[The N. Engl. Dict. cites Bunyan, Walpole, Fielding, +Miss Austen, and Dickens as authorities for the plural "was." See art. +"be." Here, as elsewhere, Byron wrote as he spoke.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EG" id="Footnote_EG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EG"><span class="label">[EG]</span></a> <i>He never shows his feelings, but his teeth</i>.—[MS. +Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256" id="Footnote_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> ["Our firman arrived from Constantinople on the 30th of +April (1810)."—Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 186.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EH" id="Footnote_EH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EH"><span class="label">[EH]</span></a> <a name="Note_209" id="Note_209"></a>{209} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That each pulled, different ways—and waxing rough</i>,</p> +<p><i>Had cuffed each other, only for the cuff</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257" id="Footnote_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> <a name="Note_210" id="Note_210"></a>{210} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["O, who can hold a fire in his hand,</p> +<p>By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Richard II.,</i> act i. sc. 3, lines 294, 295.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EI" id="Footnote_EI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EI"><span class="label">[EI]</span></a> <i>Having had some experience in my youth</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258" id="Footnote_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> ["<i>Don Juan</i> will be known, <i>by and by</i>, for what it is +intended—a Satire on abuses in the present states of society, and not +an eulogy of vice. It may be now and then voluptuous:—I can't help +that. Ariosto is worse. Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2<sup>nd</sup> of +<i>R</i>[<i>oderick</i>] <i>R</i>[<i>andom</i>][1793, pp. 119-127]) ten times worse; and +Fielding no better."—Letter to Murray, December 25, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, +1901, vi. 155, 156.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259" id="Footnote_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> +<a name="Note_211" id="Note_211"></a>{211} +[<i>Vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_249">p. 204, note 1</a>. "It seems hardly to +admit of doubt, that the plain of Anatolia, watered by the Mender, and +backed by a mountainous ridge, of which Kazdaghy is the summit, offers +the precise territory alluded to by Homer. The long controversy, excited +by Mr. Bryant's publication, and since so vehemently agitated, would +probably never have existed, had it not been for the erroneous maps of +the country which, even to this hour, disgrace our geographical +knowledge of that part of Asia."—<i>Travels, etc.</i>, by E.D. Clarke, 1812, +Part II. sect, i. p. 78.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260" id="Footnote_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> <a name="Note_212" id="Note_212"></a>{212}The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is +about two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to the +road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix [(1489-1512) Duc de Nemours, nephew +of Louis XII.], who gained the battle, was killed in it: there fell on +both sides twenty thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its +site is described in the text. +</p><p> +[Beyond the Porta Sisi, about two miles from Ravenna, on the banks of +the Ronco, is a square pillar (<i>La Colonna de Francesi</i>), erected in +1557 by Pietro Cesi, president of Romagna, as a memorial of the battle +gained by the combined army of Louis XII. and the Duke of Ferrara over +the troops of Julius II. and the King of Spain, April 11 +1512.—<i>Handbook of Northern Italy</i>, p. 548.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261" id="Footnote_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto IV. stanza lvii. line i, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 371, note i. See, too, Preface to the +<i>Prophecy of Dante, ibid</i>., iv. 243.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EJ" id="Footnote_EJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EJ"><span class="label">[EJ]</span></a> <i>Protects his tomb, but greater care is paid</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EK" id="Footnote_EK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EK"><span class="label">[EK]</span></a> <a name="Note_213" id="Note_213"></a>{213} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>With human ordure is it now defiled</i>,</p> +<p><i>As if the peasant's scorn this mode invented</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>To show his loathing of the thing he soiled</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EL" id="Footnote_EL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EL"><span class="label">[EL]</span></a> <i>Those sufferings once reserved for Hell alone.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EM" id="Footnote_EM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EM"><span class="label">[EM]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Its fumes are frankincense; and were there nought</i></p> +<p><i>Even of this vapour, still the chilling yoke</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Of silence would not long be borne by Thought</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EN" id="Footnote_EN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EN"><span class="label">[EN]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>I have drunk deep of passions as they pass,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And dearly bought the bitter power to give</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262" id="Footnote_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> [See, for instance, Wilson's review of <i>Don Juan</i>, in +<i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, August, 1819, vol. v. p. 512, <i>sq.</i>: +"To confess ... to his Maker, and to weep over in secret agonies the +wildest and most fantastic transgressions of heart and mind, is the part +of a conscious sinner, in whom sin has not become the sole principle of +life and action.... But to lay bare to the eye of man—and of +<i>woman</i>—all the hidden convulsions of a wicked spirit," etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EO" id="Footnote_EO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EO"><span class="label">[EO]</span></a> <a name="Note_214" id="Note_214"></a>{214} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>What! must I go with Wordy to the cooks?</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Read—were it but your Grandmother's to vex—</i></p> +<p><i>And let me not the only minstrel be</i></p> +<p><i>Cut off from tasting your Castalian tea</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263" id="Footnote_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'</p> +<p>Snug coterie, and literary lady."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>Beppo</i>, stanza lxxvi. lines 7, 8, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 184, +note.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264" id="Footnote_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> [The caged starling, by its repeated cry, "I can't get +out! I can't get out!" cured Yorick of his sentimental yearnings for +imprisonment in the Bastille. See Sterne's <i>Sentimental Journey</i>, ed. +1804, pp. 100-106.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265" id="Footnote_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> [In his <i>Essay, Supplement to the Preface</i> (<i>Poems by +William Wordsworth</i>, ed. 1820, iii. 315-348), Wordsworth maintains that +the appreciation of great poetry is a plant of slow growth, that +immediate recognition is a mark of inferiority, or is to be accounted +for by the presence of adventitious qualities: "So strange, indeed, are +the obliquities of admiration, that they whose opinions are much +influenced by authority will often be tempted to think that there are no +fixed principles in human nature for this art to rest upon.... Away, +then, with the senseless iteration of the word <i>popular!</i> ... The voice +that issues from this spirit [of human knowledge] is that <i>Vox Populi</i> +which the Deity inspires. Foolish must he be who can mistake for this a +local acclamation, or a transitory outcry—transitory though it be for +years, local though from a Nation. Still more lamentable is his error +who can believe that there is anything of divine infallibility in this +clamour of that small though loud portion of the community ever governed +by factitious influence, which under the name of the <span class="smcap">Public</span>, passes +itself upon the unthinking for the <span class="smcap">People</span>." Naturally enough Byron +regarded this pronouncement as a taunt if not as a challenge. +Wordsworth's noble appeal from a provincial to an imperial authority, +from the present to the future, is not strengthened by the obvious +reference to the popularity of contemporaries.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266" id="Footnote_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <a name="Note_215" id="Note_215"></a>{215}[Southey's <i>Madoc in Wales, Poetical Works</i>, Part I. +Canto V. Ed. 1838, v. 39.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EP" id="Footnote_EP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EP"><span class="label">[EP]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Not having looked at many of that hue,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Nor garters—save those of the</i> "honi soit"—<i>which lie</i></p> +<p><i>Round the Patrician legs which walk about,</i></p> +<p><i>The ornaments of levee and of rout</i>.—[M.S.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267" id="Footnote_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> [Probably Lady Charlemont. See "Journal," November 22, +1813.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268" id="Footnote_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> <a name="Note_216" id="Note_216"></a>{216}[The cyanometer, an instrument for ascertaining the +intensity of the blue colour of the sky, was invented by Horace Bénédict +de Saussure (1740-1799); see his <i>Essai sur l'Hygrométrie</i>. F.H. +Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) "made great use of his instrument on +his voyages, and ascertained by the colour the degree of blueness, the +accumulation and the nature of the non-transparent exhalations of the +air."—<i>Alexander von Humboldt</i>, by Professor Klencke, translated by +Juliette Bauer, 1852, pp. 45, 46.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EQ" id="Footnote_EQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EQ"><span class="label">[EQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"><i>I'll back a London</i> "Bas" <i>against Peru</i>.</p> +<p>or, <i>I'll bet some pair of stocking beat Peru</i>.</p> +<p>or, <i>And so, old Sotheby, we'll measure you</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269" id="Footnote_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> ["The slave-market is a quadrangle, surrounded by a +covered gallery, and ranges of small and separate apartments." Here the +poor wretches sit in a melancholy posture. "Before they cheapen 'em, +they turn 'em about from this side to that, survey 'em from top to +bottom.... Such of 'em, both men and women, to whom Dame Nature has been +niggardly of her charms, are set apart for the vilest services: but such +girls as have youth and beauty pass their time well enough.... The +retailers of this human ware are the Jews, who take good care of their +slaves' education, that they may sell the better: their choicest they +keep at home, and there you must go, if you would have better than +ordinary; for 'tis here, as 'tis in markets for horses, the handsomest +don't always appear, but are kept within doors."—<i>A Voyage into the +Levant</i>, by M. Tournefort, 1741, ii. 198, 199. See, too, for the +description of the sale of two Circassians and one Georgian, <i>Voyage de +Vienne à Belgrade</i>, ... par N.E. Kleeman, 1780, pp. 141, 142. The +"lowest offer for the prize Circassian was 4000 piastres."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ER" id="Footnote_ER"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ER"><span class="label">[ER]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>The females stood, till chosen each as victim</i></p> +<p><i>To the soft oath of "Ana seing Siktum!"</i>[<b>*</b>]—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> +<p>[<b>*</b> If the Turkish words are correctly given, "the oath" may be an +imprecation on "your mother's" chastity.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ES" id="Footnote_ES"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ES"><span class="label">[ES]</span></a> <i>For fear the Canto should become too long.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_FIFTH" id="CANTO_THE_FIFTH"></a> +CANTO THE FIFTH.<a name="FNanchor_270" id="FNanchor_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> amatory poets sing their loves</p> +<p class="i2">In liquid lines mellifluously bland,</p> +<p>And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,</p> +<p class="i2">They little think what mischief is in hand;</p> +<p>The greater their success the worse it proves,</p> +<p class="i2">As Ovid's verse may give to understand;</p> +<p>Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,</p> +<p>Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,</p> +<p class="i2">Except in such a way as not to attract;</p> +<p>Plain—simple—short, and by no means inviting,</p> +<p class="i2">But with a moral to each error tacked,</p> +<p>Formed rather for instructing than delighting,</p> +<p class="i2">And with all passions in their turn attacked;</p> +<p>Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,</p> +<p>This poem will become a moral model.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The European with the Asian shore</p> +<p class="i2">Sprinkled with palaces—the Ocean stream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_271" id="FNanchor_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p> +<p>Here and there studded with a seventy-four,</p> +<p class="i2">Sophia's Cupola with golden gleam,<a name="FNanchor_272" id="FNanchor_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a></p> +<p>The cypress groves, Olympus high and hoar,</p> +<p class="i2">The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,</p> +<p>Far less describe, present the very view</p> +<p>Which charmed the charming Mary Montagu.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"<a name="FNanchor_273" id="FNanchor_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For once it was a magic sound to me;</p> +<p>And still it half calls up the realms of Fairy,</p> +<p class="i2">Where I beheld what never was to be;</p> +<p>All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,</p> +<p class="i2">A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:</p> +<p>But I grow sad—and let a tale grow cold,</p> +<p>Which must not be pathetically told.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave</p> +<p class="i2">Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;</p> +<p>'T is a grand sight from off "the Giant's Grave"<a name="FNanchor_274" id="FNanchor_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To watch the progress of those rolling seas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> +<p>Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave</p> +<p class="i2">Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease:</p> +<p>There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,</p> +<p>Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,</p> +<p class="i2">When nights are equal, but not so the days;</p> +<p>The Parcæ then cut short the further spinning</p> +<p class="i2">Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise<a name="FNanchor_ET" id="FNanchor_ET"></a><a href="#Footnote_ET" class="fnanchor">[ET]</a></p> +<p>The waters, and repentance for past sinning</p> +<p class="i2">In all, who o'er the great deep take their ways:</p> +<p>They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't;</p> +<p>Because if drowned, they can't—if spared, they won't.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,</p> +<p class="i2">And age, and sex, were in the market ranged;</p> +<p>Each bevy with the merchant in his station:</p> +<p class="i2">Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly changed.</p> +<p>All save the blacks seemed jaded with vexation,</p> +<p class="i2">From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged;</p> +<p>The negroes more philosophy displayed,—</p> +<p>Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flayed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was juvenile, and thus was full,</p> +<p class="i2">As most at his age are, of hope, and health;</p> +<p>Yet I must own, he looked a little dull,</p> +<p class="i2">And now and then a tear stole down by stealth;</p> +<p>Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull</p> +<p class="i2">His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth,</p> +<p>A mistress, and such comfortable quarters,</p> +<p>To be put up for auction amongst Tartars,</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Were things to shake a Stoic; ne'ertheless,</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the whole his carriage was serene:</p> +<p>His figure, and the splendour of his dress,</p> +<p class="i2">Of which some gilded remnants still were seen,</p> +<p>Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess</p> +<p class="i2">He was above the vulgar by his mien;</p> +<p>And then, though pale, he was so very handsome;</p> +<p>And then—they calculated on his ransom.<a name="FNanchor_EU" id="FNanchor_EU"></a><a href="#Footnote_EU" class="fnanchor">[EU]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Like a backgammon board the place was dotted</p> +<p class="i2">With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale,</p> +<p>Though rather more irregularly spotted:</p> +<p class="i2">Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.</p> +<p>It chanced amongst the other people lotted,<a name="FNanchor_EV" id="FNanchor_EV"></a><a href="#Footnote_EV" class="fnanchor">[EV]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A man of thirty, rather stout and hale,</p> +<p>With resolution in his dark grey eye,</p> +<p>Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had an English look; that is, was square</p> +<p class="i2">In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,</p> +<p>Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair,</p> +<p class="i2">And, it might be from thought, or toil, or study,</p> +<p>An open brow a little marked with care:</p> +<p class="i2">One arm had on a bandage rather bloody;</p> +<p>And there he stood with such <i>sang froid,</i> that greater</p> +<p>Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But seeing at his elbow a mere lad,</p> +<p class="i2">Of a high spirit evidently, though</p> +<p>At present weighed down by a doom which had</p> +<p class="i2">O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show</p> +<p>A kind of blunt compassion for the sad</p> +<p class="i2">Lot of so young a partner in the woe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> +<p>Which for himself he seemed to deem no worse</p> +<p>Than any other scrape, a thing of course.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"My boy!"—said he, "amidst this motley crew</p> +<p class="i2">Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, and what not,</p> +<p>All ragamuffins differing but in hue,</p> +<p class="i2">With whom it is our luck to cast our lot,</p> +<p>The only gentlemen seem I and you;</p> +<p class="i2">So let us be acquainted, as we ought:</p> +<p>If I could yield you any consolation,</p> +<p>'T would give me pleasure.—Pray, what is your nation?"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Juan answered—"Spanish!" he replied,</p> +<p class="i2">"I thought, in fact, you could not be a Greek;</p> +<p>Those servile dogs are not so proudly eyed:</p> +<p class="i2">Fortune has played you here a pretty freak,</p> +<p>But that's her way with all men, till they're tried;</p> +<p class="i2">But never mind,—she'll turn, perhaps, next week;</p> +<p>She has served me also much the same as you,</p> +<p>Except that I have found it nothing new."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Pray, sir," said Juan, "if I may presume,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>What</i> brought you here?"—"Oh! nothing very rare—</p> +<p>Six Tartars and a drag-chain——"—"To this doom</p> +<p class="i2">But what conducted, if the question 's fair,</p> +<p>Is that which I would learn."—"I served for some</p> +<p class="i2">Months with the Russian army here and there;</p> +<p>And taking lately, by Suwarrow's bidding,</p> +<p>A town, was ta'en myself instead of Widdin."<a name="FNanchor_275" id="FNanchor_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Have you no friends?"—"I had—but, by God's blessing,</p> +<p class="i2">Have not been troubled with them lately. Now</p> +<p>I have answered all your questions without pressing,</p> +<p class="i2">And you an equal courtesy should show."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> +<p>"Alas!" said Juan, "'t were a tale distressing,</p> +<p class="i2">And long besides."—"Oh! if 't is really so,</p> +<p>You're right on both accounts to hold your tongue;</p> +<p>A sad tale saddens doubly when 't is long.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But droop not: Fortune at your time of life,</p> +<p class="i2">Although a female moderately fickle,</p> +<p>Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife)</p> +<p class="i2">For any length of days in such a pickle.</p> +<p>To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife</p> +<p class="i2">As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle:</p> +<p>Men are the sport of circumstances, when</p> +<p>The circumstances seem the sport of men."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'T is not," said Juan, "for my present doom</p> +<p class="i2">I mourn, but for the past;—I loved a maid:"—</p> +<p>He paused, and his dark eye grew full of gloom;</p> +<p class="i2">A single tear upon his eyelash staid</p> +<p>A moment, and then dropped; "but to resume,</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis not my present lot, as I have said,</p> +<p>Which I deplore so much; for I have borne</p> +<p>Hardships which have the hardiest overworn,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"On the rough deep. But this last blow—" and here</p> +<p class="i2">He stopped again, and turned away his face.</p> +<p>"Aye," quoth his friend, "I thought it would appear</p> +<p class="i2">That there had been a lady in the case;</p> +<p>And these are things which ask a tender tear,</p> +<p class="i2">Such as I, too, would shed if in your place:</p> +<p>I cried upon my first wife's dying day,</p> +<p>And also when my second ran away:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"My third——"—"Your third!" quoth Juan, turning round;</p> +<p class="i2">"You scarcely can be thirty: have you three?"</p> +<p>"No—only two at present above ground:</p> +<p class="i2">Surely 't is nothing wonderful to see</p> +<p>One person thrice in holy wedlock bound!"</p> +<p class="i2">"Well, then, your third," said Juan; "what did she?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p> +<p>She did not run away, too,—did she, sir?"</p> +<p>"No, faith."—"What then?"—"I ran away from her."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You take things coolly, sir," said Juan. "Why,"</p> +<p class="i2">Replied the other, "what can a man do?</p> +<p>There still are many rainbows in your sky,</p> +<p class="i2">But mine have vanished. All, when Life is new,</p> +<p>Commence with feelings warm, and prospects high;</p> +<p class="i2">But Time strips our illusions of their hue,</p> +<p>And one by one in turn, some grand mistake</p> +<p>Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'T is true, it gets another bright and fresh,</p> +<p class="i2">Or fresher, brighter; but the year gone through,</p> +<p>This skin must go the way, too, of all flesh,</p> +<p class="i2">Or sometimes only wear a week or two;—</p> +<p>Love's the first net which spreads its deadly mesh;</p> +<p class="i2">Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue</p> +<p>The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,</p> +<p>Where still we flutter on for pence or praise."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"All this is very fine, and may be true,"</p> +<p class="i2">Said Juan; "but I really don't see how</p> +<p>It betters present times with me or you."</p> +<p class="i2">"No?" quoth the other; "yet you will allow</p> +<p>By setting things in their right point of view,</p> +<p class="i2">Knowledge, at least, is gained; for instance, now,</p> +<p>We know what slavery is, and our disasters</p> +<p>May teach us better to behave when masters."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Would we were masters now, if but to try</p> +<p class="i2">Their present lessons on our Pagan friends here,"</p> +<p>Said Juan,—swallowing a heart-burning sigh:</p> +<p class="i2">"Heaven help the scholar, whom his fortune sends here!"</p> +<p>"Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by,"</p> +<p class="i2">Rejoined the other, "when our bad luck mends here;</p> +<p>Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems to eye us)</p> +<p>I wish to G—d that somebody would buy us.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But after all, what <i>is</i> our present state?</p> +<p class="i2">'T is bad, and may be better—all men's lot:</p> +<p>Most men are slaves, none more so than the great,</p> +<p class="i2">To their own whims and passions, and what not;</p> +<p>Society itself, which should create</p> +<p class="i2">Kindness, destroys what little we had got:</p> +<p>To feel for none is the true social art</p> +<p>Of the world's Stoics—men without a heart."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Just now a black old neutral personage</p> +<p class="i2">Of the third sex stepped up, and peering over</p> +<p>The captives seemed to mark their looks and age,</p> +<p class="i2">And capabilities, as to discover</p> +<p>If they were fitted for the purposed cage:</p> +<p class="i2">No lady e'er is ogled by a lover,</p> +<p>Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,</p> +<p>Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As is a slave by his intended bidder.</p> +<p class="i2">'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures;</p> +<p>And all are to be sold, if you consider</p> +<p class="i2">Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features</p> +<p>Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,</p> +<p class="i2">Some by a place—as tend their years or natures:</p> +<p>The most by ready cash—but all have prices,</p> +<p>From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The eunuch, having eyed them o'er with care,</p> +<p class="i2">Turned to the merchant, and began to bid</p> +<p>First but for one, and after for the pair;</p> +<p class="i2">They haggled, wrangled, swore, too—so they did!</p> +<p>As though they were in a mere Christian fair,</p> +<p class="i2">Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid;</p> +<p>So that their bargain sounded like a battle</p> +<p>For this superior yoke of human cattle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At last they settled into simple grumbling,</p> +<p class="i2">And pulling out reluctant purses, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> +<p>Turning each piece of silver o'er, and tumbling</p> +<p class="i2">Some down, and weighing others in their hand,</p> +<p>And by mistake sequins<a name="FNanchor_276" id="FNanchor_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> with paras jumbling,</p> +<p class="i2">Until the sum was accurately scanned,</p> +<p>And then the merchant giving change, and signing</p> +<p>Receipts in full, began to think of dining.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I wonder if his appetite was good?</p> +<p class="i2">Or, if it were, if also his digestion?</p> +<p>Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude,</p> +<p class="i2">And Conscience ask a curious sort of question,</p> +<p>About the right divine how far we should</p> +<p class="i2">Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has oppressed one,</p> +<p>I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour</p> +<p>Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Voltaire says "No:" he tells you that Candide</p> +<p class="i2">Found life most tolerable after meals;<a name="FNanchor_277" id="FNanchor_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a></p> +<p>He's wrong—unless man were a pig, indeed,</p> +<p class="i2">Repletion rather adds to what he feels,</p> +<p>Unless he's drunk, and then no doubt he's freed</p> +<p class="i2">From his own brain's oppression while it reels.</p> +<p>Of food I think with Philip's son<a name="FNanchor_278" id="FNanchor_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> or rather</p> +<p>Ammon's (ill pleased with one world and one father);<a name="FNanchor_EW" id="FNanchor_EW"></a><a href="#Footnote_EW" class="fnanchor">[EW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p><h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think with Alexander, that the act</p> +<p class="i2">Of eating, with another act or two,</p> +<p>Makes us feel our mortality in fact</p> +<p class="i2">Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout,</p> +<p>And fish, and soup, by some side dishes backed,</p> +<p class="i2">Can give us either pain or pleasure, who</p> +<p>Would pique himself on intellects, whose use</p> +<p>Depends so much upon the gastric juice?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The other evening ('t was on Friday last)—</p> +<p class="i2">This is a fact, and no poetic fable—</p> +<p>Just as my great coat was about me cast,</p> +<p class="i2">My hat and gloves still lying on the table,</p> +<p>I heard a shot—'t was eight o'clock scarce past—</p> +<p class="i2">And, running out as fast as I was able,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_279" id="FNanchor_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a></p> +<p>I found the military commandant</p> +<p>Stretched in the street, and able scarce to pant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,</p> +<p class="i2">They had slain him with five slugs; and left him there</p> +<p>To perish on the pavement: so I had</p> +<p class="i2">Him borne into the house and up the stair,</p> +<p>And stripped, and looked to<a name="FNanchor_EX" id="FNanchor_EX"></a><a href="#Footnote_EX" class="fnanchor">[EX]</a>——But why should I add</p> +<p class="i2">More circumstances? vain was every care;</p> +<p>The man was gone—in some Italian quarrel</p> +<p>Killed by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;</p> +<p class="i2">And though I have seen many corpses, never</p> +<p>Saw one, whom such an accident befell,</p> +<p class="i2">So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart, and liver,</p> +<p>He seemed to sleep,—for you could scarcely tell</p> +<p class="i2">(As he bled inwardly, no hideous river</p> +<p>Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead:</p> +<p>So as I gazed on him, I thought or said—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Can this be Death? then what is Life or Death?</p> +<p class="i2">Speak!" but he spoke not: "wake!" but still he slept:—</p> +<p>"But yesterday and who had mightier breath?</p> +<p class="i2">A thousand warriors by his word were kept</p> +<p>In awe: he said, as the Centurion saith,</p> +<p class="i2">'Go,' and he goeth; 'come,' and forth he stepped.</p> +<p>The trump and bugle till he spake were dumb—</p> +<p>And now nought left him but the muffled drum."<a name="FNanchor_EY" id="FNanchor_EY"></a><a href="#Footnote_EY" class="fnanchor">[EY]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And they who waited once and worshipped—they</p> +<p class="i2">With their rough faces thronged about the bed</p> +<p>To gaze once more on the commanding clay</p> +<p class="i2">Which for the last, though not the first, time bled;</p> +<p>And such an end! that he who many a day</p> +<p class="i2">Had faced Napoleon's foes until they fled,—</p> +<p>The foremost in the charge or in the sally,</p> +<p>Should now be butchered in a civic alley.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The scars of his old wounds were near his new,</p> +<p class="i2">Those honourable scars which brought him fame;</p> +<p>And horrid was the contrast to the view——</p> +<p class="i2">But let me quit the theme; as such things claim</p> +<p>Perhaps even more attention than is due</p> +<p class="i2">From me: I gazed (as oft I have gazed the same)</p> +<p>To try if I could wrench aught out of Death</p> +<p>Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But it was all a mystery. Here we are,</p> +<p class="i2">And there we go:—but <i>where</i>? five bits of lead,</p> +<p>Or three, or two, or one, send very far!</p> +<p class="i2">And is this blood, then, formed but to be shed?</p> +<p>Can every element our elements mar?</p> +<p class="i2">And Air—Earth—Water—Fire live—and we dead?</p> +<p><i>We</i>, whose minds comprehend all things? No more;</p> +<p>But let us to the story as before.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The purchaser of Juan and acquaintance</p> +<p class="i2">Bore off his bargains to a gilded boat,</p> +<p>Embarked himself and them, and off they went thence</p> +<p class="i2">As fast as oars could pull and water float;</p> +<p>They looked like persons being led to sentence,</p> +<p class="i2">Wondering what next, till the caique<a name="FNanchor_280" id="FNanchor_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> was brought</p> +<p>Up in a little creek below a wall</p> +<p>O'ertopped with cypresses, dark-green and tall.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here their conductor tapping at the wicket</p> +<p class="i2">Of a small iron door, 't was opened, and</p> +<p>He led them onward, first through a low thicket</p> +<p class="i2">Flanked by large groves, which towered on either hand:</p> +<p>They almost lost their way, and had to pick it—</p> +<p class="i2">For night was closing ere they came to land.</p> +<p>The eunuch made a sign to those on board,</p> +<p>Who rowed off, leaving them without a word.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As they were plodding on their winding way</p> +<p class="i2">Through orange bowers, and jasmine, and so forth:</p> +<p>(Of which I might have a good deal to say,</p> +<p class="i2">There being no such profusion in the North</p> +<p>Of oriental plants, <i>et cetera</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">But that of late your scribblers think it worth</p> +<p>Their while to rear whole hotbeds in <i>their</i> works,</p> +<p>Because <i>one</i> poet travelled 'mongst the Turks:)<a name="FNanchor_281" id="FNanchor_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As they were threading on their way, there came</p> +<p class="i2">Into Don Juan's head a thought, which he</p> +<p>Whispered to his companion:—'t was the same</p> +<p class="i2">Which might have then occurred to you or me.</p> +<p>"Methinks,"—said he,—"it would be no great shame</p> +<p class="i2">If we should strike a stroke to set us free;</p> +<p>Let's knock that old black fellow on the head,</p> +<p>And march away—'t were easier done than said."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yes," said the other, "and when done, what then?</p> +<p class="i2"><i>How</i> get out? how the devil got we in?</p> +<p>And when we once were fairly out, and when</p> +<p class="i2">From Saint Bartholomew we have saved our skin,<a name="FNanchor_282" id="FNanchor_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a><a name="FNanchor_EZ" id="FNanchor_EZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_EZ" class="fnanchor">[EZ]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> +<p>To-morrow'd see us in some other den,</p> +<p class="i2">And worse off than we hitherto have been;</p> +<p>Besides, I'm hungry, and just now would take,</p> +<p>Like Esau, for my birthright a beef-steak.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"We must be near some place of man's abode;—</p> +<p class="i2">For the old negro's confidence in creeping,</p> +<p>With his two captives, by so queer a road,</p> +<p class="i2">Shows that he thinks his friends have not been sleeping;</p> +<p>A single cry would bring them all abroad:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is better therefore looking before leaping—</p> +<p>And there, you see, this turn has brought us through,</p> +<p>By Jove, a noble palace!—lighted too."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was indeed a wide extensive building</p> +<p class="i2">Which opened on their view, and o'er the front</p> +<p>There seemed to be besprent a deal of gilding</p> +<p class="i2">And various hues, as is the Turkish wont,—</p> +<p>A gaudy taste; for they are little skilled in</p> +<p class="i2">The arts of which these lands were once the font:</p> +<p>Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen</p> +<p>New painted, or a pretty opera-scene.<a name="FNanchor_283" id="FNanchor_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And nearer as they came, a genial savour</p> +<p class="i2">Of certain stews, and roast-meats, and pilaus,</p> +<p>Things which in hungry mortals' eyes find favour,</p> +<p class="i2">Made Juan in his harsh intentions pause,</p> +<p>And put himself upon his good behaviour:</p> +<p class="i2">His friend, too, adding a new saving clause,</p> +<p>Said, "In Heaven's name let's get some supper now,</p> +<p>And then I'm with you, if you're for a row."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some talk of an appeal unto some passion,</p> +<p class="i2">Some to men's feelings, others to their reason;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> +<p>The last of these was never much the fashion,</p> +<p class="i2">For Reason thinks all reasoning out of season:</p> +<p>Some speakers whine, and others lay the lash on,</p> +<p class="i2">But more or less continue still to tease on,</p> +<p>With arguments according to their "forte:"</p> +<p>But no one ever dreams of being short.—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I digress: of all appeals,—although</p> +<p class="i2">I grant the power of pathos, and of gold,</p> +<p>Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling,—no</p> +<p class="i2">Method's more sure at moments to take hold<a name="FNanchor_FA" id="FNanchor_FA"></a><a href="#Footnote_FA" class="fnanchor">[FA]</a></p> +<p>Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow</p> +<p class="i2">More tender, as we every day behold,</p> +<p>Than that all-softening, overpowering knell,</p> +<p>The Tocsin of the Soul—the dinner-bell.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Turkey contains no bells, and yet men dine;</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan and his friend, albeit they heard</p> +<p>No Christian knoll to table, saw no line</p> +<p class="i2">Of lackeys usher to the feast prepared,</p> +<p>Yet smelt roast-meat, beheld a huge fire shine,</p> +<p class="i2">And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared,</p> +<p>And gazed around them to the left and right,</p> +<p>With the prophetic eye of appetite.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And giving up all notions of resistance,</p> +<p class="i2">They followed close behind their sable guide,</p> +<p>Who little thought that his own cracked existence</p> +<p class="i2">Was on the point of being set aside:</p> +<p>He motioned them to stop at some small distance,</p> +<p class="i2">And knocking at the gate, 't was opened wide,</p> +<p>And a magnificent large hall displayed</p> +<p>The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I won't describe; description is my "forte,"</p> +<p class="i2">But every fool describes in these bright days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> +<p>His wondrous journey to some foreign court,</p> +<p class="i2">And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise—</p> +<p>Death to his publisher, to him 't is sport;</p> +<p class="i2">While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways,</p> +<p>Resigns herself with exemplary patience</p> +<p>To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations.<a name="FNanchor_284" id="FNanchor_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted</p> +<p class="i2">Upon their hams, were occupied at chess;</p> +<p>Others in monosyllable talk chatted,</p> +<p class="i2">And some seemed much in love with their own dress;</p> +<p>And divers smoked superb pipes decorated</p> +<p class="i2">With amber mouths of greater price or less;</p> +<p>And several strutted, others slept, and some</p> +<p>Prepared for supper with a glass of rum.<a name="FNanchor_285" id="FNanchor_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As the black eunuch entered with his brace</p> +<p class="i2">Of purchased Infidels, some raised their eyes</p> +<p>A moment, without slackening from their pace;</p> +<p class="i2">But those who sate ne'er stirred in any wise:</p> +<p>One or two stared the captives in the face,</p> +<p class="i2">Just as one views a horse to guess his price;</p> +<p>Some nodded to the negro from their station,</p> +<p>But no one troubled him with conversation.<a name="FNanchor_286" id="FNanchor_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping,</p> +<p class="i2">On through a farther range of goodly rooms,</p> +<p>Splendid, but silent, save in <i>one</i>, where dropping<a name="FNanchor_287" id="FNanchor_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A marble fountain echoes through the glooms</p> +<p>Of night which robe the chamber, or where popping</p> +<p class="i2">Some female head most curiously presumes</p> +<p>To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice,</p> +<p>As wondering what the <i>devil</i> noise that is!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls</p> +<p class="i2">Gave light enough to hint their farther way,</p> +<p>But not enough to show the imperial halls</p> +<p class="i2">In all the flashing of their full array;</p> +<p>Perhaps there's nothing—I'll not say appals,</p> +<p class="i2">But saddens more by night as well as day,</p> +<p>Than an enormous room without a soul<a name="FNanchor_288" id="FNanchor_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a></p> +<p>To break the lifeless splendour of the whole.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Two or three seem so little, <i>one</i> seems nothing:</p> +<p class="i2">In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore,</p> +<p><i>There</i> Solitude, we know, has her full growth in</p> +<p class="i2">The spots which were her realms for evermore;</p> +<p>But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in</p> +<p class="i2">More modern buildings and those built of yore,</p> +<p>A kind of Death comes o'er us all alone,</p> +<p>Seeing what's meant for many with but one.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A neat, snug study on a winter's night,<a name="FNanchor_FB" id="FNanchor_FB"></a><a href="#Footnote_FB" class="fnanchor">[FB]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A book, friend, single lady, or a glass</p> +<p>Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite,</p> +<p class="i2">Are things which make an English evening pass—</p> +<p>Though <i>certes</i> by no means so grand a sight</p> +<p class="i2">As is a theatre lit up by gas—</p> +<p><i>I</i> pass my evenings in long galleries solely,<a name="FNanchor_FC" id="FNanchor_FC"></a><a href="#Footnote_FC" class="fnanchor">[FC]</a><a name="FNanchor_289" id="FNanchor_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a></p> +<p>And that's the reason I'm so melancholy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! Man makes that great which makes him little—</p> +<p class="i2">I grant you in a church 't is very well:</p> +<p>What speaks of Heaven should by no means be brittle,</p> +<p class="i2">But strong and lasting, till no tongue can tell</p> +<p>Their names who reared it; but huge houses fit ill,</p> +<p class="i2">And huge tombs, worse, Mankind—since Adam fell:</p> +<p>Methinks the story of the tower of Babel</p> +<p>Might teach them this much better than I'm able.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Babel was Nimrod's hunting-box, and then</p> +<p class="i2">A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,</p> +<p>Where Nabuchadonosor,<a name="FNanchor_290" id="FNanchor_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> King of men,</p> +<p class="i2">Reigned, till one summer's day he took to grazing,</p> +<p>And Daniel tamed the lions in their den,</p> +<p class="i2">The people's awe and admiration raising;</p> +<p>'T was famous, too, for Thisbe and for Pyramus,<a name="FNanchor_291" id="FNanchor_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></p> +<p>And the calumniated queen Semiramis—</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p><h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That injured Queen, by chroniclers<a name="FNanchor_292" id="FNanchor_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> so coarse,</p> +<p class="i2">Has been accused (I doubt not by conspiracy)</p> +<p>Of an improper friendship for her horse</p> +<p class="i2">(Love, like Religion, sometimes runs to heresy):</p> +<p>This monstrous tale had probably its source</p> +<p class="i2">(For such exaggerations here and there I see)</p> +<p>In writing "Courser" by mistake for "Courier:"<a name="FNanchor_FD" id="FNanchor_FD"></a><a href="#Footnote_FD" class="fnanchor">[FD]</a></p> +<p>I wish the case could come before a jury here.<a name="FNanchor_293" id="FNanchor_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to resume,—should there be (what may not</p> +<p class="i2">Be in these days?) some infidels, who don't,</p> +<p>Because they can't find out the very spot</p> +<p class="i2">Of that same Babel, or because they won't</p> +<p>(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got,</p> +<p class="i2">And written lately two memoirs upon't),<a name="FNanchor_294" id="FNanchor_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></p> +<p>Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who</p> +<p>Must be believed, though they believe not you:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet let them think that Horace has expressed</p> +<p class="i2">Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly</p> +<p>Of those, forgetting the great place of rest,</p> +<p class="i2">Who give themselves to Architecture wholly;</p> +<p>We know where things and men must end at best:</p> +<p class="i2">A moral (like all morals) melancholy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p> +<p>And "Et sepulchri immemor struis domos"</p> +<p>Shows that we build when we should but entomb us.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At last they reached a quarter most retired,</p> +<p class="i2">Where Echo woke as if from a long slumber;</p> +<p>Though full of all things which could be desired,</p> +<p class="i2">One wondered what to do with such a number</p> +<p>Of articles which nobody required;</p> +<p class="i2">Here Wealth had done its utmost to encumber</p> +<p>With furniture an exquisite apartment,</p> +<p>Which puzzled Nature much to know what Art meant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It seemed, however, but to open on</p> +<p class="i2">A range or suite of further chambers, which</p> +<p>Might lead to Heaven knows where; but in this one</p> +<p class="i2">The moveables were prodigally rich:</p> +<p>Sofas 't was half a sin to sit upon,</p> +<p class="i2">So costly were they; carpets every stitch</p> +<p>Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish</p> +<p>You could glide o'er them like a golden fish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The black, however, without hardly deigning</p> +<p class="i2">A glance at that which wrapped the slaves in wonder,</p> +<p>Trampled what they scarce trod for fear of staining,</p> +<p class="i2">As if the milky way their feet was under</p> +<p>With all its stars; and with a stretch attaining</p> +<p class="i2">A certain press or cupboard niched in yonder,</p> +<p>In that remote recess which you may see—</p> +<p>Or if you don't the fault is not in me,—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I wish to be perspicuous—and the black,</p> +<p class="i2">I say, unlocking the recess, pulled forth</p> +<p>A quantity of clothes fit for the back</p> +<p class="i2">Of any Mussulman, whate'er his worth:</p> +<p>And of variety there was no lack—</p> +<p class="i2">And yet, though I have said there was no dearth,—</p> +<p>He chose himself to point out what he thought</p> +<p>Most proper for the Christians he had bought.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The suit he thought most suitable to each</p> +<p class="i2">Was, for the elder and the stouter, first</p> +<p>A Candiote cloak, which to the knee might reach,</p> +<p class="i2">And trousers not so tight that they would burst,</p> +<p>But such as fit an Asiatic breech;</p> +<p class="i2">A shawl, whose folds in Cashmire had been nursed,</p> +<p>Slippers of saffron, dagger rich and handy;</p> +<p>In short, all things which form a Turkish Dandy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While he was dressing, Baba, their black friend,</p> +<p class="i2">Hinted the vast advantages which they</p> +<p>Might probably attain both in the end,</p> +<p class="i2">If they would but pursue the proper way</p> +<p>Which Fortune plainly seemed to recommend;</p> +<p class="i2">And then he added, that he needs must say,</p> +<p>"'T would greatly tend to better their condition,</p> +<p>If they would condescend to circumcision.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"For his own part, he really should rejoice</p> +<p class="i2">To see them true believers, but no less</p> +<p>Would leave his proposition to their choice."</p> +<p class="i2">The other, thanking him for this excess</p> +<p>Of goodness, in thus leaving them a voice</p> +<p class="i2">In such a trifle, scarcely could express</p> +<p>"Sufficiently" (he said) "his approbation</p> +<p>Of all the customs of this polished nation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"For his own share—he saw but small objection</p> +<p class="i2">To so respectable an ancient rite;</p> +<p>And, after swallowing down a slight refection,</p> +<p class="i2">For which he owned a present appetite,</p> +<p>He doubted not a few hours of reflection</p> +<p class="i2">Would reconcile him to the business quite."</p> +<p>"Will it?" said Juan, sharply: "Strike me dead,</p> +<p>But they as soon shall circumcise my head!<a name="FNanchor_FE" id="FNanchor_FE"></a><a href="#Footnote_FE" class="fnanchor">[FE]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Cut off a thousand heads, before——"—"Now, pray,"</p> +<p class="i2">Replied the other, "do not interrupt:</p> +<p>You put me out in what I had to say.</p> +<p class="i2">Sir!—as I said, as soon as I have supped,</p> +<p>I shall perpend if your proposal may</p> +<p class="i2">Be such as I can properly accept;</p> +<p>Provided always your great goodness still</p> +<p>Remits the matter to our own free-will."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Baba eyed Juan, and said, "Be so good</p> +<p class="i2">As dress yourself—" and pointed out a suit</p> +<p>In which a Princess with great pleasure would</p> +<p class="i2">Array her limbs; but Juan standing mute,</p> +<p>As not being in a masquerading mood,</p> +<p class="i2">Gave it a slight kick with his Christian foot;</p> +<p>And when the old negro told him to "Get ready,"</p> +<p>Replied, "Old gentleman, I'm not a lady."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What you may be, I neither know nor care,"</p> +<p class="i2">Said Baba; "but pray do as I desire:</p> +<p>I have no more time nor many words to spare."</p> +<p class="i2">"At least," said Juan, "sure I may inquire</p> +<p>The cause of this odd travesty?"—"Forbear,"</p> +<p class="i2">Said Baba, "to be curious; 't will transpire,</p> +<p>No doubt, in proper place, and time, and season:</p> +<p>I have no authority to tell the reason."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Then if I do," said Juan, "I'll be——"—"Hold!"</p> +<p class="i2">Rejoined the negro, "pray be not provoking;</p> +<p>This spirit's well, but it may wax too bold,</p> +<p class="i2">And you will find us not too fond of joking."</p> +<p>"What, sir!" said Juan, "shall it e'er be told</p> +<p class="i2">That I unsexed my dress?" But Baba, stroking</p> +<p>The things down, said, "Incense me, and I call</p> +<p>Those who will leave you of no sex at all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I offer you a handsome suit of clothes:</p> +<p class="i2">A woman's, true; but then there is a cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> +<p>Why you should wear them."—"What, though my soul loathes</p> +<p class="i2">The effeminate garb?"—thus, after a short pause,</p> +<p>Sighed Juan, muttering also some slight oaths,</p> +<p class="i2">"What the devil shall I do with all this gauze?"</p> +<p>Thus he profanely termed the finest lace</p> +<p>Which e'er set off a marriage-morning face.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then he swore; and, sighing, on he slipped</p> +<p class="i2">A pair of trousers of flesh-coloured silk;<a name="FNanchor_FF" id="FNanchor_FF"></a><a href="#Footnote_FF" class="fnanchor">[FF]</a></p> +<p>Next with a virgin zone he was equipped,</p> +<p class="i2">Which girt a slight chemise as white as milk;</p> +<p>But tugging on his petticoat, he tripped,</p> +<p class="i2">Which—as we say—or as the Scotch say, <i>whilk</i>,<a name="FNanchor_295" id="FNanchor_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></p> +<p>(The rhyme obliges me to this; sometimes</p> +<p>Monarchs are less imperative than rhymes)—<a name="FNanchor_FG" id="FNanchor_FG"></a><a href="#Footnote_FG" class="fnanchor">[FG]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whilk, which (or what you please), was owing to</p> +<p class="i2">His garment's novelty, and his being awkward:</p> +<p>And yet at last he managed to get through</p> +<p class="i2">His toilet, though no doubt a little backward:</p> +<p>The negro Baba helped a little too,</p> +<p class="i2">When some untoward part of raiment stuck hard;</p> +<p>And, wrestling both his arms into a gown,</p> +<p>He paused, and took a survey up and down.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One difficulty still remained—his hair</p> +<p class="i2">Was hardly long enough; but Baba found</p> +<p>So many false long tresses all to spare,</p> +<p class="i2">That soon his head was most completely crowned,</p> +<p>After the manner then in fashion there;</p> +<p class="i2">And this addition with such gems was bound</p> +<p>As suited the <i>ensemble</i> of his toilet,</p> +<p>While Baba made him comb his head and oil it.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now being femininely all arrayed,</p> +<p class="i2">With some small aid from scissors, paint, and tweezers,</p> +<p>He looked in almost all respects a maid,<a name="FNanchor_FH" id="FNanchor_FH"></a><a href="#Footnote_FH" class="fnanchor">[FH]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And Baba smilingly exclaimed, "You see, sirs,</p> +<p>A perfect transformation here displayed;</p> +<p class="i2">And now, then, you must come along with me, sirs,</p> +<p>That is—the Lady:" clapping his hands twice,</p> +<p>Four blacks were at his elbow in a trice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You, sir," said Baba, nodding to the one,</p> +<p class="i2">"Will please to accompany those gentlemen</p> +<p>To supper; but you, worthy Christian nun,</p> +<p class="i2">Will follow me: no trifling, sir; for when</p> +<p>I say a thing, it must at once be done.</p> +<p class="i2">What fear you? think you this a lion's den?</p> +<p>Why, 't is a palace; where the truly wise</p> +<p>Anticipate the Prophet's paradise.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You fool! I tell you no one means you harm."</p> +<p class="i2">"So much the better," Juan said, "for them;</p> +<p>Else they shall feel the weight of this my arm,</p> +<p class="i2">Which is not quite so light as you may deem.</p> +<p>I yield thus far; but soon will break the charm,</p> +<p class="i2">If any take me for that which I seem:</p> +<p>So that I trust for every body's sake,</p> +<p>That this disguise may lead to no mistake."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Blockhead! come on, and see," quoth Baba; while</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan, turning to his comrade, who</p> +<p>Though somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a smile</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the metamorphosis in view,—</p> +<p>"Farewell!" they mutually exclaimed: "this soil</p> +<p class="i2">Seems fertile in adventures strange and new;</p> +<p>One's turned half Mussulman, and one a maid,</p> +<p>By this old black enchanter's unsought aid."</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Farewell!" said Juan: "should we meet no more,</p> +<p class="i2">I wish you a good appetite."—"Farewell!"</p> +<p>Replied the other; "though it grieves me sore:</p> +<p class="i2">When we next meet, we'll have a tale to tell:</p> +<p>We needs must follow when Fate puts from shore.</p> +<p class="i2">Keep your good name; though Eve herself once fell."</p> +<p>"Nay," quoth the maid, "the Sultan's self shan't carry me,</p> +<p>Unless his Highness promises to marry me."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus they parted, each by separate doors;</p> +<p class="i2">Baba led Juan onward, room by room,</p> +<p>Through glittering galleries, and o'er marble floors,</p> +<p class="i2">Till a gigantic portal through the gloom,</p> +<p>Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers;</p> +<p class="i2">And wafted far arose a rich perfume:</p> +<p>It seemed as though they came upon a shrine,</p> +<p>For all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The giant door was broad, and bright, and high,</p> +<p class="i2">Of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise;</p> +<p>Warriors thereon were battling furiously;</p> +<p class="i2">Here stalks the victor, there the vanquished lies;</p> +<p>There captives led in triumph droop the eye,</p> +<p class="i2">And in perspective many a squadron flies:</p> +<p>It seems the work of times before the line</p> +<p>Of Rome transplanted fell with Constantine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This massy portal stood at the wide close</p> +<p class="i2">Of a huge hall, and on its either side</p> +<p>Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose,</p> +<p class="i2">Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied</p> +<p>In mockery to the enormous gate which rose</p> +<p class="i2">O'er them in almost pyramidic pride:</p> +<p>The gate so splendid was in all its <i>features</i>,<a name="FNanchor_296" id="FNanchor_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a></p> +<p>You never thought about those little creatures,</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Until you nearly trod on them, and then</p> +<p class="i2">You started back in horror to survey</p> +<p>The wondrous hideousness of those small men,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose colour was not black, nor white, nor grey,</p> +<p>But an extraneous mixture, which no pen</p> +<p class="i2">Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may;</p> +<p>They were mis-shapen pigmies, deaf and dumb—</p> +<p>Monsters, who cost a no less monstrous sum.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their duty was—for they were strong, and though</p> +<p class="i2">They looked so little, did strong things at times—</p> +<p>To ope this door, which they could really do,</p> +<p class="i2">The hinges being as smooth as Rogers' rhymes;</p> +<p>And now and then, with tough strings of the bow,</p> +<p class="i2">As is the custom of those Eastern climes,</p> +<p>To give some rebel Pacha a cravat—</p> +<p>For mutes are generally used for that.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They spoke by signs—that is, not spoke at all;</p> +<p class="i2">And looking like two Incubi, they glared</p> +<p>As Baba with his fingers made them fall</p> +<p class="i2">To heaving back the portal folds: it scared</p> +<p>Juan a moment, as this pair so small,</p> +<p class="i2">With shrinking serpent optics on him stared;<a name="FNanchor_297" id="FNanchor_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></p> +<p>It was as if their little looks could poison</p> +<p>Or fascinate whome'er they fixed their eyes on.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Before they entered, Baba paused to hint</p> +<p class="i2">To Juan some slight lessons as his guide:</p> +<p>"If you could just contrive," he said, "to stint</p> +<p class="i2">That somewhat manly majesty of stride,</p> +<p>'T would be as well, and—(though there's not much in't)</p> +<p class="i2">To swing a little less from side to side,</p> +<p>Which has at times an aspect of the oddest;—</p> +<p>And also could you look a little modest,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'T would be convenient; for these mutes have eyes</p> +<p class="i2">Like needles, which may pierce those petticoats;</p> +<p>And if they should discover your disguise,</p> +<p class="i2">You know how near us the deep Bosphorus floats;</p> +<p>And you and I may chance, ere morning rise,</p> +<p class="i2">To find our way to Marmora without boats,</p> +<p>Stitched up in sacks—a mode of navigation</p> +<p>A good deal practised here upon occasion."<a name="FNanchor_298" id="FNanchor_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With this encouragement he led the way</p> +<p class="i2">Into a room still nobler than the last;</p> +<p>A rich confusion formed a disarray</p> +<p class="i2">In such sort, that the eye along it cast</p> +<p>Could hardly carry anything away,</p> +<p class="i2">Object on object flashed so bright and fast;</p> +<p>A dazzling mass of gems, and gold, and glitter,</p> +<p>Magnificently mingled in a litter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Wealth had done wonders—taste not much; such things</p> +<p class="i2">Occur in Orient palaces, and even</p> +<p>In the more chastened domes of Western kings</p> +<p class="i2">(Of which I have also seen some six or seven),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> +<p>Where I can't say or gold or diamond flings</p> +<p class="i2">Great lustre, there is much to be forgiven;</p> +<p>Groups of bad statues, tables, chairs, and pictures,</p> +<p>On which I cannot pause to make my strictures.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In this imperial hall, at distance lay</p> +<p class="i2">Under a canopy, and there reclined</p> +<p>Quite in a confidential queenly way,</p> +<p class="i2">A lady; Baba stopped, and kneeling signed</p> +<p>To Juan, who though not much used to pray,</p> +<p class="i2">Knelt down by instinct, wondering in his mind</p> +<p>What all this meant: while Baba bowed and bended</p> +<p>His head, until the ceremony ended.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lady rising up with such an air</p> +<p class="i2">As Venus rose with from the wave, on them</p> +<p>Bent like an antelope a Paphian pair<a name="FNanchor_FI" id="FNanchor_FI"></a><a href="#Footnote_FI" class="fnanchor">[FI]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of eyes, which put out each surrounding gem;</p> +<p>And raising up an arm as moonlight fair,</p> +<p class="i2">She signed to Baba, who first kissed the hem</p> +<p>Of her deep purple robe, and, speaking low,</p> +<p>Pointed to Juan who remained below.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her presence was as lofty as her state;</p> +<p class="i2">Her beauty of that overpowering kind,</p> +<p>Whose force Description only would abate:</p> +<p class="i2">I'd rather leave it much to your own mind,</p> +<p>Than lessen it by what I could relate</p> +<p class="i2">Of forms and features; it would strike you blind</p> +<p>Could I do justice to the full detail;</p> +<p>So, luckily for both, my phrases fail.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus much however I may add,—her years</p> +<p class="i2">Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs,</p> +<p>But there are forms which Time to touch forbears,</p> +<p class="i2">And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_FJ" id="FNanchor_FJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_FJ" class="fnanchor">[FJ]</a></p> +<p>Such as was Mary's, Queen of Scots; true—tears</p> +<p class="i2">And Love destroy; and sapping Sorrow wrings</p> +<p>Charms from the charmer, yet some never grow</p> +<p>Ugly; for instance—Ninon de l'Enclos.<a name="FNanchor_299" id="FNanchor_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She spake some words to her attendants, who</p> +<p class="i2">Composed a choir of girls, ten or a dozen,</p> +<p>And were all clad alike; like Juan, too,</p> +<p class="i2">Who wore their uniform, by Baba chosen:</p> +<p>They formed a very nymph-like looking crew,<a name="FNanchor_300" id="FNanchor_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which might have called Diana's chorus "cousin,"</p> +<p>As far as outward show may correspond—</p> +<p>I won't be bail for anything beyond.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They bowed obeisance and withdrew, retiring,</p> +<p class="i2">But not by the same door through which came in</p> +<p>Baba and Juan, which last stood admiring,</p> +<p class="i2">At some small distance, all he saw within</p> +<p>This strange saloon, much fitted for inspiring</p> +<p class="i2">Marvel and praise; for both or none things win;</p> +<p>And I must say, I ne'er could see the very</p> +<p>Great happiness of the "Nil admirari."<a name="FNanchor_301" id="FNanchor_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Not to admire is all the art I know</p> +<p class="i2">(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs few flowers of speech)—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> +<p>To make men happy, or to keep them so"</p> +<p class="i2">(So take it in the very words of Creech)—</p> +<p>Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago;</p> +<p class="i2">And thus Pope<a name="FNanchor_302" id="FNanchor_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> quotes the precept to re-teach</p> +<p>From his translation; but had <i>none admired</i>,</p> +<p>Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?<a name="FNanchor_303" id="FNanchor_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Baba, when all the damsels were withdrawn,</p> +<p class="i2">Motioned to Juan to approach, and then</p> +<p>A second time desired him to kneel down,</p> +<p class="i2">And kiss the lady's foot; which maxim when</p> +<p>He heard repeated, Juan with a frown</p> +<p class="i2">Drew himself up to his full height again,</p> +<p>And said, "It grieved him, but he could not stoop</p> +<p>To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Baba, indignant at this ill-timed pride,</p> +<p class="i2">Made fierce remonstrances, and then a threat</p> +<p>He muttered (but the last was given aside)</p> +<p class="i2">About a bow-string—quite in vain; not yet</p> +<p>Would Juan bend, though 't were to Mahomet's bride:</p> +<p class="i2">There's nothing in the world like <i>etiquette</i></p> +<p>In kingly chambers or imperial halls,</p> +<p>As also at the Race and County Balls.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He stood like Atlas, with a world of words</p> +<p class="i2">About his ears, and nathless would not bend;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> +<p>The blood of all his line's Castilian lords</p> +<p class="i2">Boiled in his veins, and, rather than descend</p> +<p>To stain his pedigree, a thousand swords</p> +<p class="i2">A thousand times of him had made an end;</p> +<p>At length perceiving the "<i>foot</i>" could not stand,</p> +<p>Baba proposed that he should kiss the hand,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here was an honourable compromise,</p> +<p class="i2">A half-way house of diplomatic rest,</p> +<p>Where they might meet in much more peaceful guise;</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan now his willingness expressed</p> +<p>To use all fit and proper courtesies,</p> +<p class="i2">Adding, that this was commonest and best,</p> +<p>For through the South, the custom still commands</p> +<p>The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And he advanced, though with but a bad grace,</p> +<p class="i2">Though on more <i>thorough-bred</i><a name="FNanchor_304" id="FNanchor_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> or fairer fingers</p> +<p>No lips e'er left their transitory trace:</p> +<p class="i2">On such as these the lip too fondly lingers,</p> +<p>And for one kiss would fain imprint a brace,</p> +<p class="i2">As you will see, if she you love shall bring hers</p> +<p>In contact; and sometimes even a fair stranger's</p> +<p>An almost twelvemonth's constancy endangers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lady eyed him o'er and o'er, and bade</p> +<p class="i2">Baba retire, which he obeyed in style,</p> +<p>As if well used to the retreating trade;</p> +<p class="i2">And taking hints in good part all the while,</p> +<p>He whispered Juan not to be afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">And looking on him with a sort of smile,</p> +<p>Took leave, with such a face of satisfaction,</p> +<p>As good men wear who have done a virtuous action.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When he was gone, there was a sudden change:</p> +<p class="i2">I know not what might be the lady's thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> +<p>But o'er her bright brow flashed a tumult strange,</p> +<p class="i2">And into her clear cheek the blood was brought,</p> +<p>Blood-red as sunset summer clouds which range</p> +<p class="i2">The verge of Heaven; and in her large eyes wrought,</p> +<p>A mixture of sensations might be scanned,</p> +<p>Of half voluptuousness and half command.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her form had all the softness of her sex,</p> +<p class="i2">Her features all the sweetness of the Devil,</p> +<p>When he put on the Cherub to perplex<a name="FNanchor_305" id="FNanchor_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil;</p> +<p>The Sun himself was scarce more free from specks</p> +<p class="i2">Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil;</p> +<p>Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting,</p> +<p>As if she rather <i>ordered</i> than was <i>granting</i>.—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Something imperial, or imperious, threw</p> +<p class="i2">A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain</p> +<p>Was thrown as 't were about the neck of you,—</p> +<p class="i2">And Rapture's self will seem almost a pain</p> +<p>With aught which looks like despotism in view;</p> +<p class="i2">Our souls at least are free, and 't is in vain</p> +<p>We would against them make the flesh obey—</p> +<p>The spirit in the end will have its way.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet;</p> +<p class="i2">Her very nod was not an inclination;</p> +<p>There was a self-will even in her small feet,</p> +<p class="i2">As though they were quite conscious of her station—</p> +<p>They trod as upon necks; and to complete</p> +<p class="i2">Her state (it is the custom of her nation),</p> +<p>A poniard decked her girdle, as the sign</p> +<p>She was a Sultan's bride (thank Heaven, not mine!).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"To hear and to obey" had been from birth</p> +<p class="i2">The law of all around her; to fulfil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> +<p>All phantasies which yielded joy or mirth,</p> +<p class="i2">Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will;</p> +<p>Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth:</p> +<p class="i2">Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood still;</p> +<p>Had she but been a Christian, I've a notion</p> +<p>We should have found out the "perpetual motion."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought;</p> +<p class="i2">Whate'er she did <i>not</i> see, if she supposed</p> +<p>It might be seen, with diligence was sought,</p> +<p class="i2">And when 't was found straightway the bargain closed:</p> +<p>There was no end unto the things she bought,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused;</p> +<p>Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,</p> +<p>The women pardoned all except her face.<a name="FNanchor_FK" id="FNanchor_FK"></a><a href="#Footnote_FK" class="fnanchor">[FK]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught</p> +<p class="i2">Her eye in passing on his way to sale;</p> +<p>She ordered him directly to be bought,</p> +<p class="i2">And Baba, who had ne'er been known to fail</p> +<p>In any kind of mischief to be wrought,</p> +<p class="i2">At all such auctions knew how to prevail:<a name="FNanchor_FL" id="FNanchor_FL"></a><a href="#Footnote_FL" class="fnanchor">[FL]</a></p> +<p>She had no prudence, but he had—and this</p> +<p>Explains the garb which Juan took amiss.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His youth and features favoured the disguise,</p> +<p class="i2">And should you ask how she, a Sultan's bride,</p> +<p>Could risk or compass such strange phantasies,</p> +<p class="i2">This I must leave sultanas to decide:</p> +<p>Emperors are only husbands in wives' eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And kings and consorts oft are mystified,<a name="FNanchor_FM" id="FNanchor_FM"></a><a href="#Footnote_FM" class="fnanchor">[FM]</a></p> +<p>As we may ascertain with due precision,</p> +<p>Some by experience, others by tradition.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to the main point, where we have been tending:—</p> +<p class="i2">She now conceived all difficulties past,</p> +<p>And deemed herself extremely condescending</p> +<p class="i2">When, being made her property at last,</p> +<p>Without more preface, in her blue eyes blending</p> +<p class="i2">Passion and power, a glance on him she cast,</p> +<p>And merely saying, "Christian, canst thou love?"</p> +<p>Conceived that phrase was quite enough to move.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so it was, in proper time and place;</p> +<p class="i2">But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing</p> +<p>With Haidée's isle and soft Ionian face,</p> +<p class="i2">Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing</p> +<p>Rush back upon his heart, which filled apace,</p> +<p class="i2">And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing:</p> +<p>These words went through his soul like Arab spears,<a name="FNanchor_306" id="FNanchor_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a></p> +<p>So that he spoke not, but burst into tears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a good deal shocked; not shocked at tears,</p> +<p class="i2">For women shed and use them at their liking;</p> +<p>But there is something when man's eye appears</p> +<p class="i2">Wet, still more disagreeable and striking:</p> +<p>A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears,</p> +<p class="i2">Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in</p> +<p>His heart to force it out, for (to be shorter)</p> +<p>To them 't is a relief, to us a torture.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And she would have consoled, but knew not how:</p> +<p class="i2">Having no equals, nothing which had e'er</p> +<p>Infected her with sympathy till now,</p> +<p class="i2">And never having dreamt what 't was to bear</p> +<p>Aught of a serious, sorrowing kind, although</p> +<p class="i2">There might arise some pouting petty care</p> +<p>To cross her brow, she wondered how so near</p> +<p>Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Nature teaches more than power can spoil,<a name="FNanchor_FN" id="FNanchor_FN"></a><a href="#Footnote_FN" class="fnanchor">[FN]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And, when a strong although a strange sensation</p> +<p>Moves—female hearts are such a genial soil</p> +<p class="i2">For kinder feelings, whatso'er their nation,</p> +<p>They naturally pour the "wine and oil,"</p> +<p class="i2">Samaritans in every situation;</p> +<p>And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why,</p> +<p>Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But tears must stop like all things else; and soon</p> +<p class="i2">Juan, who for an instant had been moved</p> +<p>To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone</p> +<p class="i2">Of one who dared to ask if "he <i>had</i> loved,"</p> +<p>Called back the Stoic to his eyes, which shone</p> +<p class="i2">Bright with the very weakness he reproved;</p> +<p>And although sensitive to beauty, he</p> +<p>Felt most indignant still at not being free.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gulbeyaz, for the first time in her days,</p> +<p class="i2">Was much embarrassed, never having met</p> +<p>In all her life with aught save prayers and praise;</p> +<p class="i2">And as she also risked her life to get</p> +<p>Him whom she meant to tutor in love's ways</p> +<p class="i2">Into a comfortable tête-à-tête,</p> +<p>To lose the hour would make her quite a martyr,</p> +<p>And they had wasted now almost a quarter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I also would suggest the fitting time</p> +<p class="i2">To gentlemen in any such like case,</p> +<p>That is to say in a meridian clime—</p> +<p class="i2">With us there is more law given to the chase,</p> +<p>But here a small delay forms a great crime:</p> +<p class="i2">So recollect that the extremest grace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> +<p>Is just two minutes for your declaration—</p> +<p>A moment more would hurt your reputation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan's was good; and might have been still better,</p> +<p class="i2">But he had got Haidée into his head:</p> +<p>However strange, he could not yet forget her,</p> +<p class="i2">Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred.</p> +<p>Gulbeyaz, who looked on him as her debtor</p> +<p class="i2">For having had him to her palace led,</p> +<p>Began to blush up to the eyes, and then</p> +<p>Grow deadly pale, and then blush back again.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At length, in an imperial way, she laid</p> +<p class="i2">Her hand on his, and bending on him eyes</p> +<p>Which needed not an empire to persuade,</p> +<p class="i2">Looked into his for love, where none replies:</p> +<p>Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid,</p> +<p class="i2">That being the last thing a proud woman tries;</p> +<p>She rose, and pausing one chaste moment threw</p> +<p>Herself upon his breast, and there she grew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was an awkward test, as Juan found,</p> +<p class="i2">But he was steeled by Sorrow, Wrath, and Pride:</p> +<p>With gentle force her white arms he unwound,</p> +<p class="i2">And seated her all drooping by his side,</p> +<p>Then rising haughtily he glanced around,</p> +<p class="i2">And looking coldly in her face he cried,</p> +<p>"The prisoned eagle will not pair, nor I</p> +<p>Serve a Sultana's sensual phantasy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Thou ask'st, if I can love? be this the proof</p> +<p class="i2">How much I <i>have</i> loved—that I love not <i>thee!</i></p> +<p>In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof,</p> +<p class="i2">Were fitter for me: Love is for the free!</p> +<p>I am not dazzled by this splendid roof;</p> +<p class="i2">Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be,</p> +<p>Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne,</p> +<p>And hands obey—our hearts are still our own."</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was a truth to us extremely trite;</p> +<p class="i2">Not so to her, who ne'er had heard such things:</p> +<p>She deemed her least command must yield delight,</p> +<p class="i2">Earth being only made for Queens and Kings.</p> +<p>If hearts lay on the left side or the right</p> +<p class="i2">She hardly knew, to such perfection brings</p> +<p>Legitimacy its born votaries, when</p> +<p>Aware of their due royal rights o'er men.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides, as has been said, she was so fair</p> +<p class="i2">As even in a much humbler lot had made</p> +<p>A kingdom or confusion anywhere,</p> +<p class="i2">And also, as may be presumed, she laid</p> +<p>Some stress on charms, which seldom are, if e'er,</p> +<p class="i2">By their possessors thrown into the shade:</p> +<p>She thought hers gave a double "right divine;"</p> +<p>And half of that opinion's also mine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Remember, or (if you can not) imagine,</p> +<p class="i2">Ye! who have kept your chastity when young,</p> +<p>While some more desperate dowager has been waging</p> +<p class="i2">Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung<a name="FNanchor_FO" id="FNanchor_FO"></a><a href="#Footnote_FO" class="fnanchor">[FO]</a></p> +<p>By your refusal, recollect her raging!</p> +<p class="i2">Or recollect all that was said or sung</p> +<p>On such a subject; then suppose the face</p> +<p>Of a young downright beauty in this case!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suppose,—but you already have supposed,</p> +<p class="i2">The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby,<a name="FNanchor_307" id="FNanchor_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a></p> +<p>Phaedra,<a name="FNanchor_308" id="FNanchor_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> and all which story has disclosed</p> +<p class="i2">Of good examples; pity that so few by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> +<p>Poets and private tutors are exposed,<a name="FNanchor_FP" id="FNanchor_FP"></a><a href="#Footnote_FP" class="fnanchor">[FP]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To educate—ye youth of Europe—you by!</p> +<p>But when you have supposed the few we know,</p> +<p>You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A tigress robbed of young, a lioness,</p> +<p class="i2">Or any interesting beast of prey,</p> +<p>Are similes at hand for the distress</p> +<p class="i2">Of ladies who can <i>not</i> have their own way;</p> +<p>But though my turn will not be served with less,</p> +<p class="i2">These don't express one half what I should say:</p> +<p>For what is stealing young ones, few or many,</p> +<p>To cutting short their hope of having <i>any?</i></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The love of offspring's Nature's general law,</p> +<p class="i2">From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings;</p> +<p>There's nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw</p> +<p class="i2">Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings;</p> +<p>And all who have seen a human nursery, saw</p> +<p class="i2">How mothers love their children's squalls and chucklings:</p> +<p>This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer</p> +<p>Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger.<a name="FNanchor_FQ" id="FNanchor_FQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_FQ" class="fnanchor">[FQ]</a></p> +</div> +</div> + +<h3>CXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If I said fire flashed from Gulbeyaz' eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">'T were nothing—for her eyes flashed always fire;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> +<p>Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes,</p> +<p class="i2">I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer,</p> +<p>So supernatural was her passion's rise;</p> +<p class="i2">For ne'er till now she knew a checked desire:</p> +<p>Even ye who know what a checked woman is</p> +<p>(Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her rage was but a minute's, and 't was well—</p> +<p class="i2">A moment's more had slain her; but the while</p> +<p>It lasted 't was like a short glimpse of Hell:</p> +<p class="i2">Nought's more sublime than energetic bile,</p> +<p>Though horrible to see, yet grand to tell,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle;</p> +<p>And the deep passions flashing through her form</p> +<p>Made her a beautiful embodied storm.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A vulgar tempest 't were to a typhoon</p> +<p class="i2">To match a common fury with her rage,</p> +<p>And yet she did not want to reach the moon,<a name="FNanchor_309" id="FNanchor_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page;<a name="FNanchor_FR" id="FNanchor_FR"></a><a href="#Footnote_FR" class="fnanchor">[FR]</a></p> +<p>Her anger pitched into a lower tune,</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age—</p> +<p>Her wish was but to "kill, kill, kill," like Lear's,<a name="FNanchor_310" id="FNanchor_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p> +<p>And then her thirst of blood was quenched in tears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A storm it raged, and like the storm it passed,</p> +<p class="i2">Passed without words—in fact she could not speak;</p> +<p>And then her sex's shame<a name="FNanchor_311" id="FNanchor_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> broke in at last,</p> +<p class="i2">A sentiment till then in her but weak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> +<p>But now it flowed in natural and fast,</p> +<p class="i2">As water through an unexpected leak;</p> +<p>For she felt humbled—and humiliation</p> +<p>Is sometimes good for people in her station.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It teaches them that they are flesh and blood,</p> +<p class="i2">It also gently hints to them that others,</p> +<p>Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud;</p> +<p class="i2">That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers,</p> +<p>And works of the same pottery, bad or good,</p> +<p class="i2">Though not all born of the same sires and mothers;</p> +<p>It teaches—Heaven knows only what it teaches,</p> +<p>But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head;</p> +<p class="i2">Her second, to cut only his—acquaintance;</p> +<p>Her third, to ask him where he had been bred;</p> +<p class="i2">Her fourth, to rally him into repentance;</p> +<p>Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed;</p> +<p class="i2">Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence</p> +<p>The lash to Baba:—but her grand resource</p> +<p>Was to sit down again, and cry—of course.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She thought to stab herself, but then she had</p> +<p class="i2">The dagger close at hand, which made it awkward;</p> +<p>For Eastern stays are little made to pad,</p> +<p class="i2">So that a poniard pierces if 't is struck hard:</p> +<p>She thought of killing Juan—but, poor lad!</p> +<p class="i2">Though he deserved it well for being so backward,</p> +<p>The cutting off his head was not the art</p> +<p>Most likely to attain her aim—his heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was moved: he had made up his mind</p> +<p class="i2">To be impaled, or quartered as a dish</p> +<p>For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined,</p> +<p class="i2">Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish,</p> +<p>And thus heroically stood resigned,</p> +<p class="i2">Rather than sin—except to his own wish:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> +<p>But all his great preparatives for dying</p> +<p>Dissolved like snow before a woman crying.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As through his palms Bob Acres' valour oozed,<a name="FNanchor_312" id="FNanchor_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a></p> +<p class="i2">So Juan's virtue ebbed, I know not how;</p> +<p>And first he wondered why he had refused;</p> +<p class="i2">And then, if matters could be made up now;</p> +<p>And next his savage virtue he accused,</p> +<p class="i2">Just as a friar may accuse his vow,</p> +<p>Or as a dame repents her of her oath,</p> +<p>Which mostly ends in some small breach of both.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So he began to stammer some excuses;</p> +<p class="i2">But words are not enough in such a matter,</p> +<p>Although you borrowed all that e'er the Muses</p> +<p class="i2">Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter,</p> +<p>Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses;<a name="FNanchor_FS" id="FNanchor_FS"></a><a href="#Footnote_FS" class="fnanchor">[FS]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Just as a languid smile began to flatter</p> +<p>His peace was making, but, before he ventured</p> +<p>Further, old Baba rather briskly entered.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!"</p> +<p class="i2">('T was thus he spake,) "and Empress of the Earth!</p> +<p>Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose smile makes all the planets dance with mirth,</p> +<p>Your slave brings tidings—he hopes not too soon—</p> +<p class="i2">Which your sublime attention may be worth:</p> +<p>The Sun himself has sent me like a ray,</p> +<p>To hint that he is coming up this way."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Is it," exclaimed Gulbeyaz, "as you say?</p> +<p class="i2">I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> +<p>But bid my women form the milky way.</p> +<p class="i2">Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warning—<a name="FNanchor_FT" id="FNanchor_FT"></a><a href="#Footnote_FT" class="fnanchor">[FT]</a></p> +<p>And, Christian! mingle with them as you may,</p> +<p class="i2">And as you'd have me pardon your past scorning——-"</p> +<p>Here they were interrupted by a humming</p> +<p>Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's coming!"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>First came her damsels, a decorous file,</p> +<p class="i2">And then his Highness' eunuchs, black and white;</p> +<p>The train might reach a quarter of a mile:</p> +<p class="i2">His Majesty was always so polite</p> +<p>As to announce his visits a long while</p> +<p class="i2">Before he came, especially at night;</p> +<p>For being the last wife of the Emperor,</p> +<p>She was of course the favourite of the four.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His Highness was a man of solemn port,</p> +<p class="i2">Shawled to the nose, and bearded to the eyes,</p> +<p>Snatched from a prison to preside at court,</p> +<p class="i2">His lately bowstrung brother caused his rise;</p> +<p>He was as good a sovereign of the sort</p> +<p class="i2">As any mentioned in the histories</p> +<p>Of Cantemir, or Knōllěs, where few shine<a name="FNanchor_FU" id="FNanchor_FU"></a><a href="#Footnote_FU" class="fnanchor">[FU]</a></p> +<p>Save Solyman, the glory of their line.<a name="FNanchor_313" id="FNanchor_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p><h3>CXLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He went to mosque in state, and said his prayers</p> +<p class="i2">With more than "Oriental scrupulosity;"<a name="FNanchor_314" id="FNanchor_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a></p> +<p>He left to his vizier all state affairs,</p> +<p class="i2">And showed but little royal curiosity:</p> +<p>I know not if he had domestic cares—</p> +<p class="i2">No process proved connubial animosity;</p> +<p>Four wives and twice five hundred maids, unseen,</p> +<p>Were ruled as calmly as a Christian queen.<a name="FNanchor_FV" id="FNanchor_FV"></a><a href="#Footnote_FV" class="fnanchor">[FV]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If now and then there happened a slight slip,</p> +<p class="i2">Little was heard of criminal or crime;</p> +<p>The story scarcely passed a single lip—</p> +<p class="i2">The sack and sea had settled all in time,</p> +<p>From which the secret nobody could rip:</p> +<p class="i2">The public knew no more than does this rhyme;</p> +<p>No scandals made the daily press a curse—</p> +<p>Morals were better, and the fish no worse.<a name="FNanchor_FW" id="FNanchor_FW"></a><a href="#Footnote_FW" class="fnanchor">[FW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He saw with his own eyes the moon was round,</p> +<p class="i2">Was also certain that the earth was square,</p> +<p>Because he had journeyed fifty miles, and found</p> +<p class="i2">No sign that it was circular anywhere;<a name="FNanchor_FX" id="FNanchor_FX"></a><a href="#Footnote_FX" class="fnanchor">[FX]</a></p> +<p>His empire also was without a bound:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is true, a little troubled here and there,</p> +<p>By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours,</p> +<p>But then they never came to "the Seven Towers;"<a name="FNanchor_315" id="FNanchor_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p><h3>CLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Except in shape of envoys, who were sent</p> +<p class="i2">To lodge there when a war broke out, according</p> +<p>To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant</p> +<p class="i2">Those scoundrels, who have never had a sword in</p> +<p>Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent</p> +<p class="i2">Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording</p> +<p>Their lies, yclept despatches, without risk or</p> +<p>The singeing of a single inky whisker.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons,</p> +<p class="i2">Of whom all such as came of age were stowed,</p> +<p>The former in a palace, where like nuns</p> +<p class="i2">They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad,</p> +<p>When she, whose turn it was, was wed at once,</p> +<p class="i2">Sometimes at six years old<a name="FNanchor_316" id="FNanchor_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a>—though this seems odd,</p> +<p>'T is true; the reason is, that the Bashaw</p> +<p>Must make a present to his sire-in-law.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His sons were kept in prison, till they grew</p> +<p class="i2">Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne,</p> +<p>One or the other, but which of the two</p> +<p class="i2">Could yet be known unto the fates alone;</p> +<p>Meantime the education they went through</p> +<p class="i2">Was princely, as the proofs have always shown;</p> +<p>So that the heir apparent still was found</p> +<p>No less deserving to be hanged than crowned.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse</p> +<p class="i2">With all the ceremonies of his rank,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> +<p>Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows,</p> +<p class="i2">As suits a matron who has played a prank;</p> +<p>These must seem doubly mindful of their vows,</p> +<p class="i2">To save the credit of their breaking bank:</p> +<p>To no men are such cordial greetings given</p> +<p>As those whose wives have made them fit for Heaven.<a name="FNanchor_317" id="FNanchor_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His Highness cast around his great black eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And looking, as he always looked, perceived</p> +<p>Juan amongst the damsels in disguise,</p> +<p class="i2">At which he seemed no whit surprised nor grieved,</p> +<p>But just remarked with air sedate and wise,<a name="FNanchor_FY" id="FNanchor_FY"></a><a href="#Footnote_FY" class="fnanchor">[FY]</a></p> +<p class="i2">While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz heaved,</p> +<p>"I see you've bought another girl; 't is pity</p> +<p>That a mere Christian should be half so pretty."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This compliment, which drew all eyes upon</p> +<p class="i2">The new-bought virgin, made her blush and shake.</p> +<p>Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone:</p> +<p class="i2">Oh! Mahomet! that his Majesty should take</p> +<p>Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one</p> +<p class="i2">Of them his lips imperial ever spake!</p> +<p>There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,</p> +<p>But etiquette forbade them all to giggle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Turks do well to shut—at least, sometimes—</p> +<p class="i2">The women up—because, in sad reality,</p> +<p>Their chastity in these unhappy climes<a name="FNanchor_FZ" id="FNanchor_FZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_FZ" class="fnanchor">[FZ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Is not a thing of that astringent quality</p> +<p>Which in the North prevents precocious crimes,</p> +<p class="i2">And makes our snow less pure than our morality;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> +<p>The Sun, which yearly melts the polar ice,</p> +<p>Has quite the contrary effect—on vice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus in the East they are extremely strict,</p> +<p class="i2">And wedlock and a padlock mean the same:</p> +<p>Excepting only when the former's picked</p> +<p class="i2">It ne'er can be replaced in proper frame;</p> +<p>Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when pricked:</p> +<p class="i2">But then their own polygamy's to blame;</p> +<p>Why don't they knead two virtuous souls for life</p> +<p>Into that moral centaur, man and wife?<a name="FNanchor_318" id="FNanchor_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,</p> +<p class="i2">Though not for want of matter; but 't is time,</p> +<p>According to the ancient epic laws,</p> +<p class="i2">To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.</p> +<p>Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,</p> +<p class="i2">The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime;</p> +<p>Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps</p> +<p>You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.<a name="FNanchor_GA" id="FNanchor_GA"></a><a href="#Footnote_GA" class="fnanchor">[GA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center"> +End of Canto 5<sup>th</sup> Finished Ravenna, Nov. 27<sup>th</sup> 1820.<br /> +Begun Oct. 16, 1820.<br /> +and finished copying out, Dec. 26.<br /> +with some intermediate additions, 1820.<br /> +B. +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270" id="Footnote_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> <a name="Note_218" id="Note_218"></a>{218}[Canto V. was begun at Ravenna, October the 16th, +and finished November the 20th, 1820. It was published August 8, 1821, +together with Cantos III. and IV.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271" id="Footnote_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> This expression of Homer has been much criticized. It +hardly answers to our Atlantic ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently +applicable to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the Aegean +intersected with islands. +</p><p> +[<i>Vide</i> <i>Iliad</i>, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean-stream" was not the +Hellespont, but the rim of waters which encircled the disk of the +world.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272" id="Footnote_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <a name="Note_219" id="Note_219"></a>{219}["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not +comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for +twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of +prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit +trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the +European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an +agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, +and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and +appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by +the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed +with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison: +but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."—See letter to Mr. Pope, +No. xl. June 17, 1717, and letter to the Countess of Bristol, No. xlvi. +n.d., <i>Letters of the Lady Mary Worthy Montagu,</i> 1816, pp. 183-219. See, +too, letter to Mrs. Byron, June 28, 1810, <i>Letters,</i> 1890, i. 280, note +1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273" id="Footnote_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> [For Byron's "Marys," see <i>Poetical Works,</i> 1898, i. 192, +note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274" id="Footnote_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of +the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and +Highgate. +</p><p> +["The Giant's Mountain, 650 feet high, is almost exactly opposite +Buyukdereh ... It is called by the Turks Yoshadagh, <i>Mountain of +Joshua,</i> because the <i>Giant's Grave</i> on the top is, according to the +Moslem legend, the grave of Joshua. The grave was formerly called the +<i>Couch of Hercules;</i> but the classical story is that it was the tomb of +Amycus, king of the Bebryces [on his grave grew the <i>laurus insana</i>, a +branch of which caused strife (Plin., <i>Hist. Nat.,</i> lib. xvi. cap. xliv. +ed. 1593, ii. 198)]. The grave is 20 feet long, and 5 feet broad; it is +within a stone enclosure, and is planted with flowers and +bushes."—<i>Handbook for Constantinople,</i> p. 103.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ET" id="Footnote_ET"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ET"><span class="label">[ET]</span></a> +<a name="Note_220" id="Note_220"></a>{220}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>For then the Parca are most busy spinning</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>The fates of seamen, and the loud winds raise</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EU" id="Footnote_EU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EU"><span class="label">[EU]</span></a> <a name="Note_221" id="Note_221"></a>{221} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>That he a man of rank and birth had been</i>,</p> +<p><i>And then they calculated on his ransom</i>,</p> +<p><i>And last not least—he was so very handsome</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EV" id="Footnote_EV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EV"><span class="label">[EV]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>It chanced that near him, separately lotted</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>From out the group of slaves put up for sale</i>,</p> +<p><i>A man of middle age, and</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275" id="Footnote_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> <a name="Note_222" id="Note_222"></a>{222}[The object of Suwarof's campaign of 1789 was the +conquest of Belgrade and Servia, that of Wallachia by the Austrians, +etc. Neither of these plans succeeded."—<i>The Life of Field-Marshal +Suwarof,</i> by L.M.P. Tranchant de Laverne, 1814, pp. 105, 106.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276" id="Footnote_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> <a name="Note_226" id="Note_226"></a>{226}[The Turkish zecchino is a gold coin, worth about +seven shillings and sixpence. The para is not quite equal to an English +halfpenny.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277" id="Footnote_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> [Candide's increased satisfaction with life is implied in +the narrative. For example, in chap, xviii., where Candide visits +Eldorado:—"Never was there a better entertainment, and never was more +wit shown at table than that which fell from His Majesty. Cacambo +explained the king's <i>bons mots</i> to Candide, and notwithstanding they +were translated, they still appeared <i>bons mots.</i>" This was after +supper. See, too, Part II. chap, ii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278" id="Footnote_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> See Plutarch in <i>Alex.</i>, Q. Curt. <i>Hist. Alexand.</i>, and +Sir Richard Clayton's "Critical Inquiry into the Life of Alexander the +Great," 1763 [from the <i>Examen Critique, etc.</i>, of Guilhem de +Clermont-Lodève, Baron de Sainte Croix, 1775.] +</p><p> +["He used to say that sleep and the commerce with the sex were the +things that made him most sensible of his mortality, ... He was also +very temperate in eating."—Plutarch's <i>Alexander</i>, Langhorne, 1838, p. +473.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EW" id="Footnote_EW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EW"><span class="label">[EW]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But for mere food, I think with Philip's son</i>,</p> +<p><i>Or Ammon's—for two fathers claimed this one</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279" id="Footnote_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> <a name="Note_227" id="Note_227"></a>{227}The assassination alluded to took place on the 8th +of December, 1820, in the streets of Ravenna, not a hundred paces from +the residence of the writer. The circumstances were as described. +</p><p> +["December 9, 1820. I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show +the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the +troops is <i>now</i> lying <i>dead</i> in my house. He was shot at a little past +eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my door. I was putting on my +great coat to visit Madame la Comtessa G., when I heard the shot. On +coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming +that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the +bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, +as it is the custom for everybody here, it seems, to run away from 'the +stricken deer.' ... we found him lying on his back, almost, if not +quite, dead, with five wounds; one in the heart, two in the stomach, one +in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers cocked their +guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However, we passed, and I +found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a child—a surgeon, who +said nothing of his profession—a priest, sobbing a frightened +prayer—and the commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, +cold pavement, without light or assistance, or anything around him but +confusion and dismay. As nobody could, or would, do anything but howl +and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of +consequences, I lost my patience—made my servant and a couple of the +mob take up the body—sent off two soldiers to the guard—despatched +Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had him carried upstairs into +my own quarters. But it was too late—he was gone.... I had him partly +stripped—made the surgeon examine him, and examined him myself. He had +been shot by cut balls or slugs. I felt one of the slugs, which had gone +through him, all but the skin.... He only said, 'O Dio!' and 'Gesu!' two +or three times, and appeared to have suffered little. Poor fellow! he +was a brave officer; but had made himself much disliked by the +people."—Letter to Moore, December 9, 1820, <i>Letters,</i> 1901, v. 133. +The commandant's name was Del Pinto (<i>Life,</i> p. 472).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EX" id="Footnote_EX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EX"><span class="label">[EX]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i16">—— <i>so I had</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Him borne, as soon's I could, up several pair</i></p> +<p><i>Of stairs—and looked to,——But why should I add</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>More circumstances?</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EY" id="Footnote_EY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EY"><span class="label">[EY]</span></a> <i>And now as silent as an unstrung drum</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280" id="Footnote_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> <a name="Note_229" id="Note_229"></a>{229}The light and elegant wherries plying about the +quays of Constantinople are so called.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281" id="Footnote_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <a name="Note_230" id="Note_230"></a>{230}[<i>Ilderim, a Syrian Tale</i>, by Henry Gally Knight, +was published in 1816; <i>Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale</i>, and <i>Alashtar, an +Arabian Tale</i>, in 1817. Moore's <i>Lalla Kookh</i> also appeared in 1817.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282" id="Footnote_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> [St. Bartholomew was "discoriate, and flayed quick" +(<i>Golden Legend</i>, 1900, v. 43).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_EZ" id="Footnote_EZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_EZ"><span class="label">[EZ]</span></a> <i>We from impalement</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283" id="Footnote_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <a name="Note_231" id="Note_231"></a>{231}"Many of the seraï and summer-houses [on the +Bosphorus] have received these significant, or rather fantastic names: +one is the Pearl Pavilion; another is the Star Palace; a third the +Mansion of Looking-glasses."—<i>Travels in Albania</i>, 1858, ii. 243.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FA" id="Footnote_FA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FA"><span class="label">[FA]</span></a> <a name="Note_232" id="Note_232"></a>{232} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of speeches, beauty, flattery—there is no</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Method more sure</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284" id="Footnote_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <a name="Note_233" id="Note_233"></a>{233}[<i>Guide des Voyageurs</i>; <i>Directions for Travellers</i>, +etc.—<i>Rhymes, Incidental and Humorous</i>; <i>Rhyming Reminiscences</i>; +<i>Effusions in Rhyme</i>, etc.—Lady Morgan's <i>Tour in Italy</i>; <i>Tour through +Istria</i>, etc., etc.—<i>Sketches of Italy</i>; <i>Sketches of Modern Greece</i>, +etc., etc.—<i>Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe +Harold</i>, by J.C. Hobhouse, 1818.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285" id="Footnote_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> In Turkey nothing is more common than for the Mussulmans +to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of appetiser. I have +seen them take as many as six of raki before dinner, and swear that they +dined the better for it: I tried the experiment, but fared like the +Scotchman, who having heard that the birds called kittiwakes were +admirable whets, ate six of them, and complained that "he was no +hungrier than when he began."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286" id="Footnote_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> ["Everything is so still [in the court of the Seraglio], +that the motion of a fly might be heard, in a manner; and if any one +should presume to raise his voice ever so little, or show the least want +of respect to the Mansion-place of their Emperor, he would instantly +have the bastinado by the officers that go the rounds."-<i>A Voyage in the +Levant</i>, by M. Tournefort, 1741, ii. 183.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287" id="Footnote_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> <a name="Note_234" id="Note_234"></a>{234}<i>A common furniture. I recollect being received by +Ali Pacha, in a large room, paved with marble, containing a marble +basin, and fountain playing in the centre, etc., etc.</i> +</p><p> +[Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lxii.— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring</p> +<p class="i2">Of living water from the centre rose,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,</p> +<p class="i2">And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,</p> +<p class="i2">Ali reclined, a man of war and woes," etc.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288" id="Footnote_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> [A reminiscence of Newstead. Compare Moore's song, "Oft +in the Stilly Night"— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4">"I feel like one</p> +<p class="i4">Who treads alone</p> +<p>Some banquet-hall deserted."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FB" id="Footnote_FB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FB"><span class="label">[FB]</span></a> <a name="Note_235" id="Note_235"></a>{235} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>A small, snug chamber on a winter's night</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Well furnished with a book, friend, girl, or glass, etc</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FC" id="Footnote_FC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FC"><span class="label">[FC]</span></a> <i>I pass my days in long dull galleries solely</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289" id="Footnote_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> [When this stanza was written Byron was domiciled in the +Palazzo Guiccioli (in the Via di Porta Adriana) at Ravenna; but he may +have had in his mind the monks' refectory at Newstead Abbey, "the dark +gallery, where his fathers frowned" (<i>Lara</i>, Canto I. line 137), or the +corridors which form the upper story of the cloisters.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290" id="Footnote_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> ["Nabuch<i>o</i>donosor," here used <i>metri gratiâ</i>, is Latin +(see the Vulgate) and French (see J.P. De Béranger, <i>Chansons Inédites</i>, +1828, p. 48) for Nebuchadnezzar.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291" id="Footnote_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> [See Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i>, lib. iv. lines 55-58— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"In Babylon, where first her queen, for state,</p> +<p>Raised walls of brick magnificently great,</p> +<p>Lived Pyramus and Thisbe, lovely pair!</p> +<p>He found no Eastern youth his equal there,</p> +<p>And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Garth.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292" id="Footnote_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> <a name="Note_236" id="Note_236"></a>{236}Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strengthened and +beautified by Nabuchadonosor, and rebuilt by Semiramis. +</p><p> +[Pliny (<i>Nat. Hist.</i>, lib. viii. cap. xlii. ed. 1593, i. 392) cites +Juba, King of Mauretania, died A.D. 19, as his authority for the +calumny.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FD" id="Footnote_FD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FD"><span class="label">[FD]</span></a> <i>In an Erratum of her Horse for Courier</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293" id="Footnote_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> [Queen Caroline—whose trial (August—November, 1820) was +proceeding whilst this canto was being written—was charged with having +committed adultery with Bartolommeo Bergami, who had been her courier, +and was, afterwards, her chamberlain.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294" id="Footnote_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> ["<i>Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon</i>, by Claudius James +Rich, Esq., Resident for the Honourable East India Company at the Court +of the Pasha of Bagdad, 1815," pp. 61-64: <i>Second Memoir on Babylon,</i> +... 1818, by Claudius James Rich. See the plates at the end of the +volume.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FE" id="Footnote_FE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FE"><span class="label">[FE]</span></a> <i>If they shall not as soon cut off my head.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FF" id="Footnote_FF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FF"><span class="label">[FF]</span></a> <a name="Note_240" id="Note_240"></a>{240}<i>A pair of drawers</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295" id="Footnote_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> [Compare "Extracts from a Diary," January 24, 1821, +<i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 184.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FG" id="Footnote_FG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FG"><span class="label">[FG]</span></a> <i>Kings are not more imperative than rhymes</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FH" id="Footnote_FH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FH"><span class="label">[FH]</span></a> <a name="Note_241" id="Note_241"></a>{241} <i>He looked almost in modesty a maid</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296" id="Footnote_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> <a name="Note_242" id="Note_242"></a>{242}<i>Features</i> of a gate—a ministerial metaphor: "the +<i>feature</i> upon which this question <i>hinges</i>." See the "Fudge Family," or +hear Castlereagh. +</p><p> +[Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord Castlereagh, says— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"As <i>thou</i> would'st say, my guide and teacher</p> +<p class="i2">In these gay metaphoric fringes,</p> +<p>I must <i>embark</i> into the <i>feature</i></p> +<p class="i2">On which this letter chiefly <i>hinges</i>."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Moore's note adds, "Verbatim from one of the noble Viscount's +speeches:—'<i>And now, sir, I must embark into the</i> feature <i>on which +this question chiefly hinges</i>.'"—<i>Fudge Family in Paris</i>, Letter II. +See, too, <i>post</i>, the <a href="#PREFACE_TO_CANTOS_VI_VII_AND_VIII">Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII.</a>, +<a href="#Footnote_320">p. 264, note 3</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297" id="Footnote_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> <a name="Note_243" id="Note_243"></a>{243}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">"A snake's small eye blinks dull and sly,</p> +<p>And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,</p> +<p>Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Christabel</i>, Part II. lines 583-585.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298" id="Footnote_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> <a name="Note_244" id="Note_244"></a>{244}A few years ago the wile of Muchtar Pacha complained +to his father of his son's supposed infidelity: he asked with whom, and +she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women +in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the +lake the same night. One of the guards who was present informed me, that +not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at +so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." +</p><p> +[See <i>The Giaour</i>, line <i>1328, Poetical Works, 1900</i>, iii. 144, note +1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FI" id="Footnote_FI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FI"><span class="label">[FI]</span></a> <a name="Note_245" id="Note_245"></a>{245} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>As Venus rose from Ocean—bent on them</i></p> +<p><i>With a far-reaching glance, a Paphian pair</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FJ" id="Footnote_FJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FJ"><span class="label">[FJ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But there are forms which Time adorns, not wears</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>And to which Beauty obstinately clings</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299" id="Footnote_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> <a name="Note_246" id="Note_246"></a>{246}[Legend has credited Ninon de Lenclos (1620-1705) +with lovers when she had "come to four-score years." According to +Voltaire, John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, succumbed to her secular +charms (see <i>Mazeppa</i>, line 138, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 212, note +1). "In her old age, her house was the rendezvous of wits and men of +letters. Scarron is said to have consulted her on his romances, +Saint-Evremond on his poems, Molière on his comedies, Fontenelle on his +dialogues, and La Rochefoucauld on his maxims. Coligny, Sévigné, etc., +were her lovers and friends. At her death, in 1705, she bequeathed to +Voltaire two thousand francs, to expend in books."—<i>Biographic +Universelle</i>, art. "Lenclos."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300" id="Footnote_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> ["Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the +number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient +nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished such a scene of +beauty," etc.—Lady M.W. Montagu to the Countess of Mar, April 18, O.S. +1717, ed. 1816, p. 163.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301" id="Footnote_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici,</p> +<p>Solaque quæ possit facere et servare beatum."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Hor., <i>Epist.</i>, lib. 1, ep. vi. lines 1, 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302" id="Footnote_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> <a name="Note_247" id="Note_247"></a>{247} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Not to admire, is all the Art I know</p> +<p>To make men happy, and to keep them so,</p> +<p>(Plain Truth, dear <span class="smcap">Murray</span>, needs no flow'rs of speech,</p> +<p>So take it in the very words of Creech)."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +<i>To Mr. Murray</i> (Lord Mansfield), Pope's <i>Imitations of Horace</i>, Book I. +epist. vi. lines 1-4. +</p><p> +Thomas Creech (1659-1701) published his <i>Translation of Horace</i> in 1684. +In the second edition, 1688, p. 487, the lines run— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Not to admire, as most are wont to do,</p> +<p>It is the only method that I know,</p> +<p>To make Men happy and to keep 'em so."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303" id="Footnote_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> [Johnson placed judgment and friendship above admiration +and love. "Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with +champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened." See Boswell's +<i>Life of Johnson</i>, 1876, p. 450.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304" id="Footnote_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> <a name="Note_248" id="Note_248"></a>{248}There is nothing, perhaps, more distinctive of birth +than the hand. It is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can +generate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305" id="Footnote_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> <a name="Note_249" id="Note_249"></a>{249}[In old pictures of the Fall, it is a cherub who +whispers into the ear of Eve. The serpent's coils are hidden in the +foliage of the tree.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FK" id="Footnote_FK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FK"><span class="label">[FK]</span></a> <a name="Note_250" id="Note_250"></a>{250}<i>The very women half forgave her face</i>.—[MS, +Erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FL" id="Footnote_FL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FL"><span class="label">[FL]</span></a> <i>Had his instructions—where and how to deal</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FM" id="Footnote_FM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FM"><span class="label">[FM]</span></a> <i>And husbands now and then are mystified</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306" id="Footnote_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> <a name="Note_251" id="Note_251"></a>{251}[Narrow javelins, once known as archegays—the +assegais of Zulu warfare.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FN" id="Footnote_FN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FN"><span class="label">[FN]</span></a> <a name="Note_252" id="Note_252"></a>{252} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But nature teaches what power cannot spoil</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And, though it was a new and strange sensation</i>,</p> +<p><i>Young female hearts are such a genial soil</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>For kinder feelings, she forgot her station</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FO" id="Footnote_FO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FO"><span class="label">[FO]</span></a> <i>War with your heart</i>—.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307" id="Footnote_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> <a name="Note_254" id="Note_254"></a>{254}[See <i>Fielding's History of the Adventures of Joseph +Andrews</i>, bk. i. chap. v.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308" id="Footnote_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["'But if my boy with virtue be endued,</p> +<p>What harm will beauty do him?' Nay, what good?</p> +<p>Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus' son,</p> +<p>The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?—</p> +<p>O, then did Phaedra redden, then her pride</p> +<p>Took fire to be so steadfastly denied!</p> +<p>Then, too, did Sthenobaea glow with shame,</p> +<p>And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame!"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +Gifford, <i>Juvenal</i>, Sat. x. 473-480. +</p><p> +The adventures of Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, and Bellerophon are +well known. They were accused of incontinence, by the women whose +inordinate passions they had refused to gratify at the expense of their +duty, and sacrificed to the fatal credulity of the husbands of the +disappointed fair ones. It is very probable that both the stories are +founded on the Scripture account of Joseph and Potiphar's +wife.—Footnote, ibid., ed. 1817, ii. pp. 49, 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FP" id="Footnote_FP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FP"><span class="label">[FP]</span></a> <i>The poets and romances</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FQ" id="Footnote_FQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FQ"><span class="label">[FQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And this strong second cause (to tire no longer</i></p> +<p><i>Your patience) shows the first must still be stronger</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309" id="Footnote_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> <a name="Note_256" id="Note_256"></a>{256} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["By Heaven! methinks, it were an easy leap,</p> +<p>To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Henry IV</i>., act i. sc. 3, lines 201, 202.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FR" id="Footnote_FR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FR"><span class="label">[FR]</span></a> <i>Like natural Shakespeare on the immortal page</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310" id="Footnote_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in law,</p> +<p>Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>King Lear</i>, act iv. sc. 6, lines 185, 186.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311" id="Footnote_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["A woman scorn'd is pitiless as fate,</p> +<p>For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Gifford's <i>Juvenal, Sat</i>. x. lines 481, 482, ed. 1817, ii. p. 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312" id="Footnote_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> <a name="Note_258" id="Note_258"></a>{258}["Yes—my valour is certainly going! it is sneaking +off! I feel it <i>oozing</i> out, as it were, at the palms of my +hands!"—Sheridan's <i>Rivals</i>, act v. sc. 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FS" id="Footnote_FS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FS"><span class="label">[FS]</span></a> <i>Or all the stuff which uttered by the "Blues" +is</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FT" id="Footnote_FT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FT"><span class="label">[FT]</span></a> +<a name="Note_259" id="Note_259"></a>{259}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But prithee—get my women in the way</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>That all the stars may gleam with due adorning</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FU" id="Footnote_FU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FU"><span class="label">[FU]</span></a> <i>Of Cantemir or Knollēs</i>——-.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313" id="Footnote_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> It may not be unworthy of remark, that Bacon, in his +essay on "Empire" (Essays, No. xx.), hints that Solyman was the last of +his line; on what authority, I know not. These are his words: "The +destruction of Mustapha was so fatal to Solyman's line; as the +succession of the Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected to be +untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the second was thought to +be supposititious." But Bacon, in his historical authorities, is often +inaccurate. I could give half a dozen instances from his Apophthegms +only. +</p><p> +[Selim II. (1524-1574) succeeded his father as Sultan in 1566. Hofmann +(<i>Lexicon Univ</i>.) describes him as "meticulosus, effeminatus, ebriosus," +but neither Demetrius Cantemir, in his <i>History of the Growth and Decay +of the Othman Empire</i> (translated by N. Tyndal, 1734); nor <i>The Turkish +History</i> (written by Mr. Knolles, 1701), cast any doubts on his +legitimacy. Byron complained of the omission from the notes to the first +edition of Don Juan, of his corrections of Bacon's "Apophthegms" (see +<i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. Appendix VI. pp. 597-600), in a letter to Murray, +dated January 21, 1821,—<i>vide ibid</i>., p. 220.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314" id="Footnote_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> <a name="Note_260" id="Note_260"></a>{260}[Gibbon.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FV" id="Footnote_FV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FV"><span class="label">[FV]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Because he kept them wrapt up in his closet, he</i></p> +<p><i>Ruled fair wives and twelve hundred whores, unseen,</i></p> +<p><i>More easily than Christian kings one queen</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FW" id="Footnote_FW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FW"><span class="label">[FW]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Then ended many a fair Sultana's trip</i>:</p> +<p class="i2"><i>The Public knew no more than does this rhyme</i>;</p> +<p><i>No printed scandals flew,—the fish, of course,</i></p> +<p><i>Were better—while the morals were no worse</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FX" id="Footnote_FX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FX"><span class="label">[FX]</span></a> <i>No sign of its depression anywhere</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315" id="Footnote_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> ["We attempted to visit the Seven Towers, but were +stopped at the entrance, and informed that without a firman it was +inaccessible to strangers.... It was supposed that Count Bulukof, the +Russian minister, would be the last of the <i>Moussafirs</i>, or imperial +hostages, confined in this fortress; but since the year 1784 M. Ruffin +and many of the French have been imprisoned in the same place; and the +dungeons.... were gaping, it seems, for the sacred persons of the +gentlemen composing his Britannic Majesty's mission, previous to the +rupture between Great Britain and the Porte in 1809."—Hobhouse, +<i>Travels in Albania</i>, 1858, ii. 311, 312.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316" id="Footnote_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> <a name="Note_261" id="Note_261"></a>{261}["The princess" (Asma Sultana, daughter of Achmet +III.) "complained of the barbarity which, at thirteen years of age, +united her to a decrepit old man, who, by treating her like a child, had +inspired her with nothing but disgust."—<i>Memoirs of Baron de Toil</i>, +1786, i. 74. See, too, <i>Mémoires</i>, etc., 1784, i. 84, 85.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317" id="Footnote_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <a name="Note_262" id="Note_262"></a>{262}[The connection between "horns" and Heaven, to which +Byron twice alludes, is not very obvious. The reference may be to the +Biblical "horn of salvation," or to the symbolical horns of Divine glory +as depicted in the Moses of Michel Angelo. Compare <i>Mazeppa</i>, lines 177, +178, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FY" id="Footnote_FY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FY"><span class="label">[FY]</span></a>—— <i>with solemn air and wise</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_FZ" id="Footnote_FZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_FZ"><span class="label">[FZ]</span></a> <i>Virginity in these unhappy climes</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318" id="Footnote_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> <a name="Note_263" id="Note_263"></a>{263}[This stanza, which Byron composed in bed, February +27, 1821 (see <i>Extracts from a Diary, Letters</i>, 1901, v. 209), is not in +the first edition. On discovering the omission, he wrote to Murray: +"Upon what principle have you omitted ... one of the concluding stanzas +sent as an addition?—because it ended, I suppose, with— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'And do not link two virtuous souls for life</p> +<p>Into that moral centaur, man and wife?'</p> +</div></div> +<p> +Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to +take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the +omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis)—particularly +the stanza upon the Turkish marriages."—Letter to Murray, August 31, +1821, ibid., p. 351.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GA" id="Footnote_GA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GA"><span class="label">[GA]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Meanwhile as Homer sometimes sleeps, much more</i></p> +<p><i>The modern muse may be allowed to snore</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_CANTOS_VI_VII_AND_VIII" id="PREFACE_TO_CANTOS_VI_VII_AND_VIII"></a> +PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos +(<i>i.e.</i> the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, entitled +<i>Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie.</i><a name="FNanchor_319" id="FNanchor_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> Some of the incidents attributed +to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of his saving +the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then +a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and +benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be +regarded with reverence.</p> + +<p>In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to +the late Marquis of Londonderry,<a name="FNanchor_320" id="FNanchor_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> but written some time before his +decease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, they would have been +suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death +or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all +whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That +he was an amiable man in <i>private</i> life, may or may not be true: but +with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, +it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. +As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most +despotic in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever +tyrannised over a country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans +that England has been insulted by a <i>minister</i> (at least) who could not +speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in +the language of Mrs. Malaprop.</p> + +<p>Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor +radical, such as Waddington or Watson,<a name="FNanchor_321" id="FNanchor_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> had cut his throat, he would +have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the +stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic—a sentimental +suicide—he merely cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on their +learning!) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of +dolour yelled forth"<a name="FNanchor_322" id="FNanchor_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> by the newspapers—and the harangue of the +Coroner in a eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased—(an Anthony +worthy of such a Cæsar)—and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a +degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and +honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the +law<a name="FNanchor_323" id="FNanchor_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a>—a felon or a madman—and +in either case no great subject for panegyric.<a name="FNanchor_324" id="FNanchor_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> +In his life he was—what all the world knows, and half of it will feel +for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the +surviving Sejani<a name="FNanchor_325" id="FNanchor_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> of Europe. It may at least serve as some +consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in +some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the +sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland +remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall +the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!!!</p> + +<p>With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to +the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with +two quotations from Voltaire:—"La pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et +s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." ... "Plus les moeurs sont dépravés, plus +les expressions deviennent mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce +qu'on a perdu en vertu."</p> + +<p>This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical +mass which leavens the present English generation, and is the only +answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of +Blasphemer—which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc., are +the changes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those +who will listen—should be welcome to all who recollect on <i>whom</i> it was +originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death +publicly as <i>blasphemers</i>, and so have been and may be many who dare to +oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of God and the mind of man. +But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched +infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the +proudest of his assailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do—they +may be right or wrong—but he has suffered for them, and that very +suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than +the example of heterodox<a name="FNanchor_326" id="FNanchor_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> Prelates to Christianity, suicide +statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious +alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!"<a name="FNanchor_327" id="FNanchor_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> I have no +wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if +the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung should +abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this +double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and——but +enough for the present.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319" id="Footnote_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> +<a name="Note_264" id="Note_264"></a>{264}[The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author of an +<i>Essai sur L'Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie</i> (Sec. +Ed. 3 tom. 1827), was, at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met and +made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, Duc de Richelieu, who took part +in the siege of Ismail. M. Léon de Crousaz-Crétet describes him as +"ancien surintendant des théâtres sous l'Empereur Paul."—<i>Le Duc de +Richelieu</i>, 1897, p. 83.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320" id="Footnote_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> +[For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis +of Londonderry (1769-1822), see <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321" id="Footnote_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> +<a name="Note_266" id="Note_266"></a>{266}[Samuel Ferrand Waddington, born 1759, hop-grower +and radical politician, first came into notice as the chairman of public +meetings in favour of making peace with the French in 1793. He was the +author, <i>inter alia</i>, of <i>A Key to a Delicate Investigation</i>, 1812, and +<i>An Address to the People of the United Kingdom</i>, 1812. He was alive in +1822. James Watson (1766-1838), a radical agitator of the following of +Thomas Spence, was engaged, in the autumn of 1816, in an abortive +conspiracy to blow up cavalry barracks, barricade the streets, and seize +the Bank and the Tower. He was tried for high treason before Lord +Ellenborough, and acquitted.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322" id="Footnote_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> [<i>Macbeth</i>, act iv. sc. 3, lines 7, 8.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323" id="Footnote_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> I say by the <i>law</i> of the <i>land</i>—the laws of humanity +judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their +mouths, let them here make the most of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324" id="Footnote_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> [Mr. Joseph Carttar, of Deptford, coroner for the County +of Kent, addressed the jury at some length. The following sentences are +taken from the report of the inquest, contained in <i>The Annual Biography +and Obituary for the year 1823</i>, vol. vii. p. 57: "As a public man, it +is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can +hold. In private life I believe the world will admit that a more amiable +man could not be found.... If it should unfortunately appear that there +is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the +indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some +attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his +proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder. +...The Bible declares that a man clings to nothing so strongly as his +own life, I therefore view it as an axiom, and an abstract principle, +that a man must necessarily be out of his mind at the moment of +destroying himself." Byron, probably, read the report of the inquest in +Cobbett's <i>Weekly Register</i> (August 17, 1822, vol. 43, pp. 389-425). The +"eulogy" was in perfectly good taste, but there can be little doubt that +if "Waddington or Watson" had cut <i>their</i> "carotid arteries," the +verdict would have been different.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325" id="Footnote_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a +genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; +and no man of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, +Lord C. If ever man saved his country, Canning <i>can</i>, but <i>will</i> he? I +for one, hope so. +</p><p> +[The phrase, "great moral lesson," was employed by the Duke of +Wellington, <i>à propos</i> of the restoration of pictures and statues to +their "rightful owners," in a despatch addressed to Castlereagh, under +date, Paris, September 19, 1815 (<i>The Dispatches, etc.</i> (ed. by Colonel +Gurwood), 1847, viii. 270). The words, "moral lesson," as applied to the +French generally, are to be found in Scott's <i>Field of Waterloo</i> +(conclusion, stanza vi. line 3), which was written about the same time +as the despatch. Byron quotes them in his "Ode from the French," stanza +iv. line 8 (see <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 434, note 1). There is a +satirical allusion to the Duke's "assumption of the didactic" about +teaching a "great moral lesson" in the Preface to the first number of +the <i>Liberal</i> (1822, p. xi.).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326" id="Footnote_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <a name="Note_267" id="Note_267"></a>{267}When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the +difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton, the bishop, +replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is <i>my doxy</i>, and heterodoxy is <i>another +man's</i> doxy." A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a +<i>third</i> kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the +elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism." +</p><p> +[For the "prelate," see <i>Letters</i>, 1902, vi. 101, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327" id="Footnote_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> [For the Duke of Wellington and the Holy Alliance, see +the Introduction to <i>The Age of Bronze, Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 538, +561.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_SIXTH" id="CANTO_THE_SIXTH"></a> +CANTO THE SIXTH.<a name="FNanchor_328" id="FNanchor_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"There is a tide in the affairs of men,</p> +<p class="i2">Which,—taken at the flood,"—you know the rest,<a name="FNanchor_329" id="FNanchor_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a></p> +<p>And most of us have found it now and then:</p> +<p class="i2">At least we think so, though but few have guessed</p> +<p>The moment, till too late to come again.</p> +<p class="i2">But no doubt everything is for the best—</p> +<p>Of which the surest sign is in the end:</p> +<p>When things are at the worst they sometimes mend.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is a tide in the affairs of women,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, taken at the flood, leads—God knows where:</p> +<p>Those navigators must be able seamen</p> +<p class="i2">Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair;</p> +<p>Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen<a name="FNanchor_330" id="FNanchor_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a></p> +<p class="i2">With its strange whirls and eddies can compare:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> +<p>Men with their heads reflect on this and that—</p> +<p>But women with their hearts on Heaven knows what!<a name="FNanchor_GB" id="FNanchor_GB"></a><a href="#Footnote_GB" class="fnanchor">[GB]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright She,</p> +<p class="i2">Young, beautiful, and daring—who would risk</p> +<p>A throne—the world—the universe—to be</p> +<p class="i2">Beloved in her own way—and rather whisk</p> +<p>The stars from out the sky, than not be free<a name="FNanchor_GC" id="FNanchor_GC"></a><a href="#Footnote_GC" class="fnanchor">[GC]</a></p> +<p class="i2">As are the billows when the breeze is brisk—</p> +<p>Though such a She's a devil (if there be one),</p> +<p>Yet she would make full many a Manichean.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thrones, worlds, <i>et cetera</i>, are so oft upset</p> +<p class="i2">By commonest ambition, that when Passion</p> +<p>O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,</p> +<p class="i2">Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.</p> +<p>If Anthony be well remembered yet,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is not his conquests keep his name in fashion,</p> +<p>But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes,</p> +<p>Outbalances all Cæsar's victories.<a name="FNanchor_GD" id="FNanchor_GD"></a><a href="#Footnote_GD" class="fnanchor">[GD]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He died at fifty for a queen of forty;</p> +<p class="i2">I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,<a name="FNanchor_GE" id="FNanchor_GE"></a><a href="#Footnote_GE" class="fnanchor">[GE]</a></p> +<p>For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport—I</p> +<p class="i2">Remember when, though I had no great plenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> +<p>Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I</p> +<p class="i2">Gave what I had—a heart;<a name="FNanchor_331" id="FNanchor_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> as the world went, I</p> +<p>Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never</p> +<p>Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was the boy's "mite," and, like the "widow's," may</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now;</p> +<p>But whether such things do or do not weigh,</p> +<p class="i2">All who have loved, or love, will still allow</p> +<p>Life has nought like it. God is Love, they say,</p> +<p class="i2">And Love's a god, or was before the brow</p> +<p>Of Earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears</p> +<p>Of—but Chronology best knows the years.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We left our hero and third heroine in</p> +<p class="i2">A kind of state more awkward than uncommon,</p> +<p>For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin</p> +<p class="i2">For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:</p> +<p>Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,</p> +<p class="i2">And don't agree at all with the wise Roman,</p> +<p>Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,</p> +<p>Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.<a name="FNanchor_332" id="FNanchor_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;</p> +<p class="i2">I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;</p> +<p>But I detest all fiction even in song,</p> +<p class="i2">And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.</p> +<p>Her reason being weak, her passions strong,</p> +<p class="i2">She thought that her Lord's heart (even could she claim it)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p> +<p>Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine</p> +<p>Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I am not, like Cassio, "an arithmetician,"</p> +<p class="i2">But by "the bookish theoric"<a name="FNanchor_333" id="FNanchor_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> it appears,</p> +<p>If 't is summed up with feminine precision,</p> +<p class="i2">That, adding to the account his Highness' years,</p> +<p>The fair Sultana erred from inanition;</p> +<p class="i2">For, were the Sultan just to all his dears,</p> +<p>She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part</p> +<p>Of what should be monopoly—the heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is observed that ladies are litigious</p> +<p class="i2">Upon all legal objects of possession,</p> +<p>And not the least so when they are religious,</p> +<p class="i2">Which doubles what they think of the transgression:</p> +<p>With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,</p> +<p class="i2">As the tribunals show through many a session,</p> +<p>When they suspect that any one goes shares</p> +<p>In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,</p> +<p class="i2">The heathen also, though with lesser latitude,<a name="FNanchor_GF" id="FNanchor_GF"></a><a href="#Footnote_GF" class="fnanchor">[GF]</a></p> +<p>Are apt to carry things with a high hand,</p> +<p class="i2">And take, what Kings call "an imposing attitude;"</p> +<p>And for their rights connubial make a stand,</p> +<p class="i2">When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude;</p> +<p>And as four wives must have quadruple claims,</p> +<p>The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)</p> +<p class="i2">The favourite; but what's favour amongst four?</p> +<p>Polygamy may well be held in dread,</p> +<p class="i2">Not only as a sin, but as a bore:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> +<p>Most wise men with one moderate woman wed,<a name="FNanchor_GG" id="FNanchor_GG"></a><a href="#Footnote_GG" class="fnanchor">[GG]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Will scarcely find philosophy for more;</p> +<p>And all (except Mahometans) forbear</p> +<p>To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."<a name="FNanchor_334" id="FNanchor_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,—<a name="FNanchor_GH" id="FNanchor_GH"></a><a href="#Footnote_GH" class="fnanchor">[GH]</a></p> +<p class="i2">So styled according to the usual forms</p> +<p>Of every monarch, till they are consigned</p> +<p class="i2">To those sad hungry Jacobins the worms,</p> +<p>Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,—</p> +<p class="i2">His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,</p> +<p>Expecting all the welcome of a lover</p> +<p>(A "Highland welcome"<a name="FNanchor_335" id="FNanchor_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> all the wide world over).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er</p> +<p class="i2">Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that,</p> +<p>May look like what it is—neither here nor there,<a name="FNanchor_GI" id="FNanchor_GI"></a><a href="#Footnote_GI" class="fnanchor">[GI]</a></p> +<p class="i2">They are put on as easily as a hat,</p> +<p>Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear,</p> +<p class="i2">Trimmed either heads or hearts to decorate,</p> +<p>Which form an ornament, but no more part</p> +<p>Of heads, than their caresses of the heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind</p> +<p class="i2">Of gentle feminine delight, and shown</p> +<p>More in the eyelids than the eyes, resigned</p> +<p class="i2">Rather to hide what pleases most unknown,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p> +<p>Are the best tokens (to a modest mind)<a name="FNanchor_GJ" id="FNanchor_GJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_GJ" class="fnanchor">[GJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of Love, when seated on his loveliest throne,</p> +<p>A sincere woman's breast,—for over-<i>warm</i></p> +<p>Or over-<i>cold</i> annihilates the charm.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth;</p> +<p class="i2">If true, 't is no great lease of its own fire;</p> +<p>For no one, save in very early youth,</p> +<p class="i2">Would like (I think) to trust all to desire,</p> +<p>Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth,</p> +<p class="i2">And apt to be transferred to the first buyer</p> +<p>At a sad discount: while your over chilly</p> +<p>Women, on t' other hand, seem somewhat silly.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,</p> +<p class="i2">For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,</p> +<p>Who fain would have a mutual flame confessed,</p> +<p class="i2">And see a sentimental passion glow,</p> +<p>Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest,</p> +<p class="i2">In his monastic concubine of snow;—<a name="FNanchor_336" id="FNanchor_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a></p> +<p>In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is</p> +<p>Horatian, "<i>Medio tu tutissimus ibis</i>."<a name="FNanchor_337" id="FNanchor_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The "tu" 's <i>too</i> much,—but let it stand,—the verse</p> +<p class="i2">Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme,</p> +<p>And not the pink of old hexameters;</p> +<p class="i2">But, after all, there's neither tune nor time</p> +<p>In the last line, which cannot well be worse,<a name="FNanchor_GK" id="FNanchor_GK"></a><a href="#Footnote_GK" class="fnanchor">[GK]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And was thrust in to close the octave's chime:</p> +<p>I own no prosody can ever rate it</p> +<p>As a rule, but <i>Truth</i> may, if you translate it.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part,</p> +<p class="i2">I know not—it succeeded, and success</p> +<p>Is much in most things, not less in the heart</p> +<p class="i2">Than other articles of female dress.</p> +<p>Self-love in Man, too, beats all female art;<a name="FNanchor_GL" id="FNanchor_GL"></a><a href="#Footnote_GL" class="fnanchor">[GL]</a></p> +<p class="i2">They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less:</p> +<p>And no one virtue yet, except starvation,</p> +<p>Could stop that worst of vices—propagation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We leave this royal couple to repose:</p> +<p class="i2">A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep,</p> +<p>Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes:</p> +<p class="i2">Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep</p> +<p>As any man's clay mixture undergoes.</p> +<p class="i2">Our least of sorrows are such as we <i>weep</i>;</p> +<p>'T is the vile daily drop on drop which wears</p> +<p>The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.<a name="FNanchor_GM" id="FNanchor_GM"></a><a href="#Footnote_GM" class="fnanchor">[GM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill</p> +<p class="i2">To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted</p> +<p>At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,</p> +<p class="i2">A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted,</p> +<p>A bad old woman making a worse will,<a name="FNanchor_338" id="FNanchor_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted<a name="FNanchor_GN" id="FNanchor_GN"></a><a href="#Footnote_GN" class="fnanchor">[GN]</a></p> +<p>As certain;—these are paltry things, and yet</p> +<p>I've rarely seen the man they did not fret.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'm a philosopher; confound them all!<a name="FNanchor_GO" id="FNanchor_GO"></a><a href="#Footnote_GO" class="fnanchor">[GO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Bills, beasts, and men, and—no! not womankind!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_GP" id="FNanchor_GP"></a><a href="#Footnote_GP" class="fnanchor">[GP]</a></p> +<p>With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,</p> +<p class="i2">And then my Stoicism leaves nought behind</p> +<p>Which it can either pain or evil call,</p> +<p class="i2">And I can give my whole soul up to mind;</p> +<p>Though what <i>is</i> soul, or mind, their birth or growth,</p> +<p>Is more than I know—the deuce take them both!<a name="FNanchor_GQ" id="FNanchor_GQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_GQ" class="fnanchor">[GQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So now all things are damned one feels at ease,</p> +<p class="i2">As after reading Athanasius' curse,</p> +<p>Which doth your true believer so much please:</p> +<p class="i2">I doubt if any now could make it worse</p> +<p>O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is so sententious, positive, and terse,</p> +<p>And decorates the Book of Common Prayer,</p> +<p>As doth a rainbow the just clearing air.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or</p> +<p class="i2">At least one of them!—Oh, the heavy night,</p> +<p>When wicked wives, who love some bachelor,<a name="FNanchor_GR" id="FNanchor_GR"></a><a href="#Footnote_GR" class="fnanchor">[GR]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light</p> +<p>Of the grey morning, and look vainly for</p> +<p class="i2">Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite—</p> +<p>To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake</p> +<p>Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake!<a name="FNanchor_GS" id="FNanchor_GS"></a><a href="#Footnote_GS" class="fnanchor">[GS]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These are beneath the canopy of heaven,</p> +<p class="i2">Also beneath the canopy of beds</p> +<p>Four-posted and silk-curtained, which are given</p> +<p class="i2">For rich men and their brides to lay their heads</p> +<p>Upon, in sheets white as what bards call "driven</p> +<p class="i2">Snow,"<a name="FNanchor_339" id="FNanchor_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> +<p>Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been</p> +<p>Perhaps as wretched if a <i>peasants quean</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan in his feminine disguise,<a name="FNanchor_340" id="FNanchor_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a></p> +<p class="i2">With all the damsels in their long array,</p> +<p>Had bowed themselves before th' imperial eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And at the usual signal ta'en their way</p> +<p>Back to their chambers, those long galleries</p> +<p class="i2">In the seraglio, where the ladies lay</p> +<p>Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there</p> +<p>Beating for Love, as the caged bird's for air.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse</p> +<p class="i2">The Tyrant's<a name="FNanchor_341" id="FNanchor_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> wish, "that Mankind only had</p> +<p>One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:"</p> +<p class="i2">My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,<a name="FNanchor_GT" id="FNanchor_GT"></a><a href="#Footnote_GT" class="fnanchor">[GT]</a></p> +<p>And much more tender on the whole than fierce;</p> +<p class="i2">It being (not <i>now</i>, but only while a lad)</p> +<p>That Womankind had but one rosy mouth,<a name="FNanchor_GU" id="FNanchor_GU"></a><a href="#Footnote_GU" class="fnanchor">[GU]</a></p> +<p>To kiss them all at once from North to South.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands</p> +<p class="i2">And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied</p> +<p>In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands</p> +<p class="i2">The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> +<p>Or travelling in Patagonian lands;</p> +<p class="i2">So let us back to Lilliput, and guide</p> +<p>Our hero through the labyrinth of Love</p> +<p>In which we left him several lines above.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,<a name="FNanchor_342" id="FNanchor_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a></p> +<p class="i2">At the given signal joined to their array;</p> +<p>And though he certainly ran many risks,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet he could not at times keep, by the way,</p> +<p>(Although the consequences of such frisks</p> +<p class="i2">Are worse than the worst damages men pay</p> +<p>In moral England, where the thing's a tax,)</p> +<p>From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Still he forgot not his disguise:—along</p> +<p class="i2">The galleries from room to room they walked,</p> +<p>A virgin-like and edifying throng,</p> +<p class="i2">By eunuchs flanked; while at their head there stalked</p> +<p>A dame who kept up discipline among</p> +<p class="i2">The female ranks, so that none stirred or talked,</p> +<p>Without her sanction on their she-parades:</p> +<p>Her title was "the Mother of the Maids."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether she was a "Mother," I know not,</p> +<p class="i2">Or whether they were "Maids" who called her Mother;</p> +<p>But this is her Seraglio title, got</p> +<p class="i2">I know not how, but good as any other;</p> +<p>So Cantemir<a name="FNanchor_343" id="FNanchor_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> can tell you, or De Tott:<a name="FNanchor_344" id="FNanchor_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Her office was to keep aloof or smother</p> +<p>All bad propensities in fifteen hundred</p> +<p>Young women, and correct them when they blundered.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p><h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made</p> +<p class="i2">More easy by the absence of all men—</p> +<p>Except his Majesty,—who, with her aid,</p> +<p class="i2">And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then</p> +<p>A slight example, just to cast a shade</p> +<p class="i2">Along the rest, contrived to keep this den</p> +<p>Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,</p> +<p>Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And what is that? Devotion, doubtless—how</p> +<p class="i2">Could you ask such a question?—but we will</p> +<p>Continue. As I said, this goodly row</p> +<p class="i2">Of ladies of all countries at the will<a name="FNanchor_345" id="FNanchor_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a></p> +<p>Of one good man, with stately march and slow,</p> +<p class="i2">Like water-lilies floating down a rill—</p> +<p>Or rather lake—for <i>rills</i> do <i>not</i> run <i>slowly</i>,—</p> +<p>Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But when they reached their own apartments, there,</p> +<p class="i2">Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,</p> +<p>Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere</p> +<p class="i2">When freed from bonds (which are of no great use</p> +<p>After all), or like Irish at a fair,</p> +<p class="i2">Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce</p> +<p>Established between them and bondage, they</p> +<p>Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer;</p> +<p class="i2">Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything:</p> +<p>Some thought her dress did not so much become her,</p> +<p class="i2">Or wondered at her ears without a ring;</p> +<p>Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,</p> +<p class="i2">Others contended they were but in spring;</p> +<p>Some thought her rather masculine in height,</p> +<p>While others wished that she had been so quite.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But no one doubted on the whole, that she</p> +<p class="i2">Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,</p> +<p>And fresh, and "beautiful exceedingly,"<a name="FNanchor_346" id="FNanchor_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Who with the brightest Georgians<a name="FNanchor_347" id="FNanchor_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> might compare:</p> +<p>They wondered how Gulbeyaz, too, could be</p> +<p class="i2">So silly as to buy slaves who might share</p> +<p>(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)</p> +<p>Her Throne and Power, and everything beside.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what was strangest in this virgin crew,</p> +<p class="i2">Although her beauty was enough to vex,</p> +<p>After the first investigating view,</p> +<p class="i2">They all found out as few, or fewer, specks</p> +<p>In the fair form of their companion new,</p> +<p class="i2">Than is the custom of the gentle sex,</p> +<p>When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,</p> +<p>In a new face "the ugliest creature breathing."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And yet they had their little jealousies,</p> +<p class="i2">Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,</p> +<p>Whether there are such things as sympathies</p> +<p class="i2">Without our knowledge or our approbation,</p> +<p>Although they could not see through his disguise,</p> +<p class="i2">All felt a soft kind of concatenation,</p> +<p>Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what</p> +<p>You please—we will not quarrel about that:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But certain 't is they all felt for their new</p> +<p class="i2">Companion something newer still, as 't were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> +<p>A sentimental friendship through and through,</p> +<p class="i2">Extremely pure, which made them all concur</p> +<p>In wishing her their sister, save a few</p> +<p class="i2">Who wished they had a brother just like her,</p> +<p>Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,</p> +<p>They would prefer to Padisha<a name="FNanchor_348" id="FNanchor_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> or Pacha.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of those who had most genius for this sort</p> +<p class="i2">Of sentimental friendship, there were three,</p> +<p>Lolah, Katinka,<a name="FNanchor_349" id="FNanchor_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> and Dudù—in short</p> +<p class="i2">(To save description), fair as fair can be</p> +<p>Were they, according to the best report,</p> +<p class="i2">Though differing in stature and degree,</p> +<p>And clime and time, and country and complexion—</p> +<p>They all alike admired their new connection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;</p> +<p class="i2">Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,</p> +<p>With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,</p> +<p class="i2">And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread,</p> +<p>But rather skim the earth; while Dudù's form</p> +<p class="i2">Looked more adapted to be put to bed,</p> +<p>Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy,</p> +<p>Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudù,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet very fit to "murder sleep"<a name="FNanchor_350" id="FNanchor_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> in those</p> +<p>Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue,</p> +<p class="i2">Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose:</p> +<p>Few angles were there in her form, 't is true,</p> +<p class="i2">Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose;</p> +<p>Yet, after all, 't would puzzle to say where</p> +<p>It would not spoil some separate charm to <i>pare</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was not violently lively, but</p> +<p class="i2">Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;</p> +<p>Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,</p> +<p class="i2">They put beholders in a tender taking;</p> +<p>She looked (this simile's quite new) just cut</p> +<p class="i2">From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,</p> +<p>The mortal and the marble still at strife,</p> +<p>And timidly expanding into Life.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lolah demanded the new damsel's name—</p> +<p class="i2">"Juanna."—Well, a pretty name enough.</p> +<p>Katinka asked her also whence she came—</p> +<p class="i2">"From Spain."—"But where <i>is</i> Spain?"—"Don't ask such stuff,</p> +<p>Nor show your Georgian ignorance—for shame!"</p> +<p class="i2">Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough,</p> +<p>To poor Katinka: "Spain's an island near</p> +<p>Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dudù said nothing, but sat down beside</p> +<p class="i2">Juanna, playing with her veil or hair;</p> +<p>And, looking at her steadfastly, she sighed,</p> +<p class="i2">As if she pitied her for being there,</p> +<p>A pretty stranger without friend or guide,</p> +<p class="i2">And all abashed, too, at the general stare</p> +<p>Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places,</p> +<p>With kind remarks upon their mien and faces.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here the Mother of the Maids drew near,</p> +<p class="i2">With "Ladies, it is time to go to rest.</p> +<p>I'm puzzled what to do with <i>you</i>, my dear!"</p> +<p class="i2">She added to Juanna, their new guest:</p> +<p>"Your coming has been unexpected here,</p> +<p class="i2">And every couch is occupied; you had best</p> +<p>Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early</p> +<p>We will have all things settled for you fairly."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here Lolah interposed—"Mamma, you know</p> +<p class="i2">You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear</p> +<p>That anybody should disturb you so;</p> +<p class="i2">I'll take Juanna; we're a slenderer pair</p> +<p>Than you would make the half of;—don't say no;</p> +<p class="i2">And I of your young charge will take due care."</p> +<p>But here Katinka interfered, and said,</p> +<p>"She also had compassion and a bed."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Besides, I hate to sleep alone," quoth she.</p> +<p class="i2">The matron frowned: "Why so?"—"For fear of ghosts,"</p> +<p>Replied Katinka; "I am sure I see</p> +<p class="i2">A phantom upon each of the four posts;</p> +<p>And then I have the worst dreams that can be,</p> +<p class="i2">Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts."</p> +<p>The dame replied, "Between your dreams and you,</p> +<p>I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You, Lolah, must continue still to lie</p> +<p class="i2">Alone, for reasons which don't matter; you</p> +<p>The same, Katinka, until by and by:</p> +<p class="i2">And I shall place Juanna with Dudù,</p> +<p>Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy,</p> +<p class="i2">And will not toss and chatter the night through.</p> +<p>What say you, child?"—Dudù said nothing, as</p> +<p>Her talents were of the more silent class;</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But she rose up, and kissed the matron's brow</p> +<p class="i2">Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks,</p> +<p>Katinka too; and with a gentle bow</p> +<p class="i2">(Curt'sies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks)</p> +<p>She took Juanna by the hand to show</p> +<p class="i2">Their place of rest, and left to both their piques,</p> +<p>The others pouting at the matron's preference</p> +<p>Of Dudù, though they held their tongues from deference.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was a spacious chamber (Oda is</p> +<p class="i2">The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall</p> +<p>Were couches, toilets—and much more than this</p> +<p class="i2">I might describe, as I have seen it all,</p> +<p>But it suffices—little was amiss;</p> +<p class="i2">'T was on the whole a nobly furnished hall,</p> +<p>With all things ladies want, save one or two,</p> +<p>And even those were nearer than they knew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,</p> +<p class="i2">Not very dashing, but extremely winning,</p> +<p>With the most regulated charms of feature,</p> +<p class="i2">Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning</p> +<p>Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature</p> +<p class="i2">Which they hit off at once in the beginning,</p> +<p>Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,</p> +<p>And pleasing, or unpleasing, still are like.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,</p> +<p class="i2">Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,</p> +<p>Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it</p> +<p>Than are your mighty passions and so forth,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, some call "the Sublime:" I wish they'd try it:</p> +<p>I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,</p> +<p>And pity lovers rather more than seamen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But she was pensive more than melancholy,</p> +<p class="i2">And serious more than pensive, and serene,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p> +<p>It may be, more than either—not unholy</p> +<p class="i2">Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.</p> +<p>The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly</p> +<p class="i2">Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen,</p> +<p>That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;</p> +<p>She never thought about herself at all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore was she kind and gentle as</p> +<p class="i2">The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown,</p> +<p>By which its nomenclature came to pass;<a name="FNanchor_GV" id="FNanchor_GV"></a><a href="#Footnote_GV" class="fnanchor">[GV]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Thus most appropriately has been shown</p> +<p>"Lucus à <i>non</i> lucendo," <i>not</i> what <i>was</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">But what <i>was not</i>; a sort of style that's grown</p> +<p>Extremely common in this age, whose metal</p> +<p>The Devil may decompose, but never settle:<a name="FNanchor_GW" id="FNanchor_GW"></a><a href="#Footnote_GW" class="fnanchor">[GW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think it may be of "Corinthian Brass,"<a name="FNanchor_351" id="FNanchor_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which was a mixture of all metals, but</p> +<p>The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass</p> +<p class="i2">This long parenthesis: I could not shut</p> +<p>It sooner for the soul of me, and class</p> +<p class="i2">My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put</p> +<p>A kind construction upon them and me:</p> +<p>But <i>that</i> you won't—then don't—I am not less free.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is time we should return to plain narration,</p> +<p class="i2">And thus my narrative proceeds:—Dudù,</p> +<p>With every kindness short of ostentation,</p> +<p class="i2">Showed Juan, or Juanna, through and through</p> +<p>This labyrinth of females, and each station</p> +<p class="i2">Described—what's strange—in words extremely few:</p> +<p>I have but one simile, and that's a blunder,</p> +<p>For wordless woman, which is <i>silent</i> thunder.<a name="FNanchor_GX" id="FNanchor_GX"></a><a href="#Footnote_GX" class="fnanchor">[GX]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And next she gave her (I say <i>her</i>, because</p> +<p class="i2">The gender still was epicene, at least</p> +<p>In outward show, which is a saving clause)</p> +<p class="i2">An outline of the customs of the East,</p> +<p>With all their chaste integrity of laws,</p> +<p class="i2">By which the more a Harem is increased,</p> +<p>The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties</p> +<p>Of any supernumerary beauties.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:</p> +<p class="i2">Dudú was fond of kissing—which I'm sure</p> +<p>That nobody can ever take amiss,</p> +<p class="i2">Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure,</p> +<p>And between females means no more than this—</p> +<p class="i2">That they have nothing better near, or newer.</p> +<p>"Kiss" rhymes to "bliss" in fact as well as verse—</p> +<p>I wish it never led to something worse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In perfect innocence she then unmade</p> +<p class="i2">Her toilet, which cost little, for she was</p> +<p>A child of Nature, carelessly arrayed:</p> +<p class="i2">If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,</p> +<p>'T was like the fawn, which, in the lake displayed,</p> +<p class="i2">Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,</p> +<p>When first she starts, and then returns to peep,</p> +<p>Admiring this new native of the deep.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And one by one her articles of dress</p> +<p class="i2">Were laid aside; but not before she offered</p> +<p>Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess</p> +<p class="i2">Of modesty declined the assistance proffered:</p> +<p>Which passed well off—as she could do no less;</p> +<p class="i2">Though by this <i>politesse</i> she rather suffered,</p> +<p>Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins,</p> +<p>Which surely were invented for our sins,—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Making a woman like a porcupine,</p> +<p class="i2">Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> +<p>Oh ye! whose fate it is, as once 't was mine,</p> +<p class="i2">In early youth, to turn a lady's maid;—</p> +<p>I did my very boyish best to shine</p> +<p class="i2">In tricking her out for a masquerade:</p> +<p>The pins were placed sufficiently, but not</p> +<p>Stuck all exactly in the proper spot.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But these are foolish things to all the wise,</p> +<p class="i2">And I love Wisdom more than she loves me;</p> +<p>My tendency is to philosophise</p> +<p class="i2">On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;</p> +<p>But still the spouseless virgin <i>Knowledge</i> flies.</p> +<p class="i2">What are we? and whence came we? what shall be</p> +<p>Our <i>ultimate</i> existence? what's our present?</p> +<p>Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was deep silence in the chamber: dim</p> +<p class="i2">And distant from each other burned the lights,</p> +<p>And slumber hovered o'er each lovely limb</p> +<p class="i2">Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,</p> +<p>They should have walked there in their sprightliest trim,</p> +<p class="i2">By way of change from their sepulchral sites,</p> +<p>And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste</p> +<p>Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Many and beautiful lay those around,</p> +<p class="i2">Like flowers of different hue, and clime, and root,</p> +<p>In some exotic garden sometimes found,</p> +<p class="i2">With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot.</p> +<p>One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,</p> +<p class="i2">And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit</p> +<p>Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath,</p> +<p>And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,</p> +<p class="i2">And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd</p> +<p>Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;</p> +<p class="i2">And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> +<p>The moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm,</p> +<p class="i2">As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,</p> +<p>Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night</p> +<p>All bashfully to struggle into light.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is no bull, although it sounds so; for</p> +<p class="i2">'T was night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.</p> +<p>A third's all pallid aspect offered more</p> +<p class="i2">The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betrayed</p> +<p>Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore</p> +<p class="i2">Belovéd and deplored; while slowly strayed</p> +<p>(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges</p> +<p>The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,</p> +<p class="i2">Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep;</p> +<p>White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill,</p> +<p class="i2">Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,</p> +<p>Or Lot's wife done in salt,—or what you will;—</p> +<p class="i2">My similes are gathered in a heap,</p> +<p>So pick and choose—perhaps you'll be content</p> +<p>With a carved lady on a monument.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And lo! a fifth appears;—and what is she?</p> +<p class="i2">A lady of a "certain age,"<a name="FNanchor_352" id="FNanchor_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> which means</p> +<p>Certainly agéd—what her years might be</p> +<p class="i2">I know not, never counting past their teens;</p> +<p>But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,</p> +<p class="i2">As ere that awful period intervenes</p> +<p>Which lays both men and women on the shelf,</p> +<p>To meditate upon their sins and self.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But all this time how slept, or dreamed, Dudú?</p> +<p class="i2">With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> +<p>And scorn to add a syllable untrue;</p> +<p class="i2">But ere the middle watch was hardly over,</p> +<p>Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,</p> +<p class="i2">And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover,</p> +<p>To those who like their company, about</p> +<p>The apartment, on a sudden she screamed out:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And that so loudly, that upstarted all</p> +<p class="i2">The Oda, in a general commotion:</p> +<p>Matron and maids, and those whom you may call</p> +<p class="i2">Neither, came crowding like the waves of Ocean,</p> +<p>One on the other, throughout the whole hall,</p> +<p class="i2">All trembling, wondering, without the least notion</p> +<p>More than I have myself of what could make</p> +<p>The calm Dudù so turbulently wake.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But wide awake she was, and round her bed,</p> +<p class="i2">With floating draperies and with flying hair,</p> +<p>With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread,</p> +<p class="i2">And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare,</p> +<p>And bright as any meteor ever bred</p> +<p class="i2">By the North Pole,—they sought her cause of care,</p> +<p>For she seemed agitated, flushed, and frightened,</p> +<p>Her eye dilated, and her colour heightened.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what is strange—and a strong proof how great</p> +<p class="i2">A blessing is sound sleep—Juanna lay</p> +<p>As fast as ever husband by his mate</p> +<p class="i2">In holy matrimony snores away.</p> +<p>Not all the clamour broke her happy state</p> +<p class="i2">Of slumber, ere they shook her,—so they say</p> +<p>At least,—and then she, too, unclosed her eyes,</p> +<p>And yawned a good deal with discreet surprise.<a name="FNanchor_GY" id="FNanchor_GY"></a><a href="#Footnote_GY" class="fnanchor">[GY]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now commenced a strict investigation,</p> +<p class="i2">Which, as all spoke at once, and more than once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> +<p>Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,</p> +<p class="i2">Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce</p> +<p>To answer in a very clear oration.</p> +<p class="i2">Dudú had never passed for wanting sense,</p> +<p>But being "no orator as Brutus is,"<a name="FNanchor_353" id="FNanchor_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a></p> +<p>Could not at first expound what was amiss.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At length she said, that in a slumber sound</p> +<p class="i2">She dreamed a dream, of walking in a wood—</p> +<p>A "wood obscure," like that where Dante found<a name="FNanchor_354" id="FNanchor_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Himself in at the age when all grow good;<a name="FNanchor_GZ" id="FNanchor_GZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_GZ" class="fnanchor">[GZ]</a></p> +<p>Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crowned</p> +<p class="i2">Run much less risk of lovers turning rude;</p> +<p>And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits,</p> +<p>And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And in the midst a golden apple grew,—</p> +<p class="i2">A most prodigious pippin—but it hung</p> +<p>Rather too high and distant; that she threw</p> +<p class="i2">Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung</p> +<p>Stones and whatever she could pick up, to</p> +<p class="i2">Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung</p> +<p>To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,</p> +<p>But always at a most provoking height;<a name="FNanchor_HA" id="FNanchor_HA"></a><a href="#Footnote_HA" class="fnanchor">[HA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That on a sudden, when she least had hope,</p> +<p class="i2">It fell down of its own accord before</p> +<p>Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop</p> +<p class="i2">And pick it up, and bite it to the core;</p> +<p>That just as her young lip began to ope<a name="FNanchor_HB" id="FNanchor_HB"></a><a href="#Footnote_HB" class="fnanchor">[HB]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> +<p>A bee flew out, and stung her to the heart,</p> +<p>And so—she woke with a great scream and start.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All this she told with some confusion and</p> +<p class="i2">Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams</p> +<p>Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand</p> +<p class="i2">To expound their vain and visionary gleams.</p> +<p>I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned</p> +<p class="i2">Prophetically, or that which one deems</p> +<p>A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase</p> +<p>By which such things are settled now-a-days.<a name="FNanchor_355" id="FNanchor_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,</p> +<p class="i2">Began, as is the consequence of fear,</p> +<p>To scold a little at the false alarm</p> +<p class="i2">That broke for nothing on their sleeping ear.</p> +<p>The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm</p> +<p class="i2">Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,</p> +<p>And chafed at poor Dudù, who only sighed,</p> +<p>And said, that she was sorry she had cried.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I've heard of stories of a cock and bull;</p> +<p class="i2">But visions of an apple and a bee,</p> +<p>To take us from our natural rest, and pull</p> +<p class="i2">The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,</p> +<p>Would make us think the moon is at its full.</p> +<p class="i2">You surely are unwell, child! we must see,</p> +<p>To-morrow, what his Highness's physician</p> +<p>Will say to this hysteric of a vision.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"And poor Juanna, too, the child's first night</p> +<p class="i2">Within these walls, to be broke in upon</p> +<p>With such a clamour—I had thought it right</p> +<p class="i2">That the young stranger should not lie alone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> +<p>And, as the quietest of all, she might</p> +<p class="i2">With you, Dudù, a good night's rest have known:</p> +<p>But now I must transfer her to the charge</p> +<p>Of Lolah—though her couch is not so large."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition;</p> +<p class="i2">But poor Dudù, with large drops in her own,</p> +<p>Resulting from the scolding or the vision,</p> +<p class="i2">Implored that present pardon might be shown</p> +<p>For this first fault, and that on no condition</p> +<p class="i2">(She added in a soft and piteous tone)</p> +<p>Juanna should be taken from her, and</p> +<p>Her future dreams should be all kept in hand.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She promised never more to have a dream,</p> +<p class="i2">At least to dream so loudly as just now;</p> +<p>She wondered at herself how she could scream—</p> +<p class="i2">'T was foolish, nervous, as she must allow,</p> +<p>A fond hallucination, and a theme</p> +<p class="i2">For laughter—but she felt her spirits low,</p> +<p>And begged they would excuse her; she'd get over</p> +<p>This weakness in a few hours, and recover.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And here Juanna kindly interposed,</p> +<p class="i2">And said she felt herself extremely well</p> +<p>Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed,</p> +<p class="i2">When all around rang like a tocsin bell;</p> +<p>She did not find herself the least disposed</p> +<p class="i2">To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell</p> +<p>Apart from one who had no sin to show,</p> +<p>Save that of dreaming once "mal-à-propos."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As thus Juanna spoke, Dudù turned round</p> +<p class="i2">And hid her face within Juanna's breast:</p> +<p>Her neck alone was seen, but that was found</p> +<p class="i2">The colour of a budding rose's crest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_HC" id="FNanchor_HC"></a><a href="#Footnote_HC" class="fnanchor">[HC]</a></p> +<p>I can't tell why she blushed, nor can expound</p> +<p class="i2">The mystery of this rupture of their test;</p> +<p>All that I know is, that the facts I state</p> +<p>Are true as Truth has ever been of late,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so good night to them,—or, if you will,</p> +<p class="i2">Good morrow—for the cock had crown, and light</p> +<p>Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,</p> +<p class="i2">And the mosque crescent struggled into sight</p> +<p>Of the long caravan, which in the chill</p> +<p class="i2">Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height</p> +<p>That stretches to the stony belt, which girds</p> +<p>Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.<a name="FNanchor_356" id="FNanchor_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,</p> +<p class="i2">Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale</p> +<p>As Passion rises, with its bosom worn,</p> +<p class="i2">Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, and veil.</p> +<p>The Nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,</p> +<p class="i2">Which fable places in her breast of wail,</p> +<p>Is lighter far of heart and voice than those</p> +<p>Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And that's the moral of this composition,</p> +<p class="i2">If people would but see its real drift;—</p> +<p>But <i>that</i> they will not do without suspicion,</p> +<p class="i2">Because all gentle readers have the gift</p> +<p>Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision:</p> +<p class="i2">While gentle writers also love to lift</p> +<p>Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural,</p> +<p>The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Rose the Sultana from a bed of splendour,</p> +<p class="i2">Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_357" id="FNanchor_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a></p> +<p>Aloud because his feelings were too tender</p> +<p class="i2">To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,—</p> +<p>So beautiful that Art could little mend her,</p> +<p class="i2">Though pale with conflicts between Love and Pride;—</p> +<p>So agitated was she with her error,</p> +<p>She did not even look into the mirror.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also arose about the self-same time,</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps a little later, her great Lord,</p> +<p>Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">And of a wife by whom he was abhorred;</p> +<p>A thing of much less import in that clime—</p> +<p class="i2">At least to those of incomes which afford</p> +<p>The filling up their whole connubial cargo—</p> +<p>Than where two wives are under an embargo.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He did not think much on the matter, nor</p> +<p class="i2">Indeed on any other: as a man</p> +<p>He liked to have a handsome paramour</p> +<p class="i2">At hand, as one may like to have a fan,</p> +<p>And therefore of Circassians had good store,</p> +<p class="i2">As an amusement after the Divan;</p> +<p>Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,</p> +<p>Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now he rose; and after due ablutions</p> +<p class="i2">Exacted by the customs of the East,</p> +<p>And prayers and other pious evolutions,</p> +<p class="i2">He drank six cups of coffee at the least,</p> +<p>And then withdrew to hear about the Russians,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose victories had recently increased</p> +<p>In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still adores,</p> +<p>As greatest of all sovereigns and w——s.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander!<a name="FNanchor_HD" id="FNanchor_HD"></a><a href="#Footnote_HD" class="fnanchor">[HD]</a><a name="FNanchor_358" id="FNanchor_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p> +<p>Thine ear, if it should reach—and now rhymes wander</p> +<p class="i2">Almost as far as Petersburgh, and lend</p> +<p>A dreadful impulse to each loud meander</p> +<p class="i2">Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend</p> +<p>Their roar even with the Baltic's—so you be</p> +<p>Your father's son, 't is quite enough for me.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To call men love-begotten, or proclaim<a name="FNanchor_HE" id="FNanchor_HE"></a><a href="#Footnote_HE" class="fnanchor">[HE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon,</p> +<p>That hater of Mankind, would be a shame,</p> +<p class="i2">A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on:</p> +<p>But people's ancestors are History's game;<a name="FNanchor_HF" id="FNanchor_HF"></a><a href="#Footnote_HF" class="fnanchor">[HF]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And if one Lady's slip could leave a crime on</p> +<p>All generations, I should like to know</p> +<p>What pedigree the best would have to show?<a name="FNanchor_359" id="FNanchor_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Had Catherine and the Sultan understood</p> +<p class="i2">Their own true interests, which Kings rarely know,</p> +<p>Until 't is taught by lessons rather rude,</p> +<p class="i2">There was a way to end their strife, although</p> +<p>Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good,</p> +<p class="i2">Without the aid of Prince or Plenipo:</p> +<p>She to dismiss her guards and he his Harem,</p> +<p>And for their other matters, meet and share 'em.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But as it was, his Highness had to hold</p> +<p class="i2">His daily council upon ways and means</p> +<p>How to encounter with this martial scold,</p> +<p class="i2">This modern Amazon and Queen of queans;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> +<p>And the perplexity could not be told</p> +<p class="i2">Of all the pillars of the State, which leans</p> +<p>Sometimes a little heavy on the backs</p> +<p>Of those who cannot lay on a new tax.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Meantime Gulbeyaz when her King was gone,</p> +<p class="i2">Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place</p> +<p>For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone,</p> +<p class="i2">And rich with all contrivances which grace</p> +<p>Those gay recesses:—many a precious stone</p> +<p class="i2">Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase</p> +<p>Of porcelain held in the fettered flowers,</p> +<p>Those captive soothers of a captive's hours.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble,</p> +<p class="i2">Vied with each other on this costly spot;</p> +<p>And singing birds without were heard to warble;</p> +<p class="i2">And the stained glass which lighted this fair grot</p> +<p>Varied each ray;—but all descriptions garble</p> +<p class="i2">The true effect,<a name="FNanchor_360" id="FNanchor_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> and so we had better not</p> +<p>Be too minute; an outline is the best,—</p> +<p>A lively reader's fancy does the rest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And here she summoned Baba, and required</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan at his hands, and information</p> +<p>Of what had passed since all the slaves retired,</p> +<p class="i2">And whether he had occupied their station:</p> +<p>If matters had been managed as desired,</p> +<p class="i2">And his disguise with due consideration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> +<p>Kept up; and above all, the where and how</p> +<p>He had passed the night, was what she wished to know.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Baba, with some embarrassment, replied</p> +<p class="i2">To this long catechism of questions, asked</p> +<p>More easily than answered,—that he had tried</p> +<p class="i2">His best to obey in what he had been tasked;</p> +<p>But there seemed something that he wished to hide,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Hesitation more betrayed than masked;</p> +<p>He scratched his ear, the infallible resource</p> +<p>To which embarrassed people have recourse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed;</p> +<p>She liked quick answers in all conversations;</p> +<p class="i2">And when she saw him stumbling like a steed</p> +<p>In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones;</p> +<p class="i2">And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed,</p> +<p>Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle,</p> +<p>And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew</p> +<p class="i2">To bode him no great good, he deprecated</p> +<p>Her anger, and beseeched she'd hear him through—</p> +<p class="i2">He could not help the thing which he related:</p> +<p>Then out it came at length, that to Dudù</p> +<p class="i2">Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated;</p> +<p>But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on</p> +<p>The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The chief dame of the Oda,<a name="FNanchor_361" id="FNanchor_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> upon whom</p> +<p class="i2">The discipline of the whole Harem bore,</p> +<p>As soon as they re-entered their own room,</p> +<p class="i2">For Baba's function stopped short at the door,</p> +<p>Had settled all; nor could he then presume</p> +<p class="i2">(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> +<p>Without exciting such suspicion as</p> +<p>Might make the matter still worse than it was.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure,</p> +<p class="i2">Juan had not betrayed himself; in fact</p> +<p>'T was certain that his conduct had been pure,</p> +<p class="i2">Because a foolish or imprudent act</p> +<p>Would not alone have made him insecure,</p> +<p class="i2">But ended in his being found out and <i>sacked,</i></p> +<p>And thrown into the sea.—Thus Baba spoke</p> +<p>Of all save Dudù's dream, which was no joke.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This he discreetly kept in the back ground,</p> +<p class="i2">And talked away—and might have talked till now,</p> +<p>For any further answer that he found,</p> +<p class="i2">So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow:</p> +<p>Her cheek turned ashes, ears rung, brain whirled round,</p> +<p class="i2">As if she had received a sudden blow,</p> +<p>And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly</p> +<p>O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Although she was not of the fainting sort,</p> +<p class="i2">Baba thought she would faint, but there he erred—</p> +<p>It was but a convulsion, which though short</p> +<p class="i2">Can never be described; we all have heard,<a name="FNanchor_HG" id="FNanchor_HG"></a><a href="#Footnote_HG" class="fnanchor">[HG]</a></p> +<p>And some of us have felt thus "<i>all amort</i>"<a name="FNanchor_362" id="FNanchor_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a></p> +<p class="i2">When things beyond the common have occurred;—</p> +<p>Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony</p> +<p>What she could ne'er express—then how should I?</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p><h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She stood a moment as a Pythoness</p> +<p class="i2">Stands on her tripod, agonized, and full</p> +<p>Of inspiration gathered from distress,</p> +<p class="i2">When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull</p> +<p>The heart asunder;—then, as more or less</p> +<p class="i2">Their speed abated or their strength grew dull,</p> +<p>She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees,</p> +<p>And bowed her throbbing head o'er trembling knees.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her face declined and was unseen; her hair</p> +<p class="i2">Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow,</p> +<p>Sweeping the marble underneath her chair,</p> +<p class="i2">Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow,</p> +<p>A low, soft ottoman), and black Despair</p> +<p class="i2">Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow,</p> +<p>Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check</p> +<p>Its farther course, but must receive its wreck.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping</p> +<p class="i2">Concealed her features better than a veil;</p> +<p>And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping,</p> +<p class="i2">White, waxen, and as alabaster pale:</p> +<p>Would that I were a painter! to be grouping</p> +<p class="i2">All that a poet drags into detail!</p> +<p>Oh that my words were colours! but their tints</p> +<p>May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Baba, who knew by experience when to talk</p> +<p class="i2">And when to hold his tongue, now held it till</p> +<p>This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk</p> +<p class="i2">Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will.</p> +<p>At length she rose up, and began to walk</p> +<p class="i2">Slowly along the room, but silent still,</p> +<p>And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye;</p> +<p>The wind was down, but still the sea ran high.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She stopped, and raised her head to speak—but paused</p> +<p class="i2">And then moved on again with rapid pace;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> +<p>Then slackened it, which is the march most caused</p> +<p class="i2">By deep emotion:—you may sometimes trace</p> +<p>A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed</p> +<p class="i2">By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased</p> +<p>By all the demons of all passions, showed</p> +<p>Their work even by the way in which he trode<a name="FNanchor_363" id="FNanchor_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gulbeyaz stopped and beckoned Baba:—"Slave!</p> +<p class="i2">Bring the two slaves!" she said in a low tone,</p> +<p>But one which Baba did not like to brave,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet he shuddered, and seemed rather prone</p> +<p>To prove reluctant, and begged leave to crave</p> +<p class="i2">(Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown</p> +<p>What slaves her Highness wished to indicate,</p> +<p>For fear of any error, like the late.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The Georgian and her paramour," replied</p> +<p class="i2">The Imperial Bride—and added, "Let the boat</p> +<p>Be ready by the secret portal's side:</p> +<p class="i2">You know the rest." The words stuck in her throat,</p> +<p>Despite her injured love and fiery pride;</p> +<p class="i2">And of this Baba willingly took note,</p> +<p>And begged by every hair of Mahomet's beard,</p> +<p>She would revoke the order he had heard.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"To hear is to obey," he said; "but still,</p> +<p class="i2">Sultana, think upon the consequence:</p> +<p>It is not that I shall not all fulfil</p> +<p class="i2">Your orders, even in their severest sense;</p> +<p>But such precipitation may end ill,</p> +<p class="i2">Even at your own imperative expense:</p> +<p>I do not mean destruction and exposure,</p> +<p>In case of any premature disclosure;</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But your own feelings. Even should all the rest</p> +<p class="i2">Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide</p> +<p>Already many a once love-beaten breast</p> +<p class="i2">Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide—</p> +<p>You love this boyish, new, Seraglio guest,</p> +<p class="i2">And if this violent remedy be tried—</p> +<p>Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you,</p> +<p>That killing him is not the way to cure you."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"What dost thou know of Love or feeling?—Wretch!</p> +<p class="i2">Begone!" she cried, with kindling eyes—"and do</p> +<p>My bidding!" Baba vanished, for to stretch</p> +<p class="i2">His own remonstrance further he well knew</p> +<p>Might end in acting as his own "Jack Ketch;"</p> +<p class="i2">And though he wished extremely to get through</p> +<p>This awkward business without harm to others,</p> +<p>He still preferred his own neck to another's.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Away he went then upon his commission,</p> +<p class="i2">Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase</p> +<p>Against all women of whate'er condition,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially Sultanas and their ways;</p> +<p>Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision,</p> +<p class="i2">Their never knowing their own mind two days,</p> +<p>The trouble that they gave, their immorality,</p> +<p>Which made him daily bless his own neutrality.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then he called his brethren to his aid,</p> +<p class="i2">And sent one on a summons to the pair,</p> +<p>That they must instantly be well arrayed,</p> +<p class="i2">And above all be combed even to a hair,</p> +<p>And brought before the Empress, who had made</p> +<p class="i2">Inquiries after them with kindest care:</p> +<p>At which Dudù looked strange, and Juan silly;</p> +<p>But go they must at once, and will I—nill I.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And here I leave them at their preparation</p> +<p class="i2">For the imperial presence, wherein whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p> +<p>Gulbeyaz showed them both commiseration,</p> +<p class="i2">Or got rid of the parties altogether,</p> +<p>Like other angry ladies of her nation,—</p> +<p class="i2">Are things the turning of a hair or feather</p> +<p>May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate</p> +<p>In what way feminine caprice may dissipate.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I leave them for the present with good wishes,</p> +<p class="i2">Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange</p> +<p>Another part of History; for the dishes</p> +<p class="i2">Of this our banquet we must sometimes change;</p> +<p>And trusting Juan may escape the fishes,</p> +<p class="i2">(Although his situation now seems strange,</p> +<p>And scarce secure),—as such digressions <i>are</i> fair,</p> +<p>The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="attrib">End of Canto 6th.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328" id="Footnote_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> <a name="Note_268" id="Note_268"></a>{268}[Two MSS. (A, B) are extant, A in Byron's +handwriting, B a transcription by Mrs. Shelley. The variants are marked +respectively <i>MS. A., MS. B.</i> +</p><p> +Motto: "Thinkest thou that because thou art virtuous there shall be no +more cakes and ale? Aye! and ginger shall be hot in the mouth +too."—<i>Twelfth Night, or What You Will</i>, Shakespeare, act ii. sc. 3, +lines 109-112.—[<i>MS. B.</i>] +</p><p> +This motto, in an amended form, which was prefixed to the First Canto in +1833, appears on the title-page of the first edition of Cantos VI., +VII., VIII., published by John Hunt in 1823.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329" id="Footnote_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> [See Shakespeare, <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, act iv. sc. 3, lines +216, 217.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330" id="Footnote_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> [Jacob Behmen (or Boehm) stands for "mystic." Byron twice +compares him with Wordsworth (see <i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 239, 1900, iv. +238).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GB" id="Footnote_GB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GB"><span class="label">[GB]</span></a> <a name="Note_269" id="Note_269"></a>{269} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Man with his head reflects (as Spurzheim tells),</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>But Woman with the heart—or something else</i>.</p> +<p class="i0">or, <i>Man's pensive part is (now and then) the head,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Woman's the heart or anything instead</i>.—</p> +<p class="i18">[MS. A. Alternative reading.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GC" id="Footnote_GC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GC"><span class="label">[GC]</span></a> <i>Like to a Comet's tail</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GD" id="Footnote_GD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GD"><span class="label">[GD]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>O'erbalance all the Cæsar's victories</i>.—[MS. A.]</p> +<p><i>Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories</i>.—[MS. B.]</p> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>In the Shelley copy "o'erbalance" has been erased and "outbalance" +inserted in Byron's handwriting. The lines must have been intended to +run thus</i>— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>'T is not his conquests keep his name in fashion</i></p> +<p><i>But Actium lost; for Cleopatra's eyes</i></p> +<p class="i0"><i>Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GE" id="Footnote_GE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GE"><span class="label">[GE]</span></a> <i>I wish that they had been eighteen</i>——.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331" id="Footnote_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> <a name="Note_270" id="Note_270"></a>{270}[To Mary Chaworth. Compare "Our union would have +healed feuds ... it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would +have joined at least <i>one</i> heart."—<i>Detached Thoughts</i>, 1821, +<i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 441.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332" id="Footnote_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> [Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; +but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was +censured by Cæsar, who observed that Cato had an eye to the main chance. +"It was the wealth of Hortensius. He lent the young man his wife, that +he might make her a rich widow."—Langhorne's Plutarch, 1838, pp. 539, +547.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333" id="Footnote_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> <a name="Note_271" id="Note_271"></a>{271}[<i>Othello</i>, act i. sc. i, lines 19-24.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GF" id="Footnote_GF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GF"><span class="label">[GF]</span></a>—— <i>though with greater latitude</i>.—[MS. A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GG" id="Footnote_GG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GG"><span class="label">[GG]</span></a> <a name="Note_272" id="Note_272"></a>{272}—— <i>with one foolish woman wed</i>.—[MS. B.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334" id="Footnote_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> [The famous <i>bed</i>, measuring twelve feet square, to which +an allusion is made by Shakespeare in <i>Twelfth Night</i>, act iii. sc. 2, +line 44, was formerly preserved at the Saracen's Head at Ware, in +Hertfordshire. The bed was removed from Ware to the Rye House in 1869.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GH" id="Footnote_GH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GH"><span class="label">[GH]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>His Highness the sublimest of mankind,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>The greatest, wisest, bravest, [and the] best,</i></p> +<p><i>Proved by his edicts somewhat blind,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Who saw his virtues as they saw the rest</i>—</p> +<p><i>His Highness quite connubially inclined</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Had deigned that night to be Gulbeyaz' guest</i>.—[MS. A.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335" id="Footnote_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> See Waverley [chap. xx.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GI" id="Footnote_GI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GI"><span class="label">[GI]</span></a> <i>May look like what I need not mention here</i>—[MS. A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GJ" id="Footnote_GJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GJ"><span class="label">[GJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_273" id="Note_273"></a>{273}<i>Are better signs if such things can be +signed</i>.—[MS. A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336" id="Footnote_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> [For St. Francis of Assisi, and the "seven great balls of +snow," of which "the greatest" was "his wife," see <i>The Golden Legend</i>, +1900, v. 221, <i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_47">p. 32, note 1</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337" id="Footnote_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> [The words <i>medio</i>, etc., are to be found in Ovid., +<i>Metam.</i>, lib. ii. line 137; the doctrine, <i>Virtus est medium vitiorum</i>, +in Horace, <i>Epist</i>., lib. i, ep. xviii. line 9.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GK" id="Footnote_GK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GK"><span class="label">[GK]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>In the damned line ('t is worth, at least, a curse)</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Which I have examined too close</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GL" id="Footnote_GL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GL"><span class="label">[GL]</span></a> <a name="Note_274" id="Note_274"></a>{274}<i>Self-love that whetstone of Don Cupid's art</i>.—[MS. +A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GM" id="Footnote_GM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GM"><span class="label">[GM]</span></a>—— <i>with love despairs.</i>—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338" id="Footnote_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> [Lady Noel's will was proved February 22, 1812. She left +to the trustees a portrait of Byron ... with directions that it was not +to be shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; +but that if her mother was still living, it was not to be so delivered +without Lady Byron's consent.—<i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 42, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GN" id="Footnote_GN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GN"><span class="label">[GN]</span></a> <i>Which diddles you</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GO" id="Footnote_GO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GO"><span class="label">[GO]</span></a> <i>I'm a philosopher; G—d damn them all</i>.—[MS. B.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GP" id="Footnote_GP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GP"><span class="label">[GP]</span></a> <i>Bills, women, wives, dogs, horses and mankind</i>.—[MS. B. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GQ" id="Footnote_GQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GQ"><span class="label">[GQ]</span></a> +<a name="Note_275" id="Note_275"></a>{275}<i>Is more than I know, and, so, damn them both</i>.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GR" id="Footnote_GR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GR"><span class="label">[GR]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>When we lie down—wife, spouse, or bachelor</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>By what we love not, to sigh for the light</i>.—[MS. A. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GS" id="Footnote_GS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GS"><span class="label">[GS]</span></a> <i>By their infernal bedfellow</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339" id="Footnote_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> [The comparison of Queen Caroline to snow may be traced +to an article in the <i>Times</i> of August 23, 1820: "The Queen may now, we +believe, be considered as triumphing! For the first three years at least +of her Majesty's painful peregrinations, she stands before her husband's +admiring subjects 'as white as unsunned snows.'" Political bards and +lampoonists of the king's party thanked the <i>Times</i> for "giving them +that word."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340" id="Footnote_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> <a name="Note_276" id="Note_276"></a>{276} [According to Gronow (<i>Reminiscences</i>, 1889, i. +62), a practical joke of Dan Mackinnon's (<i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#FN_XXE">p. 69, +<i>footnote</i></a>) gave Byron a hint for this scene in the harem: "Lord +Wellington was curious about visiting a convent near Lisbon, and the +lady abbess made no difficulty. Mackinnon hearing this contrived to get +clandestinely within the sacred walls ... at all events, when Lord +Wellington arrived Dan Mackinnon was to be seen among the nuns, dressed +out in their sacred costume, with his whiskers shaved; and, as he +possessed good features, he was declared to be one of the best-looking +among those chaste dames. It was supposed that this adventure, which was +known to Lord Byron, suggested a similar episode in <i>Don Juan</i>."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341" id="Footnote_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> [Caligula—<i>vide</i> Suetonius, <i>De XII. Cæs</i>., C. <i>Cæs</i>. +Calig., cap, xxx., "Infensus turbæ faventi adversus studium exclamavit: +'Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!'"]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GT" id="Footnote_GT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GT"><span class="label">[GT]</span></a> <i>My wish were general but no worse</i>.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GU" id="Footnote_GU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GU"><span class="label">[GU]</span></a> <i>That Womankind had only one—say heart</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342" id="Footnote_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <a name="Note_277" id="Note_277"></a>{277}The ladies of the Seraglio.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343" id="Footnote_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> [Demetrius Cantemir, hospodar of Moldavia. His work, the +<i>History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire</i>, was translated +into English by N. Tyndal, 1734. He died in 1723.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344" id="Footnote_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> [Baron de Tott, in his <i>Memoirs concerning the State of +the Turkish Empire</i> (1786, i. 72), gives the title of this functionary +as <i>Kiaya Kadun</i>, i.e. Mistress or Governess of the Ladies.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345" id="Footnote_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> <a name="Note_278" id="Note_278"></a>{278} [The repetition of the same rhyme-word was noted in +<i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, July, 1823, vol. xiv. p. 90.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346" id="Footnote_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> <a name="Note_279" id="Note_279"></a>{279} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["I guess, 't was frightful there to see</p> +<p>A lady so richly clad as she—</p> +<p>Beautiful exceedingly."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Christabel</i>, Part I. lines 66-68.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347" id="Footnote_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> "It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, +and Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model +of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the +symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance: the men +are formed for action, the women for love."—Gibbon, [<i>Decline and Fall, +etc.</i>, 1825, iii 126.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348" id="Footnote_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> <a name="Note_280" id="Note_280"></a>{280}Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349" id="Footnote_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> [Katinka was the name of the youngest sister of Theresa, +the "Maid of Athens."—See letter to H. Drury, May 3, 1810, <i>Letters</i>, +1898, i. 269, note 1; and <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 15, note 1. +</p><p> +It is probable that the originals of Katinka and Dudù were two +Circassians who were presented for sale to Nicolas Ernest Kleeman (see +his <i>Voyage de Vienne, etc.</i>, 1780, pp. 142, 143) at Kaffa, in the +Crimea. Of the first he writes, "Elle me baisa la main, et par l'ordre +de son maître, elle se promena en long et en large, pour me faire +remarquer sa taille mince et aisée. Elle avoit un joli petit pied.... +Quand elle a en ôté son voile elle a présenté à mes yeux une beauté +très-attrayante; ses cheveux étoient blonds argentés; elle avoit de +grands yeux bleux, le nez un peu long, et les lèvres appétissantes. Sa +figure étoit régulière, son teint blanc, délicat, les joues couvertes +d'un charmant vermilion.... La seconde étoit un peu petite, assez +grasse, et avoit les cheveux roux, l'air sensuel et revenant." Kleeman +pretended to offer terms, took notes, and retired. But the Circassians +are before us still.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350" id="Footnote_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> <a name="Note_281" id="Note_281"></a>{281} [<i>Macbeth</i>, act ii. sc. 2, line 36.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GV" id="Footnote_GV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GV"><span class="label">[GV]</span></a> <a name="Note_284" id="Note_284"></a>{284}<i>By which no doubt its Baptism came to pass</i>.—[MS. +A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GW" id="Footnote_GW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GW"><span class="label">[GW]</span></a> <i>The Devil in Hell might melt but never settle</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351" id="Footnote_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> [Hence the title of the satire, <i>The Age of Bronze</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GX" id="Footnote_GX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GX"><span class="label">[GX]</span></a> <i>For Woman's silence startles more than thunder</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352" id="Footnote_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> <a name="Note_287" id="Note_287"></a>{287}[Compare <i>Beppo</i>, stanza xxii. line 2, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 166, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GY" id="Footnote_GY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GY"><span class="label">[GY]</span></a> <i>With no less true and feminine surprise</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353" id="Footnote_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> +<a name="Note_289" id="Note_289"></a>{289}[<i>Julius Cæsar</i>, act iii. sc. II, line 216.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354" id="Footnote_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita</p> +<p class="i2">Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura," etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Inferno</i>, Canto I, lines I, 2.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_GZ" id="Footnote_GZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_GZ"><span class="label">[GZ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Himself in an age when men grow good,</i></p> +<p><i>As Life's best half is done</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HA" id="Footnote_HA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HA"><span class="label">[HA]</span></a> <i>But out of reach—a most provoking sight</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HB" id="Footnote_HB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HB"><span class="label">[HB]</span></a> <i>That ere her unreluctant lips could ope</i>.—[MS. A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355" id="Footnote_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> <a name="Note_290" id="Note_290"></a>{290}[One of the advocates employed for Queen Caroline in +the House of Lords spoke of some of the most puzzling passages in the +history of her intercourse with Bergami, as amounting to "odd instances +of strange coincidence."—Ed. 1833, xvi. 160.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HC" id="Footnote_HC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HC"><span class="label">[HC]</span></a> <a name="Note_291" id="Note_291"></a>{291}<i>At least as red as the Flamingo's breast</i>.—[MS. A. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356" id="Footnote_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> <a name="Note_292" id="Note_292"></a>{292}[Byron used Kaff for Caucasus, <i>vide ante</i>, <i>English +Bards, etc.</i>, line 1022, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 378, note 3. But +there may be some allusion to the fabulous Kaff, "anciently imagined by +the Asiatics to surround the world, to bind the horizon on all sides." +There was a proverb "From Kaf to Kaf," <i>i.e.</i> "the wide world through." +See, too, D'Herbelot's <i>Bibliothèque Orientale</i>, 1697, art. "Caf."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357" id="Footnote_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> [See L.A. Seneca, <i>De Irâ</i>, lib. ii. cap. 25.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HD" id="Footnote_HD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HD"><span class="label">[HD]</span></a> +<a name="Note_293" id="Note_293"></a>{293}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Oh thou her lawful grandson Alexander</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Let not this quality offend</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358" id="Footnote_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> [Compare <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, lines 434, sq., <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, v. 563, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HE" id="Footnote_HE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HE"><span class="label">[HE]</span></a> +<a name="Note_294" id="Note_294"></a>{294}<i>To call a man a whoreson</i>——.—[MS. A. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HF" id="Footnote_HF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HF"><span class="label">[HF]</span></a> +<i>But a man's grandmother is deemed fair game</i>.—[MS. A.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359" id="Footnote_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> +[It is probable that Byron knew that there was a "hint of +illegitimacy" in his own pedigree. John Byron of Clayton, grandfather of +Richard the second Lord Byron, was born, out of wedlock, to Elizabeth, +daughter of William Costerden, of Blakesley, in Lancashire, widow to +George Halgh of Halgh (<i>sic</i>), and second wife of Sir John Byron of +Clayton, "little Sir John with the great beard." He succeeded to +Newstead and the Lancashire estates, not as heir-at-law, but by deed of +gift. (See letter to Murray, October 20, 1820, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 99, +note 2.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360" id="Footnote_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> <a name="Note_295" id="Note_295"></a>{295}[Aubry de la Motraye, in describing the interior of +the Grand Signior's palace, into which he gained admission as the +assistant of a watchmaker who was employed to regulate the clocks, says +that the eunuch who received them at the entrance of the harem, +conducted them into a hall: "Cette salle est incrustee de porcelaines +fines; et le lambris doré et azuré qui orne le fond d'une coupole qui +regne au-dessus, est des plus riches.... Une fontaine artificielle et +jaillissante, dont le bassin est d'un prétieux marbre verd qui m'a paru +serpentin ou jaspe, s'élevoit directement au milieu, sous le dôme.... Je +me trouvai la tête si pleine de <i>Sophas</i> de prétieux plafonds, de +meubles superbes, en un mot, d'une si grande confusion de matériaux +magnifiques, ... qu'il seroit difficile d'en donner une idée +claire."—<i>Voyages</i>, 1727, i. 220, 222.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361" id="Footnote_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> <a name="Note_296" id="Note_296"></a>{296}["Il n'ya point de Religieuses ... point de novices, +plus soumises à la volonté de leur abbesse que ces filles [les +Odaliques] le sont à leurs maitresses."—A. de la Motraye, <i>Voyages,</i> +1727, i. 338.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HG" id="Footnote_HG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HG"><span class="label">[HG]</span></a> <a name="Note_297" id="Note_297"></a>{297} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>——— <i>though seen not heard</i></p> +<p><i>For it is silent</i>.—[MS. A. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362" id="Footnote_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> ["How fares my Kate? What! sweeting, all amort?"—<i>Taming +of the Shrew,</i> act iv. sc. 3, line 36. "Amort" is said to be a +corruption of <i>à la mort</i>. Byron must have had in mind his silent +ecstasy of grief when the Countess Guiccioli endeavoured to break the +announcement of Allegra's death (April, 1822). "'I understand,' said he; +'it is enough; say no more.' A mortal paleness spread itself over his +face, his strength failed him, and he sunk into a seat. His look was +fixed, and the expression such that I began to fear for his reason; he +did not shed a tear" (<i>Life,</i> p. 368).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363" id="Footnote_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> <a name="Note_299" id="Note_299"></a>{299}["His guilty soul, at enmity with gods and men, +could find no rest; so violently was his mind torn and distracted by a +consciousness of guilt. Accordingly his countenance was pale, his eyes +ghastly, his pace one while quick, another slow [citus modo, modo tardus +incessus]; indeed, in all his looks there was an air of +distraction."—Sallust, <i>Catilina</i>, cap. xv. sf.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_SEVENTH" id="CANTO_THE_SEVENTH"></a> +CANTO THE SEVENTH.<a name="FNanchor_364" id="FNanchor_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">O Love</span>! O Glory! what are ye who fly</p> +<p class="i2">Around us ever, rarely to alight?</p> +<p>There's not a meteor in the polar sky</p> +<p class="i2">Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.</p> +<p>Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift on high</p> +<p class="i2">Our eyes in search of either lovely light;</p> +<p>A thousand and a thousand colours they</p> +<p>Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And such as they are, such my present tale is,</p> +<p class="i2">A nondescript and ever-varying rhyme,</p> +<p>A versified Aurora Borealis,</p> +<p class="i2">Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.</p> +<p>When we know what all are, we must bewail us,</p> +<p class="i2">But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime</p> +<p>To laugh at <i>all</i> things—for I wish to know</p> +<p><i>What</i>, after <i>all</i>, are <i>all</i> things—but a <i>show</i>?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They accuse me—<i>Me</i>—the present writer of</p> +<p class="i2">The present poem—of—I know not what—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>A tendency to under-rate and scoff</p> +<p class="i2">At human power and virtue, and all that;<a name="FNanchor_365" id="FNanchor_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a></p> +<p>And this they say in language rather rough.</p> +<p class="i2">Good God! I wonder what they would be at!</p> +<p>I say no more than hath been said in Danté's</p> +<p>Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,</p> +<p class="i2">By Fénélon, by Luther, and by Plato;<a name="FNanchor_HH" id="FNanchor_HH"></a><a href="#Footnote_HH" class="fnanchor">[HH]</a></p> +<p>By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,</p> +<p class="i2">Who knew this life was not worth a potato.</p> +<p>'T is not their fault, nor mine, if this be so,—</p> +<p class="i2">For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,</p> +<p>Nor even Diogenes.—We live and die,</p> +<p>But which is best, <i>you</i> know no more than I.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Socrates said, our only knowledge was<a name="FNanchor_366" id="FNanchor_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p> +<p class="i2">"To know that nothing could be known;" a pleasant</p> +<p>Science enough, which levels to an ass</p> +<p class="i2">Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.</p> +<p>Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas!</p> +<p class="i2">Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,</p> +<p>That he himself felt only "like a youth</p> +<p>Picking up shells by the great ocean—Truth."<a name="FNanchor_HI" id="FNanchor_HI"></a><a href="#Footnote_HI" class="fnanchor">[HI]</a><a name="FNanchor_367" id="FNanchor_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ecclesiastes said, "that all is vanity"—</p> +<p class="i2">Most modern preachers say the same, or show it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> +<p>By their examples of true Christianity:</p> +<p class="i2">In short, all know, or very soon may know it;</p> +<p>And in this scene of all-confessed inanity,</p> +<p class="i2">By Saint, by Sage, by Preacher, and by Poet,</p> +<p>Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife,</p> +<p>From holding up the nothingness of Life?<a name="FNanchor_HJ" id="FNanchor_HJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_HJ" class="fnanchor">[HJ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dogs, or men!—for I flatter you<a name="FNanchor_368" id="FNanchor_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> in saying</p> +<p class="i2">That ye are dogs—your betters far—ye may</p> +<p>Read, or read not, what I am now essaying</p> +<p class="i2">To show ye what ye are in every way.</p> +<p>As little as the moon stops for the baying</p> +<p class="i2">Of wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray</p> +<p>From out her skies—then howl your idle wrath!</p> +<p>While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Fierce loves and faithless wars"—I am not sure</p> +<p class="i2">If this be the right reading—'t is no matter;</p> +<p>The fact's about the same, I am secure;</p> +<p class="i2">I sing them both, and am about to batter</p> +<p>A town which did a famous siege endure,</p> +<p class="i2">And was beleaguered both by land and water</p> +<p>By Souvaroff,<a name="FNanchor_369" id="FNanchor_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> or Anglicè Suwarrow,</p> +<p>Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The fortress is called Ismail, and is placed</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank,<a name="FNanchor_370" id="FNanchor_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a></p> +<p>With buildings in the Oriental taste,</p> +<p class="i2">But still a fortress of the foremost rank,</p> +<p>Or was at least, unless 't is since defaced,</p> +<p class="i2">Which with your conquerors is a common prank:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> +<p>It stands some eighty versts from the high sea,</p> +<p>And measures round of toises thousands three.<a name="FNanchor_371" id="FNanchor_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Within the extent of this fortification</p> +<p class="i2">A borough is comprised along the height</p> +<p>Upon the left, which from its loftier station</p> +<p class="i2">Commands the city, and upon its site</p> +<p>A Greek had raised around this elevation</p> +<p class="i2">A quantity of palisades <i>upright</i>,</p> +<p>So placed as to <i>impede</i> the fire of those</p> +<p>Who held the place, and to <i>assist</i> the foe's.<a name="FNanchor_372" id="FNanchor_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This circumstance may serve to give a notion</p> +<p class="i2">Of the high talents of this new Vauban:</p> +<p>But the town ditch below was deep as Ocean,</p> +<p class="i2">The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang:</p> +<p>But then there was a great want of precaution</p> +<p class="i2">(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang),</p> +<p>Nor work advanced, nor covered way was there,<a name="FNanchor_373" id="FNanchor_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a></p> +<p>To hint, at least, "Here is no thoroughfare."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge,</p> +<p class="i2">And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet;</p> +<p>Two batteries, cap-à-pie, as our St. George,</p> +<p class="i2">Casemated<a name="FNanchor_374" id="FNanchor_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> one, and t' other "a barbette,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_375" id="FNanchor_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a></p> +<p>Of Danube's bank took formidable charge;</p> +<p class="i2">While two-and-twenty cannon duly set</p> +<p>Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier,</p> +<p>Forty feet high, upon a cavalier.<a name="FNanchor_376" id="FNanchor_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But from the river the town's open quite,</p> +<p class="i2">Because the Turks could never be persuaded</p> +<p>A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight;<a name="FNanchor_377" id="FNanchor_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And such their creed was till they were invaded,</p> +<p>When it grew rather late to set things right:</p> +<p class="i2">But as the Danube could not well be waded,</p> +<p>They looked upon the Muscovite flotilla,</p> +<p>And only shouted, "Allah!" and "Bis Millah!"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Russians now were ready to attack;</p> +<p class="i2">But oh, ye goddesses of War and Glory!</p> +<p>How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque</p> +<p class="i2">Who were immortal, could one tell their story?</p> +<p>Alas! what to their memory can lack?</p> +<p class="i2">Achilles' self was not more grim and gory</p> +<p>Than thousands of this new and polished nation,</p> +<p>Whose names want nothing but—pronunciation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Still I'll record a few, if but to increase</p> +<p class="i2">Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff,</p> +<p>Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arséniew of modern Greece,</p> +<p class="i2">And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,<a name="FNanchor_378" id="FNanchor_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a></p> +<p>And others of twelve consonants apiece;</p> +<p class="i2">And more might be found out, if I could poke enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> +<p>Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet),</p> +<p>It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And cannot tune those discords of narration,<a name="FNanchor_HK" id="FNanchor_HK"></a><a href="#Footnote_HK" class="fnanchor">[HK]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme;</p> +<p>Yet there were several worth commemoration,</p> +<p class="i2">As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime;</p> +<p>Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration</p> +<p class="i2">Of Londonderry drawling against time,</p> +<p>Ending in "ischskin," "ousckin," "iffskchy," "ouski,"</p> +<p>Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski,<a name="FNanchor_379" id="FNanchor_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti,</p> +<p class="i2">Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin,</p> +<p>All proper men of weapons, as e'er scoffed high<a name="FNanchor_380" id="FNanchor_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin:</p> +<p>Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin</p> +<p>Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear,</p> +<p>And no more handy substitute been near.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there were foreigners of much renown,</p> +<p class="i2">Of various nations, and all volunteers;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p> +<p>Not fighting for their country or its crown,</p> +<p class="i2">But wishing to be one day brigadiers;</p> +<p>Also to have the sacking of a town;—</p> +<p class="i2">A pleasant thing to young men at their years.</p> +<p>'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,</p> +<p>Sixteen called Thomson, and nineteen named Smith.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson;—all the rest</p> +<p class="i2">Had been called <i>"Jemmy,"</i> after the great bard;</p> +<p>I don't know whether they had arms or crest,</p> +<p class="i2">But such a godfather's as good a card.</p> +<p>Three of the Smiths were Peters; but the best</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward,</p> +<p>Was <i>he</i>, since so renowned "in country quarters</p> +<p>At Halifax;"<a name="FNanchor_381" id="FNanchor_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> but now he served the Tartars.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills,</p> +<p class="i2">But when I've added that the elder Jack Smith</p> +<p>Was born in Cumberland among the hills,</p> +<p class="i2">And that his father was an honest blacksmith,</p> +<p>I've said all <i>I</i> know of a name that fills</p> +<p class="i2">Three lines of the despatch in taking "Schmacksmith,"</p> +<p>A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein</p> +<p>He fell, immortal in a bulletin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a god I</p> +<p class="i2">Praise) if a man's name in a <i>bulletin</i></p> +<p>May make up for a <i>bullet in</i> his body?</p> +<p class="i2">I hope this little question is no sin,</p> +<p>Because, though I am but a simple noddy,</p> +<p class="i2">I think one Shakespeare puts the same thought in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p> +<p>The mouth of some one in his plays so doting,</p> +<p>Which many people pass for wits by quoting.<a name="FNanchor_382" id="FNanchor_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young, and gay;</p> +<p class="i2">But I'm too great a patriot to record</p> +<p>Their Gallic names upon a glorious day;</p> +<p class="i2">I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word</p> +<p>Of truth;—such truths are treason; they betray</p> +<p class="i2">Their country; and as traitors are abhorred,</p> +<p>Who name the French in English, save to show</p> +<p>How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Russians, having built two batteries on</p> +<p class="i2">An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view;</p> +<p>The first was to bombard it, and knock down</p> +<p class="i2">The public buildings and the private too,</p> +<p>No matter what poor souls might be undone:<a name="FNanchor_HL" id="FNanchor_HL"></a><a href="#Footnote_HL" class="fnanchor">[HL]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The city's shape suggested this, 't is true,</p> +<p>Formed like an amphitheatre—each dwelling</p> +<p>Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.<a name="FNanchor_383" id="FNanchor_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The second object was to profit by</p> +<p class="i2">The moment of the general consternation,</p> +<p>To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay nigh</p> +<p class="i2">Extremely tranquil, anchored at its station:</p> +<p>But a third motive was as probably</p> +<p class="i2">To frighten them into capitulation;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_384" id="FNanchor_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a></p> +<p>A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors,</p> +<p>Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers.<a name="FNanchor_HM" id="FNanchor_HM"></a><a href="#Footnote_HM" class="fnanchor">[HM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A habit rather blameable, which is</p> +<p class="i2">That of despising those we combat with,</p> +<p>Common in many cases, was in this</p> +<p class="i2">The cause<a name="FNanchor_385" id="FNanchor_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith—</p> +<p>One of the valorous "Smiths" whom we shall miss</p> +<p class="i2">Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to "pith;"</p> +<p>But 't is a name so spread o'er "Sir" and "Madam,"</p> +<p>That one would think the <i>first</i> who bore it <i>"Adam."</i></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Russian batteries were incomplete,</p> +<p class="i2">Because they were constructed in a hurry;<a name="FNanchor_386" id="FNanchor_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a></p> +<p>Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet,</p> +<p class="i2">And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John Murray,</p> +<p>When the sale of new books is not so fleet</p> +<p class="i2">As they who print them think is necessary,</p> +<p>May likewise put off for a time what story</p> +<p>Sometimes calls "Murder," and at others "Glory."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether it was their engineer's stupidity,</p> +<p class="i2">Their haste or waste, I neither know nor care,</p> +<p>Or some contractor's personal cupidity,</p> +<p class="i2">Saving his soul by cheating in the ware<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> +<p>Of homicide, but there was no solidity</p> +<p class="i2">In the new batteries erected there;</p> +<p>They either missed, or they were never missed,</p> +<p>And added greatly to the missing list.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A sad miscalculation about distance</p> +<p class="i2">Made all their naval matters incorrect;</p> +<p>Three fireships lost their amiable existence</p> +<p class="i2">Before they reached a spot to take effect;</p> +<p>The match was lit too soon, and no assistance</p> +<p class="i2">Could remedy this lubberly defect;</p> +<p>They blew up in the middle of the river,</p> +<p>While, though 't was dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.<a name="FNanchor_387" id="FNanchor_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At seven they rose, however, and surveyed</p> +<p class="i2">The Russ flotilla getting under way;</p> +<p>'T was nine, when still advancing undismayed,</p> +<p class="i2">Within a cable's length their vessels lay</p> +<p>Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade,</p> +<p class="i2">Which was returned with interest, I may say,</p> +<p>And by a fire of musketry and grape,</p> +<p>And shells and shot of every size and shape.<a name="FNanchor_388" id="FNanchor_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For six hours bore they without intermission</p> +<p class="i2">The Turkish fire, and, aided by their own</p> +<p>Land batteries, worked their guns with great precision;</p> +<p class="i2">At length they found mere cannonade alone</p> +<p>By no means would produce the town's submission,</p> +<p class="i2">And made a signal to retreat at one.</p> +<p>One bark blew up, a second near the works</p> +<p>Running aground, was taken by the Turks.<a name="FNanchor_389" id="FNanchor_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men;</p> +<p class="i2">But when they saw the enemy retire,</p> +<p>Their Delhis<a name="FNanchor_390" id="FNanchor_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> manned some boats, and sailed again,</p> +<p class="i2">And galled the Russians with a heavy fire,</p> +<p>And tried to make a landing on the main;</p> +<p class="i2">But here the effect fell short of their desire:</p> +<p>Count Damas drove them back into the water</p> +<p>Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter.<a name="FNanchor_391" id="FNanchor_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"If" (says the historian here) "I could report</p> +<p class="i2">All that the Russians did upon this day,</p> +<p>I think that several volumes would fall short,</p> +<p class="i2">And I should still have many things to say;"<a name="FNanchor_392" id="FNanchor_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a></p> +<p>And so he says no more—but pays his court</p> +<p class="i2">To some distinguished strangers in that fray;</p> +<p>The Prince de Ligne, and Langeron, and Damas,</p> +<p>Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.<a name="FNanchor_393" id="FNanchor_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p><h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This being the case, may show us what Fame <i>is</i>:</p> +<p class="i2">For out of these three "<i>preux Chevaliers</i>," how</p> +<p>Many of common readers give a guess</p> +<p class="i2">That such existed? (and they may live now</p> +<p>For aught we know.) Renown's all hit or miss;</p> +<p class="i2">There's fortune even in Fame, we must allow.</p> +<p>'T is true, the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne<a name="FNanchor_394" id="FNanchor_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a></p> +<p>Have half withdrawn from <i>him</i> Oblivion's screen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here are men who fought in gallant actions</p> +<p class="i2">As gallantly as ever heroes fought,</p> +<p>But buried in the heap of such transactions</p> +<p class="i2">Their names are rarely found, nor often sought.</p> +<p>Thus even good fame may suffer sad contractions,</p> +<p class="i2">And is extinguished sooner than she ought:</p> +<p>Of all our modern battles, I will bet</p> +<p>You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In short, this last attack, though rich in glory,</p> +<p class="i2">Showed that <i>somewhere, somehow</i>, there was a fault,</p> +<p>And Admiral Ribas<a name="FNanchor_395" id="FNanchor_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> (known in Russian story)</p> +<p class="i2">Most strongly recommended an assault;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p> +<p>In which he was opposed by young and hoary,</p> +<p class="i2">Which made a long debate; but I must halt,</p> +<p>For if I wrote down every warrior's speech,</p> +<p>I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a man, if that he was a man,</p> +<p class="i2">Not that his manhood could be called in question,</p> +<p>For had he not been Hercules, his span</p> +<p class="i2">Had been as short in youth as indigestion</p> +<p>Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,</p> +<p class="i2">He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on</p> +<p>The soil of the green province he had wasted,</p> +<p>As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was Potemkin<a name="FNanchor_396" id="FNanchor_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a>—a great thing in days</p> +<p class="i2">When homicide and harlotry made great;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p> +<p>If stars and titles could entail long praise,</p> +<p class="i2">His glory might half equal his estate.</p> +<p>This fellow, being six foot high, could raise</p> +<p class="i2">A kind of phantasy proportionate</p> +<p>In the then Sovereign of the Russian people,</p> +<p>Who measured men as you would do a steeple.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent</p> +<p class="i2">A courier to the Prince, and he succeeded</p> +<p>In ordering matters after his own bent;</p> +<p class="i2">I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,</p> +<p>But shortly he had cause to be content.</p> +<p class="i2">In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,</p> +<p>And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border</p> +<p>Were briskly fired and answered in due order.<a name="FNanchor_397" id="FNanchor_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But on the thirteenth, when already part</p> +<p class="i2">Of the troops were embarked, the siege to raise,</p> +<p>A courier on the spur inspired new heart</p> +<p class="i2">Into all panters for newspaper praise,<a name="FNanchor_HN" id="FNanchor_HN"></a><a href="#Footnote_HN" class="fnanchor">[HN]</a></p> +<p>As well as dilettanti in War's art,</p> +<p class="i2">By his despatches (couched in pithy phrase)</p> +<p>Announcing the appointment of that lover of</p> +<p>Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff.<a name="FNanchor_398" id="FNanchor_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The letter of the Prince to the same Marshal</p> +<p class="i2">Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause</p> +<p>Been one to which a good heart could be partial—</p> +<p class="i2">Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p> +<p>But as it was mere lust of Power to o'er-arch all</p> +<p class="i2">With its proud brow, it merits slight applause,</p> +<p>Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,</p> +<p>"You will take Ismail at whatever price."<a name="FNanchor_399" id="FNanchor_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Let there be Light! said God, and there was Light!"</p> +<p class="i2">"Let there be Blood!" says man, and there's a sea!</p> +<p>The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night</p> +<p class="i2">(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree</p> +<p>More evil in an hour, than thirty bright</p> +<p class="i2">Summers could renovate, though they should be</p> +<p>Lovely as those which ripened Eden's fruit;</p> +<p>For War cuts up not only branch, but root.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our friends, the Turks, who with loud "Allahs" now</p> +<p class="i2">Began to signalise the Russ retreat,<a name="FNanchor_400" id="FNanchor_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a></p> +<p>Were damnably mistaken; few are slow</p> +<p class="i2">In thinking that their enemy is beat,<a name="FNanchor_401" id="FNanchor_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a></p> +<p>(Or <i>beaten</i>, if you insist on grammar, though</p> +<p class="i2">I never think about it in a heat,)</p> +<p>But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,</p> +<p>Who hating hogs, yet wished to save their bacon.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew</p> +<p class="i2">In sight two horsemen, who were deemed Cossacques</p> +<p>For some time, till they came in nearer view:</p> +<p class="i2">They had but little baggage at their backs,</p> +<p>For there were but <i>three</i> shirts between the two;</p> +<p class="i2">But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,</p> +<p>Till, in approaching, were at length descried</p> +<p>In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.<a name="FNanchor_402" id="FNanchor_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Great joy to London now!" says some great fool,</p> +<p class="i2">When London had a grand illumination,</p> +<p>Which to that bottle-conjuror, John Bull,</p> +<p class="i2">Is of all dreams the first hallucination;</p> +<p>So that the streets of coloured lamps are full,</p> +<p class="i2">That sage (said John) surrenders at discretion<a name="FNanchor_HO" id="FNanchor_HO"></a><a href="#Footnote_HO" class="fnanchor">[HO]</a></p> +<p>His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,</p> +<p>To gratify, like a huge moth, this <i>one</i> sense.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is strange that he should further "Damn his eyes,"</p> +<p class="i2">For they are damned; that once all-famous oath</p> +<p>Is to the Devil now no further prize,</p> +<p class="i2">Since John has lately lost the use of both.</p> +<p>Debt he calls Wealth, and taxes Paradise;</p> +<p class="i2">And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span></p> +<p>Which stare him in the face, he won't examine,</p> +<p>Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to the tale;—great joy unto the camp!</p> +<p class="i2">To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque,</p> +<p>O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp,</p> +<p class="i2">Presaging a most luminous attack;</p> +<p>Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,</p> +<p class="i2">Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,</p> +<p>He flitted to and fro a dancing light,</p> +<p>Which all who saw it followed, wrong or right.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, certes, matters took a different face;</p> +<p class="i2">There was enthusiasm and much applause,</p> +<p>The fleet and camp saluted with great grace,</p> +<p class="i2">And all presaged good fortune to their cause.</p> +<p>Within a cannot-shot length of the place</p> +<p class="i2">They drew, constructed ladders, repaired flaws</p> +<p>In former works, made new, prepared fascines,</p> +<p>And all kinds of benevolent machines.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is thus the spirit of a single mind</p> +<p class="i2">Makes that of multitudes take one direction,</p> +<p>As roll the waters to the breathing wind,</p> +<p class="i2">Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection;</p> +<p>Or as a little dog will lead the blind,</p> +<p class="i2">Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection</p> +<p>By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual;</p> +<p>Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought</p> +<p class="i2">That they were going to a marriage feast</p> +<p>(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,</p> +<p class="i2">Since there is discord after both at least):</p> +<p>There was not now a luggage boy but sought</p> +<p class="i2">Danger and spoil with ardour much increased;</p> +<p>And why? because a little—odd—old man,</p> +<p>Stripped to his shirt, was come to lead the van.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But so it was; and every preparation</p> +<p class="i2">Was made with all alacrity: the first</p> +<p>Detachment of three columns took its station,</p> +<p class="i2">And waited but the signal's voice to burst</p> +<p>Upon the foe: the second's ordination</p> +<p class="i2">Was also in three columns, with a thirst</p> +<p>For Glory gaping o'er a sea of Slaughter:</p> +<p>The third, in columns two, attacked by water.<a name="FNanchor_403" id="FNanchor_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>New batteries were erected, and was held</p> +<p class="i2">A general council, in which Unanimity,</p> +<p>That stranger to most councils, here prevailed,<a name="FNanchor_404" id="FNanchor_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a></p> +<p class="i2">As sometimes happens in a great extremity;<a name="FNanchor_HP" id="FNanchor_HP"></a><a href="#Footnote_HP" class="fnanchor">[HP]</a></p> +<p>And every difficulty being dispelled,</p> +<p class="i2">Glory began to dawn with due sublimity,<a name="FNanchor_HQ" id="FNanchor_HQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_HQ" class="fnanchor">[HQ]</a></p> +<p>While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,</p> +<p>Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.<a name="FNanchor_405" id="FNanchor_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is an actual fact, that he, commander</p> +<p class="i2">In chief, in proper person deigned to drill</p> +<p>The awkward squad, and could afford to squander</p> +<p class="i2">His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil;</p> +<p>Just as you'd break a sucking salamander</p> +<p class="i2">To swallow flame, and never take it ill:<a name="FNanchor_HR" id="FNanchor_HR"></a><a href="#Footnote_HR" class="fnanchor">[HR]</a></p> +<p>He showed them how to mount a ladder (which</p> +<p>Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch.<a name="FNanchor_406" id="FNanchor_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p><h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also he dressed up, for the nonce, fascines</p> +<p class="i2">Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks,</p> +<p>And made them charge with bayonet these machines,</p> +<p class="i2">By way of lesson against actual Turks;<a name="FNanchor_407" id="FNanchor_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a></p> +<p>And when well practised in these mimic scenes,</p> +<p class="i2">He judged them proper to assail the works,—</p> +<p>(At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty),<a name="FNanchor_HS" id="FNanchor_HS"></a><a href="#Footnote_HS" class="fnanchor">[HS]</a></p> +<p>He made no answer—but he took the city.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Most things were in this posture on the eve</p> +<p class="i2">Of the assault, and all the camp was in</p> +<p>A stern repose; which you would scarce conceive;</p> +<p class="i2">Yet men resolved to dash through thick and thin</p> +<p>Are very silent when they once believe</p> +<p class="i2">That all is settled:—there was little din,</p> +<p>For some were thinking of their home and friends,</p> +<p>And others of themselves and latter ends.<a name="FNanchor_HT" id="FNanchor_HT"></a><a href="#Footnote_HT" class="fnanchor">[HT]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,</p> +<p class="i2">Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering;</p> +<p>For the man was, we safely may assert,</p> +<p class="i2">A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering;</p> +<p>Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt,</p> +<p class="i2">Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering—Now</p> +<p>Mars, now Momus—and when bent to storm</p> +<p>A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.<a name="FNanchor_408" id="FNanchor_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The day before the assault, while upon drill—</p> +<p class="i2">For this great conqueror played the corporal—</p> +<p>Some Cossacques, hovering like hawks round a hill,</p> +<p class="i2">Had met a party towards the Twilight's fall,</p> +<p>One of whom spoke their tongue—or well or ill,</p> +<p class="i2">'T was much that he was understood at all;</p> +<p>But whether from his voice, or speech, or manner,</p> +<p>They found that he had fought beneath their banner.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whereon immediately at his request</p> +<p class="i2">They brought him and his comrades to head-quarters;</p> +<p>Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guessed</p> +<p class="i2">That these were merely masquerading Tartars,</p> +<p>And that beneath each Turkish-fashioned vest</p> +<p class="i2">Lurked Christianity—which sometimes barters</p> +<p>Her inward grace for outward show, and makes</p> +<p>It difficult to shun some strange mistakes.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt</p> +<p class="i2">Before a company of Calmucks, drilling,</p> +<p>Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert,</p> +<p class="i2">And lecturing on the noble art of killing,—</p> +<p>For deeming human clay but common dirt</p> +<p class="i2">This great philosopher was thus instilling</p> +<p>His maxims,<a name="FNanchor_409" id="FNanchor_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> which to martial comprehension</p> +<p>Proved death in battle equal to a pension;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow, when he saw this company</p> +<p class="i2">Of Cossacques and their prey, turned round and cast</p> +<p>Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:—</p> +<p class="i2">"Whence come ye?"—"From Constantinople last,</p> +<p>Captives just now escaped," was the reply.</p> +<p class="i2">"What are ye?"—"What you see us." Briefly passed</p> +<p>This dialogue; for he who answered knew</p> +<p>To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Your names?"—"Mine's Johnson, and my comrade's Juan;</p> +<p class="i2">The other two are women, and the third</p> +<p>Is neither man nor woman." The Chief threw on</p> +<p class="i2">The party a slight glance, then said, "I have heard</p> +<p><i>Your</i> name before, the second is a new one:</p> +<p class="i2">To bring the other three here was absurd:</p> +<p>But let that pass:—I think I have heard your name</p> +<p>In the Nikolaiew regiment?"—"The same."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"You served at Widdin?"—"Yes."—"You led the attack?"</p> +<p class="i2">"I did."—"What next?"—"I really hardly know"—</p> +<p>"You were the first i' the breach?"—"I was not slack</p> +<p class="i2">At least to follow those who might be so"—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>"What followed?"—"A shot laid me on my back,</p> +<p class="i2">And I became a prisoner to the foe"—</p> +<p>"You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded</p> +<p>Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Where will you serve?"—"Where'er you please."—"I know</p> +<p class="i2">You like to be the hope of the forlorn,</p> +<p>And doubtless would be foremost on the foe</p> +<p class="i2">After the hardships you've already borne.</p> +<p>And this young fellow—say what can he do?</p> +<p class="i2">He with the beardless chin and garments torn?"—</p> +<p>"Why, General, if he hath no greater fault</p> +<p>In War than Love, he had better lead the assault"—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"He shall if that he dare." Here Juan bowed</p> +<p class="i2">Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow</p> +<p>Continued: "Your old regiment's allowed,</p> +<p class="i2">By special providence, to lead to-morrow,</p> +<p>Or, it may be, to-night, the assault: I have vowed</p> +<p class="i2">To several Saints, that shortly plough or harrow</p> +<p>Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk<a name="FNanchor_410" id="FNanchor_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p> +<p>Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"So now, my lads, for Glory!"—Here he turned</p> +<p class="i2">And drilled away in the most classic Russian,</p> +<p>Until each high heroic bosom burned</p> +<p class="i2">For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion</p> +<p>A preacher had held forth (who nobly spurned</p> +<p class="i2">All earthly goods save tithes) and bade them push on</p> +<p>To slay the Pagans who resisted, battering</p> +<p>The armies of the Christian Empress Catherine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Johnson, who knew by this long colloquy</p> +<p class="i2">Himself a favourite, ventured to address</p> +<p>Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high</p> +<p class="i2">In his resumed amusement. "I confess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p> +<p>My debt in being thus allowed to die</p> +<p class="i2">Among the foremost; but if you'd express</p> +<p>Explicitly our several posts, my friend</p> +<p>And self would know what duty to attend."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you</p> +<p class="i2">Will join your former regiment, which should be</p> +<p>Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to"—</p> +<p class="i2">(Here he called up a Polish orderly)</p> +<p>"His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew:</p> +<p class="i2">The stranger stripling may remain with me;</p> +<p>He's a fine boy. The women may be sent</p> +<p>To the other baggage, or to the sick tent."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here a sort of scene began to ensue:</p> +<p class="i2">The ladies,—who by no means had been bred</p> +<p>To be disposed of in a way so new,</p> +<p class="i2">Although their Harem education led,</p> +<p>Doubtless, to that of doctrines the most true,</p> +<p class="i2">Passive obedience,—now raised up the head</p> +<p>With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung</p> +<p>Their arms, as hens their wings about their young,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O'er the promoted couple of brave men</p> +<p class="i2">Who were thus honoured by the greatest Chief</p> +<p>That ever peopled Hell with heroes slain,</p> +<p class="i2">Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.</p> +<p>Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!</p> +<p class="i2">Oh, glorious Laurel! since for one sole leaf</p> +<p>Of thine imaginary deathless tree,</p> +<p>Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.<a name="FNanchor_HU" id="FNanchor_HU"></a><a href="#Footnote_HU" class="fnanchor">[HU]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears,</p> +<p class="i2">And not much sympathy for blood, surveyed</p> +<p>The women with their hair about their ears</p> +<p class="i2">And natural agonies, with a slight shade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p> +<p>Of feeling: for however Habit sears</p> +<p class="i2">Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade</p> +<p>Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow</p> +<p>Will touch even heroes—and such was Suwarrow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He said,—and in the kindest Calmuck tone,—</p> +<p class="i2">"Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean</p> +<p>By bringing women here? They shall be shown</p> +<p class="i2">All the attention possible, and seen</p> +<p>In safety to the waggons, where alone</p> +<p class="i2">In fact they can be safe. You should have been</p> +<p>Aware this kind of baggage never thrives;</p> +<p>Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives"—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"May it please your Excellency," thus replied</p> +<p class="i2">Our British friend, "these are the wives of others,</p> +<p>And not our own. I am too qualified</p> +<p class="i2">By service with my military brothers</p> +<p>To break the rules by bringing one's own bride</p> +<p class="i2">Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers</p> +<p>The hearts of the heroic on a charge,</p> +<p>As leaving a small family at large.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But these are but two Turkish ladies, who</p> +<p class="i2">With their attendant aided our escape,</p> +<p>And afterwards accompanied us through</p> +<p class="i2">A thousand perils in this dubious shape.</p> +<p>To me this kind of life is not so new;</p> +<p class="i2">To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape:</p> +<p>I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely,</p> +<p>Request that they may both be used genteelly."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">Looked on as if in doubt if they could trust</p> +<p>Their own protectors; nor was their surprise</p> +<p class="i2">Less than their grief (and truly not less just)</p> +<p>To see an old man, rather wild than wise</p> +<p class="i2">In aspect, plainly clad, besmeared with dust,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p> +<p>Stripped to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,</p> +<p>More feared than all the Sultans ever seen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For everything seemed resting on his nod,</p> +<p class="i2">As they could read in all eyes. Now to them,</p> +<p>Who were accustomed, as a sort of god,</p> +<p class="i2">To see the Sultan, rich in many a gem,</p> +<p>Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad</p> +<p class="i2">(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,)</p> +<p>With all the pomp of Power, it was a doubt</p> +<p>How Power could condescend to do without.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay,</p> +<p class="i2">Though little versed in feelings oriental,</p> +<p>Suggested some slight comfort in his way:</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan, who was much more sentimental,</p> +<p>Swore they should see him by the dawn of day,</p> +<p class="i2">Or that the Russian army should repent all:</p> +<p>And, strange to say, they found some consolation</p> +<p>In this—for females like exaggeration.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses,</p> +<p class="i2">They parted for the present—these to await,</p> +<p>According to the artillery's hits or misses,</p> +<p class="i2">What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate—</p> +<p>(Uncertainty is one of many blisses,</p> +<p class="i2">A mortgage on Humanity's estate;)<a name="FNanchor_HV" id="FNanchor_HV"></a><a href="#Footnote_HV" class="fnanchor">[HV]</a></p> +<p>While their belovéd friends began to arm,</p> +<p>To burn a town which never did them harm.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow,—who but saw things in the gross.</p> +<p class="i2">Being much too gross to see them in detail,</p> +<p>Who calculated life as so much dross,</p> +<p class="i2">And as the wind a widowed nation's wail,</p> +<p>And cared as little for his army's loss</p> +<p class="i2">(So that their efforts should at length prevail)</p> +<p>As wife and friends did for the boils of Job,—</p> +<p>What was 't to him to hear two women sob?</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nothing.—The work of Glory still went on</p> +<p class="i2">In preparations for a cannonade</p> +<p>As terrible as that of Ilion,</p> +<p class="i2">If Homer had found mortars ready made;</p> +<p>But now, instead of slaying Priam's son,</p> +<p class="i2">We only can but talk of escalade,</p> +<p>Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets—</p> +<p>Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm</p> +<p class="i2">All ears, though long; all ages, though so short,</p> +<p>By merely wielding with poetic arm</p> +<p class="i2">Arms to which men will never more resort,</p> +<p>Unless gunpowder should be found to harm</p> +<p class="i2">Much less than is the hope of every court,</p> +<p>Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;</p> +<p>But they will not find Liberty a Troy:—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now</p> +<p class="i2">To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain,</p> +<p>With deadlier engines and a speedier blow,</p> +<p class="i2">Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign;</p> +<p>And yet, like all men else, I must allow,</p> +<p class="i2">To vie with thee would be about as vain</p> +<p>As for a brook to cope with Ocean's flood,—</p> +<p>But still we moderns equal you in blood:<a name="FNanchor_HW" id="FNanchor_HW"></a><a href="#Footnote_HW" class="fnanchor">[HW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If not in poetry, at least in fact;</p> +<p class="i2">And fact is Truth, the grand desideratum!</p> +<p>Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act,</p> +<p class="i2">There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum.</p> +<p>But now the town is going to be attacked;</p> +<p class="i2">Great deeds are doing—how shall I relate 'em?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></p> +<p>Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus watches</p> +<p>To colour up his rays from your despatches.<a name="FNanchor_HX" id="FNanchor_HX"></a><a href="#Footnote_HX" class="fnanchor">[HX]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!</p> +<p class="i2">Oh, ye less grand long lists of killed and wounded!</p> +<p>Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty,</p> +<p class="i2">When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!</p> +<p>Oh, Cæsar's Commentaries! now impart, ye</p> +<p class="i2">Shadows of Glory! (lest I be confounded),</p> +<p>A portion of your fading twilight hues—</p> +<p>So beautiful, so fleeting—to the Muse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When I call "fading" martial immortality,</p> +<p class="i2">I mean, that every age and every year,</p> +<p>And almost every day, in sad reality,</p> +<p class="i2">Some sucking hero is compelled to rear,</p> +<p>Who, when we come to sum up the totality</p> +<p class="i2">Of deeds to human happiness most dear,</p> +<p>Turns out to be a butcher in great business,</p> +<p>Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet,</p> +<p class="i2">Are things immortal to immortal man,</p> +<p>As purple to the Babylonian harlot;<a name="FNanchor_HY" id="FNanchor_HY"></a><a href="#Footnote_HY" class="fnanchor">[HY]</a></p> +<p class="i2">An uniform to boys is like a fan</p> +<p>To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet</p> +<p class="i2">But deems himself the first in Glory's van.</p> +<p>But Glory's glory; and if you would find</p> +<p>What <i>that</i> is—ask the pig who sees the wind!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At least <i>he feels it</i>, and some say he <i>sees</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Because he runs before it like a pig;</p> +<p>Or, if that simple sentence should displease,</p> +<p class="i2">Say, that he scuds before it like a brig,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></p> +<p>A schooner, or—but it is time to ease</p> +<p class="i2">This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.</p> +<p>The next shall ring a peal to shake all people,</p> +<p>Like a bob-major from a village steeple.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night,</p> +<p class="i2">The hum of armies gathering rank on rank!</p> +<p>Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight</p> +<p class="i2">Along the leaguered wall and bristling bank</p> +<p>Of the armed river, while with straggling light</p> +<p class="i2">The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank,</p> +<p>Which curl in various wreaths:—how soon the smoke</p> +<p>Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here pause we for the present—as even then</p> +<p class="i2">That awful pause, dividing Life from Death,</p> +<p>Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,—</p> +<p class="i2">Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!</p> +<p>A moment—and all will be Life again!</p> +<p class="i2">The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith,</p> +<p>Hurrah! and Allah! and one moment more—</p> +<p>The death-cry drowning in the Battle's roar.<a name="FNanchor_HZ" id="FNanchor_HZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_HZ" class="fnanchor">[HZ]</a><a name="FNanchor_411" id="FNanchor_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364" id="Footnote_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364"> +<span class="label">[364]</span></a> <a name="Note_302" id="Note_302"></a>{302}["These [the seventh and eighth] Cantos contain a +full detail (like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and assault of +Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your +mercenary soldiery.... With these things and these fellows it is +necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away +the scabbard. I know it is against fearful odds; but the battle must be +fought; and it will be eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it +may be for the individual who risks himself."—Letter to Moore, August +8, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 101.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365" id="Footnote_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> [Byron attributes this phrase to Orator Henley +(<i>Letters</i>, 1898, i. 227); and to Bayes in the Duke of Buckingham's +play, <i>The Rehearsal</i> (<i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 80).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HH" id="Footnote_HH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HH"><span class="label">[HH]</span></a> <i>Of Fenelon, of Calvin and of Christ</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366" id="Footnote_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto II. stanza vii. line 1, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 103, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HI" id="Footnote_HI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HI"><span class="label">[HI]</span></a> <i>Picking a pebble on the shore of Truth</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367" id="Footnote_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> ["Sir Isaac Newton, a little before he died, said, 'I +don't know what I may seem to the world; but, as to myself, I seem to +have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself +in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than +ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before +me.'"—Spence, <i>Anecdotes</i> (quoting Chevalier Ramsay), 1858, p. 40.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HJ" id="Footnote_HJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HJ"><span class="label">[HJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_304" id="Note_304"></a>{304}<i>From fools who dread to know the truth of +Life</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368" id="Footnote_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> [Compare "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland +Dog," lines 7, sq., <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 280.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369" id="Footnote_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> [Aleksandr Vasilievitch Suvóroff (1729-1800) opened his +attack on Ismail, November 30, 1790. His forces, including Kossacks, +exceeded 27,000 men.—<i>Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la +Nouvelle Russie</i>, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, 1827, ii. 201.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370" id="Footnote_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> ["Ismaël est situé sur la rive gauche du bras gauche +(i.e. the ilia) du Danube."—<i>Ibid.</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371" id="Footnote_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> <a name="Note_305" id="Note_305"></a>{305}[——"à peu près à quatre-vingts verstes de la mer: +elle a près de trois milles toises de tour."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle +Russie</i>, ii. 201.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372" id="Footnote_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> ["On a compris dans ces fortifications un faubourg +moldave, situé à la gauche de la ville, sur une hauteur qui la domine: +l'ouvrage a été terminé par un Grec. Pour donner une idée des talens de +cet ingénieur, il suffira de dire qu'il fit placer les palissades +perpendiculairement sur le parapet, de manière qu'elles favorisaient les +assiégeans, et arrêtaient le feu des assiégés."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 202.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373" id="Footnote_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> ["Le rempart en terre est prodigieusement élevé à cause +de l'immense profondeur du fossé; il est cependant absolument rasant: il +n'y a ni ouvrage avancé, ni chemin couvert."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 202.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374" id="Footnote_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> [Casemate is a work made under the rampart, like a cellar +or cave, with loopholes to place guns in it, and is bomb proof.—<i>Milit. +Dict.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375" id="Footnote_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> [When the breastwork of a battery is only of such height +that the guns may fire over it without being obliged to make embrasures, +the guns are said to fire in barbet.—<i>Ibid.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376" id="Footnote_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> <a name="Note_306" id="Note_306"></a>{306}["Un bastion de pierres, ouvert par une gorge +très-étroite, et dont les murailles son fort épaisses, a une batterie +casematée et une à barbette; il défend la rive du Danube. Du côté droit +de la ville est un cavalier de quarante pieds d'élévation à pic, garni +de vingt-deux pièces de canon, et qui défend la partie gauche."—<i>Hist. +de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 202.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377" id="Footnote_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> ["Du côté du fleuve, la ville est absolument ouverte; les +Turcs ne croyaient pas que les Russes pussent jamais avoir une flotille +dans le Danube."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378" id="Footnote_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> [Meknop [supposed to be a corruption of McNab], etc., in +line three, are real names: Strongenoff stands for Strogonof, +Tschitsshakoff for Tchitchagof, and, perhaps, Chokenoff for +Tchoglokof.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HK" id="Footnote_HK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HK"><span class="label">[HK]</span></a> <a name="Note_307" id="Note_307"></a>{307}—— <i>these discords of damnation</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_379" id="Footnote_379"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> +["La première attaque était composée de trois colonnes, +commandées par les lieutenans-generaux Paul Potiemkin, Serge Lwow, les +généraux-majors Maurice Lascy, Théodore Meknop.... +Trois autres colonnes +... avaient pour chefs le comte de Samoïlow, +les généraux Êlie de +Bezborodko, Michel Koutousow; les brigadiers Orlow, Platow, +Ribaupierre.... La troisième attaque par eau n'avait que deux colonnes, +sous les ordres des généraux-majors Ribas et Arséniew, +des brigadiers +Markoff et Tchépéga," etc.—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, +ii. 207. +</p> +<p>Compare—</p> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza" style="margin-right:10em;"> + <p>"Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky,</p> + <p>And all the others that end in-offsky.</p> + <hr style="margin:0.5em auto 0.5em 3em;" /> + <p>And Kutousoff he cut them off," etc.</p> + </div> + </div> +<p class="attrib">Southey's <i>March to Moscow</i>, 1813.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_380" id="Footnote_380"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> +[Count Boris Petrowitch Scheremetov, Russian general, +died 1819; Prince Alexis Borisovitch Kourakin (1759-1829), and Count +Alexis Iwanowitch Moussine-Pouschkine (1744-1817) were distinguished +statesmen; Chrematoff is, perhaps, a rhyming double of Scherematoff, and +Koklophti "a match-piece" to Koclobski.] +</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381" id="Footnote_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> <a name="Note_308" id="Note_308"></a>{308}[Captain Smith, in the song— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"A Captain bold, in Halifax,</p> +<p>That dwelt in country quarters,</p> +<p>Seduc'd a maid who hang'd herself</p> +<p>One Monday in her garters."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +See George Colman's farce, <i>Love Laughs at Locksmiths</i>, 1818, p. 31.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382" id="Footnote_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> <a name="Note_309" id="Note_309"></a>{309}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">"While to my shame I see</p> +<p>The imminent death of twenty thousand men,</p> +<p>That for a fantasy and trick of fame</p> +<p>Go to their graves like beds."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Hamlet</i>, act iv. sc. 4, lines 56-59.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HL" id="Footnote_HL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HL"><span class="label">[HL]</span></a> <i>The Conquest seemed not difficult</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383" id="Footnote_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> ["On s'était proposé deux buts également avantageux, par +la construction de deux batteries sur l'île qui avoisine Ismaël: le +premier, de bombarder la place, d'en abattre les principaux édifices +avec du canon de quarante-huit, effet d'autant plus probable, que la +ville étant bâtie en amphithéâtre, presque aucun coup ne serait +perdu."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384" id="Footnote_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> ["Le second objet était de profiter de ce moment d'alarme +pour que la flottille, agissant en même temps, put détruire celle des +Turcs. Un troisième motif, et vraisemblablement le plus plausible, était +de jeter la consternation parmi les Turcs, et de les engager à +capituler."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HM" id="Footnote_HM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HM"><span class="label">[HM]</span></a> <a name="Note_310" id="Note_310"></a>{310} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Unless they are as game as bull-dogs or even tarriers</i>.</p> +<p>or, <i>A thing which sometimes hath occurred to warriors</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Unless they happened to be as game as tarriers</i>.—</p> +<p class="i18">[MS. A. Alternative reading.]</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Unless they are Game as bull-dogs or even terriers</i>.—[MS. B.]</p> +</div></div> +<p> +(Byron erased the reading of MS. B. and superscribed the reading of the +text.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385" id="Footnote_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> ["Une habitude blâmable, celle de mépriser son ennemi, +fut la cause."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386" id="Footnote_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> [" ... du défaut de perfection dans la construction des +batteries; on voulait agir promptement, et on négligea de donner aux +ouvrages la solidité qu'ils exigaient."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387" id="Footnote_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> <a name="Note_311" id="Note_311"></a>{311}["Le même esprit fit manquer l'effet de trois +brûlots; on calcula mal la distance; on se pressa d'allumer la méche, +ils brûlèrent au milieu du fleuve, et quoiqu'il fût six heures du matin, +les Turcs, encore couchés, n'en prirent aucun ombrage."—<i>Hist. de la +Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388" id="Footnote_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> ["1<sup>er</sup> Dec. 1790. La flottille russe s'avança vers les +sept heures; il en était neuf lorsqu'elle se trouva à cinquante toises +de la ville [d'Ismaël]: elle souffrit, avec une constance calme, un feu +de mitraille et de mousqueterie...."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 204.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389" id="Footnote_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> [" ... près de six heures ... les batteries de terre +secondaient la flottille; mais on reconnut alors que les canonnades ne +suffiraient pas pour réduire la place, on fit la retraite à une heure. +Un lançon sauta pendant l'action, un autre dériva par la force du +courant, et fut pris par l'ennemi."'—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. +204.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390" id="Footnote_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> <a name="Note_312" id="Note_312"></a>{312}[For Delhis, see <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii., note +1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391" id="Footnote_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> ["Les Turcs perdirent beaucoup de monde et plusieurs +vaisseaux. A peine la retraite des Russes fut-elle remarquée, que les +plus braves d'entre les ennemis se jetèrent dans de petites barques et +essayèrent une descente: le Comte de Damas les mit en fuite, et leur tua +plusieurs officiers et grand nombre de soldats."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle +Russie</i>, p. 204.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392" id="Footnote_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> ["On ne tarirait pas si on voulait rapporter tout ce que +les Russes firent de mémorable dans cette journée; pour conter les hauts +faits d'armes, pour particulariser toutes les actions d'éclat, il +faudrait composer des volumes."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 204.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393" id="Footnote_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> ["Parmi les étrangers, le prince de Ligne se distingua de +manière à mériter l'estime générale; de vrais chevaliers français, +attirés par l'amour de la gloire, se montrèrent dignes d'elle: les plus +marquans étaient le jeune Duc de Richelieu, les Comtes de Langeron et de +Damas."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 204. +</p><p> +Andrault, Comte de Langeron, born at Paris, January 13, 1763, on the +outbreak of the Revolution (1790) took service in the Russian Army. He +fought against the Swedes in 1790, and the Turks in 1791, and, after +serving as a volunteer in the army of the Duke of Brunswick (1792-93), +returned to Russia, and was raised to the rank of general in 1799. He +commanded a division of the Russian Army in the German campaign of 1813, +and entered Paris with Blücher, March 30, 1814. He was afterwards +Governor of Odessa and of New Russia; and, a second time, fought against +the Turks in 1828. He died at St. Petersburg, July 4, 1831. Joseph +Elizabeth Roger, Comte de Damas d'Antigny, born at Paris, September 4, +1765, owed his commission in the Russian Army to the influence of the +Prince de Ligne. He fought against the Turks in 1787-88, and was +distinguished for bravery and daring. At the Restoration in 1814 he +re-entered the French Army, was made Governor of Lyons; shared the +temporary exile of Louis XVIII. at Ghent in 1815, and, in the following +year, as commandant of a division, took part in repressing the +revolutionary disturbances in the central and southern departments of +France. He died at Cirey, September 3, 1823.—<i>La Grande +Encyclopédie</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394" id="Footnote_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> <a name="Note_313" id="Note_313"></a>{313}[Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne, was born at +Brussels, May 12, 1735. In 1782 he visited St. Petersburg as envoy of +the Emperor Joseph II., won Catherine's favour, and was appointed Field +Marshal in the Russian Army. In 1788 he was sent to assist Potemkin at +the siege of Ochakof. His <i>Mélanges Militaires, etc.</i>, were first +published in 1795. He died in November, 1814. +</p><p> +Josef de Ribas (1737-c. 1797).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395" id="Footnote_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> ["L'Amiral de Ribas ... déclara, en plein conseil, que ce +n'était qu'en donnant l'assaut qu'on obtiendrait la place: cet avis +parut hardi; on lui opposa mille raisons, auxquelles il répondit par de +meilleures." —<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii, 205.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396" id="Footnote_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> <a name="Note_314" id="Note_314"></a>{314}[Prince (Gregor Alexandrovitch) Potemkin, born 1736, +died October 15, 1791. "He alighted from his carriage in the midst of +the highway, threw himself on the grass, and died under a tree" (<i>Life +of Catherine II</i>., by W. Tooke, 1880, iii. 324). His character has been +drawn by Louis Philippe, Comte de Ségur, who, writes Tooke (<i>ibid</i>., p. +326), "lived a long time in habits of intimacy with him, and was so +obliging as to delineate it at our solicitation." "In his person were +collected the most opposite defects and advantages of every kind. He was +avaricious and ostentatious, ... haughty and obliging, politic and +confiding, licentious and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and +indiscreet; lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and +his favourites, yet frequently paying neither his household nor his +creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, and he was always +unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the activity of his mind, nor the +indolence of his body. No dangers could appal his courage; no +difficulties force him to abandon his projects. But the success of an +enterprise always brought on disgust.... Everything with him was +desultory; business, pleasure, temper, carriage. His presence was a +restraint on every company. He was morose to all that stood in awe of +him, and caressed all such as accosted him with familiarity.... None had +read less than he; few people were better informed.... One while he +formed the project of becoming Duke of Courland; at another he thought +of bestowing on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave +intimations of an intention to make himself a bishop, or even a simple +monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it was +finished. In his youth he had pleased her [Catherine] by the ardour of +his passion, by his valour, and by his masculine beauty.... Become the +rival of Orloff, he performed for his sovereign whatever the most +romantic passion could inspire. He put out his eye, to free it from a +blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to +meet death in battle, and returned with glory."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397" id="Footnote_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> <a name="Note_315" id="Note_315"></a>{315}["Ce projet, remis à un autre jour, éprouva encore +les plus grandes difficultés; son courage les surmonta: il ne s'agíssait +que de déterminer le Prince Potiemkin; il y réussit. Tandis qu'il se +démenait pour l'exécution de projet agréé, on construisait de nouvelles +batteries; on comptait, le 12 décembre, quatre-vingts pièces de canon +sur le bord du Danube, et cette journée se passa en vives +canonnades."—<i>Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 205.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HN" id="Footnote_HN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HN"><span class="label">[HN]</span></a> <i>Into all aspirants for martial praise</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398" id="Footnote_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> ["Le 13<sup>e</sup>, une partie des troupes était embarquée; on +allait lever le siège: un courrier arrive.... Ce courrier annonce, de la +part du prince, que le maréchal Souwarow va prendre le commandement des +forces réunies sous Ismaël."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 205.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399" id="Footnote_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> <a name="Note_316" id="Note_316"></a>{316}["La lettre du Prince Potiemkin à Souwarow est très +courte; elle peint le caractere de ces deux personnages. La voici dans +toute sa teneur: <i>'Vous prendrez Ismaël à quel frix que ce +soit!'</i>"—<i>Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 205.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400" id="Footnote_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> ["[Le courrier] est témoin des cris de joie du Turc, qui +se croyait à la fin de ses maux."-<i>Ibid</i>., p. 205.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401" id="Footnote_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> ["Beat," as in "dead-beat," is occasionally used for +"beaten."—See <i>N.E.D.</i>, art. "Beat," 10.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402" id="Footnote_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> ["Le 16<sup>e</sup>, on voit venir de loin deux hommes courant à +toute bride: on les prit pour des Kozaks; l'un était Souwarow, et +l'autre son guide, portant un paquet gros comme le poing, et renfermant +le bagage du général."-<i>Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 205. +</p><p> +M. de Castelnau in his description of the arrival of Suvóroff on the +field of battle (<i>Hist, de la</i> N.R., 1827, ii. pp, 205, 206) summarizes +the Journal of the Duc de Richelieu. The original passage runs as +follows:— +</p><p> +"L'arrivée du comte Souvorow produisit un grand effet parmi les +troupes.... La manière d'être plus que simple, puis-qu'il logeait sous +une canonnière, et qu'il n'avait pas même de chaises dans sa tente, son +affabilité, sa bonhomie lui conciliaient l'affection de tous les +individus de son armée. Cet homme singulier qui ressemble plus à un chef +de cosaques ou de Tartares, qu'au général d'une armée européenne, est +doué d'une intrépidité et d'une hardiesse peu communes.... +La manière de vivre, de s'habiller et de parler du comte Souvorow, est aussi +singulière que ses opinions militaires.... Il mangeait dans sa tente +assis par terre autour d'une natte sur laquelle il prenait le plus +détestable repas. L'après-midi, un semblable repas lui servait de +souper, il s'endormait ensuite pendant quelques heures, passait une +partie de la nuit à chanter, et a la pointe du jour il sortait presque +nu et se roulait sur l'herbe assurant que cet exercice lui était +necessaire pour le préserver des rhumatismes.... Sa manière de +s'exprimer dans toutes les langues est aussi singulière que toute sa +façon d'être, ses phrases sont incohérentes, et s'il n'est pas insensé, +il dit et fait du moins tout ce qu'il faut pour le paraître; mais il est +heureux et cette qualité dont le Cardinal Mazarin faisait tant de cas, +est, à bon droit, fort estimée de l'Impératrice et du Prince Potemkin +... Le moment de l'arrivée du Comte Souvorow fut annoncé par une +décharge générale des batteries ou camp et de la flotte."—<i>Journal de mon +Voyage en Allemagne</i>. <i>Soc, Imp. d'Hist de Russie</i>, 1886, tom. liv. pp. +168, 169.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HO" id="Footnote_HO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HO"><span class="label">[HO]</span></a> <a name="Note_317" id="Note_317"></a>{317}<i>That sage John Bull</i>——.—[MS.] +</p><p> +<i>That fool John Bull</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403" id="Footnote_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> <a name="Note_319" id="Note_319"></a>{319}["La première attaque était composée de trois +colonnes ... Trois autres colonnes, destinées a la seconde attaque, +avaient pour chefs, etc.... La troisième attaque par eau n'avait que +deux colonnes."—<i>Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 207.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404" id="Footnote_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> +["On construisit de nouvelles batteries le 18<sup>e</sup>.... On +tint un conseil de guerre, on y examina les plans pour l'assaut proposés +par M. de Ribas, ils réunirent tous les souffrages."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 208.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HP" id="Footnote_HP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HP"><span class="label">[HP]</span></a> <i>For once by some odd sort of magnanimity.</i>—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HQ" id="Footnote_HQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HQ"><span class="label">[HQ]</span></a> <i>Bellona shook her spear with much sublimity.</i>—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405" id="Footnote_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> Fact: Suwaroff did this in person.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HR" id="Footnote_HR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HR"><span class="label">[HR]</span></a>—— <i>and neither swerve nor spill.</i>—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406" id="Footnote_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> ["Le 19<sup>e</sup> et le 20<sup>e</sup>, Souwarow exerçailes soldats; il +leur montra comment il fallait s'y prendre pour escalader; il enseigna +aux recrues la manière de donner le coup de baïonnette."—<i>Ibid</i>., p. +208.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407" id="Footnote_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> <a name="Note_320" id="Note_320"></a>{320}["Pour ces exercices d'un nouveau genre, il se +servit de fascines disposées de manière a représenter un Turc."-<i>Hist, +de la Nauvelle Russie</i>, ii. 208.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HS" id="Footnote_HS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HS"><span class="label">[HS]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>At which your wise men laughed, but all their Wit is</i></p> +<p><i>Lost, for his repartee was taking cities.</i>—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HT" id="Footnote_HT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HT"><span class="label">[HT]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>For some were thinking of their wives and families,</i></p> +<p><i>And others of themselves</i> (<i>as poet Samuel is</i>).</p> +<p class="i15">—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p> +<p><i>And others of themselves</i> (<i>as my friend Samuel is</i>).</p> +<p class="i15">—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408" id="Footnote_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> [For a detailed account of Suvóroff's personal +characteristics, see <i>The Life of Field-Marshal Souvaroff</i>, by L.M.P. +Tranchant de Laverne, 1814, pp. 267-291; and <i>Suvóroff</i>, by +Lieut.-Colonel Spalding, 1890, pp. 222-229. +</p><p> +Byron's epithet "buffoon" (line 5) may, perhaps, be traced to the +following anecdote recorded by Tranchant de Laverne (p. 281): "During +the first war of Poland ... he published, in the order of the day, that +at the first crowing of the cock the troops would march to attack the +enemy, and caused the spy to send word that the Russians would be upon +them some time after midnight. But about eight o'clock Souvarof ran +through the camp, imitating the crowing of a cock.... The enemy, +completely surprised, lost a great number of men." +</p><p> +For his "praying" (line 6), <i>vide ibid.</i>, pp. 272, 273: "He made a short +prayer after each meal, and again when going to bed. He usually +performed his devotions before an image of St. Nicholas, the patron +saint of Russia." +</p><p> +"Half-dirt" (line 5) is, however, a calumny (<i>ibid</i>. p. 272): "It was +his custom to rise at the earliest dawn; several buckets of cold water +were thrown over his naked body." +</p><p> +The same writer (p. 268) repudiates the charges of excessive barbarity +and cruelty brought against Suvóroff by C.F.P. Masson, in his <i>Mémoires +Secrets sur la Russie</i> (<i>vide</i>, e.g., ed. 1800, i. 311): "Souvorow ne +scroit que le plus ridicule bouffon, s'il n'étoit pas montré le plus +barbare guerrier. C'est un monstre, qui renferme dans le corps d'un +singe l'âme d'un chien de boucher. Attila, son compatriote, et don't il +descend, peut-être ne fut ni si heureux, ni si féroce." +</p><p> +Suvóroff did not regard himself as "half-demon." "Your pencil," he +reminded the artist Müller, "will delineate the features of my face. +These are visible: but my inner man is hidden. I must tell you that I +have shed rivers of blood. I tremble, but I love my neighbour. In my +whole life I have made no one unhappy; not an insect hath perished by my +hand. I was little; I was big. In fortune's ebb and flow, relying on +God, I stood immovable—even as now." (<i>Suvóroff</i>, 1890, p. 228, +note.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409" id="Footnote_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> <a name="Note_322" id="Note_322"></a>{322}[See, for instance, <i>The Storm</i>, in "Souvarof's +Catechism," Appendix (pp. 299-305) to the <i>Life, etc.</i>, by Tranchant de +Laverne, 1814: "Break down the fence.... Fly over the walls! Stab them +on the ramparts!... Fire down the streets! Fire briskly!... Kill every +enemy in the streets! Let the cavalry hack them!" etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410" id="Footnote_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> <a name="Note_323" id="Note_323"></a>{323}[The "tusk" of the plough is the coulter or share. +Compare "Dens vomeris" (Virg., <i>Georg.</i>, i. 22).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HU" id="Footnote_HU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HU"><span class="label">[HU]</span></a> <a name="Note_324" id="Note_324"></a>{324} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of thine imaginary deathless bough</i></p> +<p><i>The unebbing sea of blood and tears must flow</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HV" id="Footnote_HV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HV"><span class="label">[HV]</span></a> <a name="Note_326" id="Note_326"></a>{326}<i>Entailed upon Humanity's estate</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HW" id="Footnote_HW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HW"><span class="label">[HW]</span></a> <a name="Note_327" id="Note_327"></a>{327} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>As a brook's stream to cope with Ocean's flood shed</i></p> +<p><i>But still we moderns equal you in bloodshed</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HX" id="Footnote_HX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HX"><span class="label">[HX]</span></a> <a name="Note_328" id="Note_328"></a>{328} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>As in a General's letter when well whacked</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Whatever deeds be done I will relate 'em,</i></p> +<p><i>With some small variations in the text</i></p> +<p><i>Of killed and wounded who will not be missed</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HY" id="Footnote_HY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HY"><span class="label">[HY]</span></a> <i>Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_HZ" id="Footnote_HZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_HZ"><span class="label">[HZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_329" id="Note_329"></a>{329}<i>The desperate death-cry and the Battle's +roar</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_411" id="Footnote_411"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> +End of Canto 7. 1822.—[MS.] +</p> +</div> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_EIGHTH" id="CANTO_THE_EIGHTH"></a> +CANTO THE EIGHTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, blood and thunder! and oh, blood and wounds!</p> +<p class="i2">These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,</p> +<p>Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:—</p> +<p class="i2">And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream</p> +<p>Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds</p> +<p class="i2">At present such things, since they are her theme,</p> +<p>So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,</p> +<p>Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the men</p> +<p class="i2">To wield them in their terrible array,—</p> +<p>The army, like a lion from his den,</p> +<p class="i2">Marched forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,—</p> +<p>A human Hydra, issuing from its fen</p> +<p class="i2">To breathe destruction on its winding way,</p> +<p>Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain</p> +<p>Immediately in others grew again.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>History can only take things in the gross;</p> +<p class="i2">But could we know them in detail, perchance</p> +<p>In balancing the profit and the loss,</p> +<p class="i2">War's merit it by no means might enhance,</p> +<p>To waste so much gold for a little dross,</p> +<p class="i2">As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.</p> +<p>The drying up a single tear has more</p> +<p>Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And why?—because it brings self-approbation;</p> +<p class="i2">Whereas the other, after all its glare,</p> +<p>Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,</p> +<p class="i2">Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,</p> +<p>A higher title, or a loftier station,</p> +<p class="i2">Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,</p> +<p>Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles,</p> +<p>Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And such they are—and such they will be found:</p> +<p class="i2">Not so Leonidas and Washington,</p> +<p>Whose every battle-field is holy ground,</p> +<p class="i2">Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.</p> +<p>How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!</p> +<p class="i2">While the mere victor's may appal or stun</p> +<p>The servile and the vain—such names will be</p> +<p>A watchword till the Future shall be free.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The night was dark, and the thick mist allowed</p> +<p class="i2">Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame,</p> +<p>Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud,</p> +<p class="i2">And in the Danube's waters shone the same—<a name="FNanchor_412" id="FNanchor_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a></p> +<p>A mirrored Hell! the volleying roar, and loud</p> +<p class="i2">Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame</p> +<p>The ear far more than thunder; for Heaven's flashes</p> +<p>Spare, or smite rarely—Man's make millions ashes!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The column ordered on the assault scarce passed</p> +<p class="i2">Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises,</p> +<p>When up the bristling Moslem rose at last,</p> +<p class="i2">Answering the Christian thunders with like voices:</p> +<p>Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced,</p> +<p class="i2">Which rocked as 't were beneath the mighty noises;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p> +<p>While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when</p> +<p>The restless Titan hiccups in his den;<a name="FNanchor_413" id="FNanchor_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And one enormous shout of "Allah!"<a name="FNanchor_414" id="FNanchor_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> rose</p> +<p class="i2">In the same moment, loud as even the roar</p> +<p>Of War's most mortal engines, to their foes</p> +<p class="i2">Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore</p> +<p>Resounded "Allah!" and the clouds which close</p> +<p class="i2">With thickening canopy the conflict o'er,</p> +<p>Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through</p> +<p>All sounds it pierceth—"Allah! Allah Hu!"<a name="FNanchor_415" id="FNanchor_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The columns were in movement one and all,</p> +<p class="i2">But of the portion which attacked by water,</p> +<p>Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,<a name="FNanchor_416" id="FNanchor_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter,</p> +<p>As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.</p> +<p class="i2">"Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is God's daughter:"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_417" id="FNanchor_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a></p> +<p>If <i>he</i> speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and</p> +<p>Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee;</p> +<p class="i2">Count Chapeau-Bras,<a name="FNanchor_IA" id="FNanchor_IA"></a><a href="#Footnote_IA" class="fnanchor">[IA]</a>—too, had a ball between</p> +<p>His cap and head,<a name="FNanchor_418" id="FNanchor_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> which proves the head to be</p> +<p class="i2">Aristocratic as was ever seen,</p> +<p>Because it then received no injury</p> +<p class="i2">More than the cap; in fact, the ball could mean</p> +<p>No harm unto a right legitimate head;</p> +<p>"Ashes to ashes"—why not lead to lead?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also the General Markow, Brigadier,</p> +<p class="i2">Insisting on removal of <i>the Prince</i></p> +<p>Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,—</p> +<p class="i2">All common fellows, who might writhe and wince,</p> +<p>And shriek for water into a deaf ear,—</p> +<p class="i2">The General Markow, who could thus evince<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p> +<p>His sympathy for rank, by the same token,</p> +<p>To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.<a name="FNanchor_419" id="FNanchor_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,</p> +<p class="i2">And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills</p> +<p>Like hail, to make a bloody Diuretic.<a name="FNanchor_420" id="FNanchor_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills:</p> +<p>Thy plagues—thy famines—thy physicians—yet tick,</p> +<p class="i2">Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills</p> +<p>Past, present, and to come;—but all may yield</p> +<p>To the true portrait of one battle-field;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There the still varying pangs, which multiply</p> +<p class="i2">Until their very number makes men hard</p> +<p>By the infinities of agony,</p> +<p class="i2">Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard—</p> +<p>The groan, the roll in dust, the all-<i>white</i> eye</p> +<p class="i2">Turned back within its socket,—these reward</p> +<p>Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest</p> +<p>May win perhaps a riband at the breast!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Yet I love Glory;—Glory's a great thing:—</p> +<p class="i2">Think what it is to be in your old age</p> +<p>Maintained at the expense of your good King:</p> +<p class="i2">A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,</p> +<p>And Heroes are but made for bards to sing,</p> +<p class="i2">Which is still better—thus, in verse, to wage</p> +<p>Your wars eternally, besides enjoying</p> +<p>Half-pay for life, make Mankind worth destroying.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The troops, already disembarked, pushed on</p> +<p class="i2">To take a battery on the right: the others,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p> +<p>Who landed lower down, their landing done,</p> +<p class="i2">Had set to work as briskly as their brothers:</p> +<p>Being grenadiers, they mounted one by one,</p> +<p class="i2">Cheerful as children climb the breasts of mothers,</p> +<p>O'er the intrenchment and the palisade,<a name="FNanchor_421" id="FNanchor_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a></p> +<p>Quite orderly, as if upon parade.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And this was admirable: for so hot</p> +<p class="i2">The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded,</p> +<p>Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot</p> +<p class="i2">And shells or hells, it could not more have goaded.</p> +<p>Of officers a third fell on the spot,</p> +<p class="i2">A thing which Victory by no means boded</p> +<p>To gentlemen engaged in the assault:</p> +<p>Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here I leave the general concern</p> +<p class="i2">To track our Hero on his path of Fame:</p> +<p>He must his laurels separately earn—</p> +<p class="i2">For fifty thousand heroes, name by name,</p> +<p>Though all deserving equally to turn</p> +<p class="i2">A couplet, or an elegy to claim,</p> +<p>Would form a lengthy lexicon of Glory,</p> +<p>And, what is worse still, a much longer story:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore we must give the greater number</p> +<p class="i2">To the Gazette—which doubtless fairly dealt</p> +<p>By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber</p> +<p class="i2">In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt</p> +<p>Their clay for the last time their souls encumber;—</p> +<p class="i2">Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt</p> +<p>In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss</p> +<p>Was printed <i>Grove</i>, although his name was Grose.<a name="FNanchor_422" id="FNanchor_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan and Johnson joined a certain corps,</p> +<p class="i2">And fought away with might and main, not knowing</p> +<p>The way which they had never trod before,</p> +<p class="i2">And still less guessing where they might be going;</p> +<p>But on they marched, dead bodies trampling o'er,</p> +<p class="i2">Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing,</p> +<p>But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win,</p> +<p>To their <i>two</i> selves, <i>one</i> whole bright bulletin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus on they wallowed in the bloody mire</p> +<p class="i2">Of dead and dying thousands,—sometimes gaining</p> +<p>A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher</p> +<p class="i2">To some odd angle for which all were straining;</p> +<p>At other times, repulsed by the close fire,</p> +<p class="i2">Which really poured as if all Hell were raining</p> +<p>Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er</p> +<p>A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though 't was Don Juan's first of fields, and though</p> +<p class="i2">The nightly muster and the silent march</p> +<p>In the chill dark, when Courage does not glow</p> +<p class="i2">So much as under a triumphal arch,</p> +<p>Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw</p> +<p class="i2">A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch,</p> +<p>Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day;—</p> +<p>Yet for all this he did not run away.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Indeed he could not. But what if he had?</p> +<p class="i2">There <i>have been</i> and <i>are</i> heroes who begun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p> +<p>With something not much better, or as bad:</p> +<p class="i2">Frederick the Great from Molwitz<a name="FNanchor_423" id="FNanchor_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> deigned to run,</p> +<p>For the first and last time; for, like a pad,</p> +<p class="i2">Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one</p> +<p>Warm bout are broken in to their new tricks,</p> +<p>And fight like fiends for pay or politics.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was what Erin calls, in her sublime</p> +<p class="i2">Old Erse or Irish, or it may be <i>Punic</i>;—</p> +<p>(The antiquarians<a name="FNanchor_424" id="FNanchor_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a>—who can settle Time,</p> +<p class="i2">Which settles all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic—</p> +<p>Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime</p> +<p class="i2">With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic</p> +<p>Of Dido's alphabet—and this is rational</p> +<p>As any other notion, and not national;)—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was quite "a broth of a boy,"</p> +<p class="i2">A thing of impulse and a child of song;</p> +<p>Now swimming in the sentiment of joy,</p> +<p class="i2">Or the <i>sensation</i> (if that phrase seem wrong),</p> +<p>And afterward, if he must needs destroy,</p> +<p class="i2">In such good company as always throng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p> +<p>To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure,</p> +<p>No less delighted to employ his leisure;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But always without malice: if he warred</p> +<p class="i2">Or loved, it was with what we call "the best</p> +<p>Intentions," which form all Mankind's <i>trump card</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">To be produced when brought up to the test.</p> +<p>The statesman—hero—harlot—lawyer—ward</p> +<p class="i2">Off each attack, when people are in quest</p> +<p>Of their designs, by saying they <i>meant well</i>;</p> +<p>'T is pity "that such meaning should pave Hell."<a name="FNanchor_425" id="FNanchor_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I almost lately have begun to doubt</p> +<p class="i2">Whether Hell's pavement—if it be so <i>paved</i>—</p> +<p>Must not have latterly been quite worn out,</p> +<p class="i2">Not by the numbers good intent hath saved,</p> +<p>But by the mass who go below without</p> +<p class="i2">Those ancient good intentions, which once shaved</p> +<p>And smoothed the brimstone of that street of Hell</p> +<p>Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.<a name="FNanchor_IB" id="FNanchor_IB"></a><a href="#Footnote_IB" class="fnanchor">[IB]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides</p> +<p class="i2">Warrior from warrior in their grim career,</p> +<p>Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides</p> +<p class="i2">Just at the close of the first bridal year,</p> +<p>By one of those odd turns of Fortune's tides,</p> +<p class="i2">Was on a sudden rather puzzled here,</p> +<p>When, after a good deal of heavy firing,</p> +<p>He found himself alone, and friends retiring.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't know how the thing occurred—it might</p> +<p class="i2">Be that the greater part were killed or wounded,</p> +<p>And that the rest had faced unto the right</p> +<p class="i2">About; a circumstance which has confounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p> +<p>Cæsar himself, who, in the very sight</p> +<p class="i2">Of his whole army, which so much abounded</p> +<p>In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield,</p> +<p>And rally back his Romans to the field.<a name="FNanchor_426" id="FNanchor_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was</p> +<p class="i2">No Cæsar, but a fine young lad, who fought</p> +<p>He knew not why, arriving at this pass,</p> +<p class="i2">Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought</p> +<p>For a much longer time; then, like an ass</p> +<p class="i2">(Start not, kind reader, since great Homer<a name="FNanchor_427" id="FNanchor_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> thought</p> +<p>This simile enough for Ajax, Juan</p> +<p>Perhaps may find it better than a new one);</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, like an ass, he went upon his way,</p> +<p class="i2">And, what was stranger, never looked behind;</p> +<p>But seeing, flashing forward, like the day</p> +<p class="i2">Over the hills, a fire enough to blind</p> +<p>Those who dislike to look upon a fray,</p> +<p class="i2">He stumbled on, to try if he could find</p> +<p>A path, to add his own slight arm and forces</p> +<p>To corps, the greater part of which were corses.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perceiving then no more the commandant</p> +<p class="i2">Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had</p> +<p>Quite disappeared—the gods know how! (I can't</p> +<p class="i2">Account for everything which may look bad</p> +<p>In history; but we at least may grant</p> +<p class="i2">It was not marvellous that a mere lad,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span></p> +<p>In search of Glory, should look on before,</p> +<p>Nor care a pinch of snuff about his corps:)—<a name="FNanchor_IC" id="FNanchor_IC"></a><a href="#Footnote_IC" class="fnanchor">[IC]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perceiving nor commander nor commanded,</p> +<p class="i2">And left at large, like a young heir, to make</p> +<p>His way to—where he knew not—single handed;</p> +<p class="i2">As travellers follow over bog and brake</p> +<p>An "ignis fatuus;" or as sailors stranded</p> +<p class="i2">Unto the nearest hut themselves betake;</p> +<p>So Juan, following Honour and his nose,</p> +<p>Rushed where the thickest fire announced most foes.<a name="FNanchor_428" id="FNanchor_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared,</p> +<p class="i2">For he was dizzy, busy, and his veins</p> +<p>Filled as with lightning—for his spirit shared</p> +<p class="i2">The hour, as is the case with lively brains;</p> +<p>And where the hottest fire was seen and heard,</p> +<p class="i2">And the loud cannon pealed his hoarsest strains,</p> +<p>He rushed, while earth and air were sadly shaken</p> +<p>By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!<a name="FNanchor_ID" id="FNanchor_ID"></a><a href="#Footnote_ID" class="fnanchor">[ID]</a><a name="FNanchor_429" id="FNanchor_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And as he rushed along, it came to pass he</p> +<p class="i2">Fell in with what was late the second column,</p> +<p>Under the orders of the General Lascy,</p> +<p class="i2">But now reduced, as is a bulky volume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p> +<p>Into an elegant extract (much less massy)</p> +<p class="i2">Of heroism, and took his place with solemn</p> +<p>Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces</p> +<p>And levelled weapons still against the Glacis.<a name="FNanchor_IE" id="FNanchor_IE"></a><a href="#Footnote_IE" class="fnanchor">[IE]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Just at this crisis up came Johnson too,</p> +<p class="i2">Who had "retreated," as the phrase is when</p> +<p>Men run away much rather than go through</p> +<p class="i2">Destruction's jaws into the Devil's den;</p> +<p>But Johnson was a clever fellow, who</p> +<p class="i2">Knew when and how "to cut and come again,"</p> +<p>And never ran away, except when running</p> +<p>Was nothing but a valorous kind of cunning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so, when all his corps were dead or dying,</p> +<p class="i2">Except Don Juan, a mere novice, whose</p> +<p>More virgin valour never dreamt of flying,</p> +<p class="i2">From ignorance of danger, which indues</p> +<p>Its votaries, like Innocence relying</p> +<p class="i2">On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews,—</p> +<p>Johnson retired a little, just to rally</p> +<p>Those who catch cold in "shadows of Death's valley."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And there, a little sheltered from the shot,</p> +<p class="i2">Which rained from bastion, battery, parapet,</p> +<p>Rampart, wall, casement, house—for there was not</p> +<p class="i2">In this extensive city, sore beset</p> +<p>By Christian soldiery, a single spot</p> +<p class="i2">Which did not combat like the Devil, as yet,—</p> +<p>He found a number of Chasseurs, all scattered</p> +<p>By the resistance of the chase they battered.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And these he called on; and, what 's strange, they came</p> +<p class="i2">Unto his call, unlike "the spirits from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p> +<p>The vasty deep," to whom you may exclaim,</p> +<p class="i2">Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home:—<a name="FNanchor_430" id="FNanchor_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a></p> +<p>Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame</p> +<p class="i2">At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb,</p> +<p>And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds<a name="FNanchor_IF" id="FNanchor_IF"></a><a href="#Footnote_IF" class="fnanchor">[IF]</a></p> +<p>Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By Jove! he was a noble fellow, Johnson,</p> +<p class="i2">And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles,</p> +<p>Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon</p> +<p class="i2">We shall not see his likeness: he could kill his</p> +<p>Man quite as quietly as blows the Monsoon</p> +<p class="i2">Her steady breath (which some months the same <i>still</i> is):</p> +<p>Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle,</p> +<p>And could be very busy without bustle;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore, when he ran away, he did so</p> +<p class="i2">Upon reflection, knowing that behind</p> +<p>He would find others who would fain be rid so</p> +<p class="i2">Of idle apprehensions, which like wind</p> +<p>Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so</p> +<p class="i2">Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind,</p> +<p>But when they light upon immediate death,</p> +<p>Retire a little, merely to take breath.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Johnson only ran off, to return</p> +<p class="i2">With many other warriors, as we said,</p> +<p>Unto that rather somewhat misty bourne,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread.<a name="FNanchor_431" id="FNanchor_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a></p> +<p>To Jack, howe'er, this gave but slight concern:</p> +<p class="i2">His soul (like galvanism upon the dead)</p> +<p>Acted upon the living as on wire,</p> +<p>And led them back into the heaviest fire.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Egad! they found the second time what they</p> +<p class="i2">The first time thought quite terrible enough</p> +<p>To fly from, malgré all which people say</p> +<p class="i2">Of Glory, and all that immortal stuff</p> +<p>Which fills a regiment (besides their pay,</p> +<p class="i2">That daily shilling which makes warriors tough)—</p> +<p>They found on their return the self-same welcome,</p> +<p>Which made some <i>think</i>, and others <i>know</i>, a <i>hell</i> come.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail,</p> +<p class="i2">Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle,</p> +<p>Proving that trite old truth, that Life's as frail</p> +<p class="i2">As any other boon for which men stickle.</p> +<p>The Turkish batteries thrashed them like a flail,</p> +<p class="i2">Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle</p> +<p>Putting the very bravest, who were knocked</p> +<p>Upon the head before their guns were cocked.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Turks behind the traverses and flanks</p> +<p class="i2">Of the next bastion, fired away like devils,</p> +<p>And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks:</p> +<p class="i2">However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels</p> +<p>Towns—nations—worlds, in her revolving pranks,</p> +<p class="i2">So ordered it, amidst these sulphury revels,</p> +<p>That Johnson, and some few who had not scampered,</p> +<p>Reached the interior "talus"<a name="FNanchor_432" id="FNanchor_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> of the rampart.<a name="FNanchor_433" id="FNanchor_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen</p> +<p class="i2">Came mounting quickly up, for it was now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p> +<p>All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin,</p> +<p class="i2">Flame was showered forth above, as well 's below,</p> +<p>So that you scarce could say who best had chosen,</p> +<p class="i2">The gentlemen that were the first to show</p> +<p>Their martial faces on the parapet,</p> +<p>Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But those who scaled, found out that their advance</p> +<p class="i2">Was favoured by an accident or blunder:</p> +<p>The Greek or Turkish Cohorn's<a name="FNanchor_434" id="FNanchor_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> ignorance</p> +<p class="i2">Had pallisadoed in a way you'd wonder</p> +<p>To see in forts of Netherlands or France—</p> +<p class="i2">(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)—</p> +<p>Right in the middle of the parapet</p> +<p>Just named, these palisades were primly set:<a name="FNanchor_435" id="FNanchor_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So that on either side some nine or ten</p> +<p class="i2">Paces were left, whereon you could contrive</p> +<p>To march; a great convenience to our men,</p> +<p class="i2">At least to all those who were left alive,</p> +<p>Who thus could form a line and fight again;</p> +<p class="i2">And that which farther aided them to strive</p> +<p>Was, that they could kick down the palisades,</p> +<p>Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.<a name="FNanchor_436" id="FNanchor_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Among the first,—I will not say <i>the first</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">For such precedence upon such occasions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p> +<p>Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst</p> +<p class="i2">Out between friends as well as allied nations:</p> +<p>The Briton must be bold who really durst</p> +<p class="i2">Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience,</p> +<p>As say that Wellington at Waterloo</p> +<p>Was beaten,—though the Prussians say so too;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau,</p> +<p class="i2">And God knows who besides in "au" and "ow,"</p> +<p>Had not come up in time to cast an awe<a name="FNanchor_437" id="FNanchor_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Into the hearts of those who fought till now</p> +<p>As tigers combat with an empty craw,</p> +<p class="i2">The Duke of Wellington had ceased to show</p> +<p>His Orders—also to receive his pensions,</p> +<p>Which are the heaviest that our history mentions.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But never mind;—"God save the King!" and <i>Kings!</i></p> +<p class="i2">For if <i>he</i> don't, I doubt if <i>men</i> will longer—</p> +<p>I think I hear a little bird, who sings</p> +<p class="i2">The people by and by will be the stronger:</p> +<p>The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings</p> +<p class="i2">So much into the raw as quite to wrong her</p> +<p>Beyond the rules of posting,—and the mob</p> +<p>At last fall sick of imitating Job.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then,</p> +<p class="i2">Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a Giant;</p> +<p>At last it takes to weapons such as men</p> +<p class="i2">Snatch when Despair makes human hearts less pliant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> +<p>Then comes "the tug of war;"—'t will come again,</p> +<p class="i2">I rather doubt; and I would fain say "fie on 't,"</p> +<p>If I had not perceived that Revolution</p> +<p>Alone can save the earth from Hell's pollution.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to continue:—I say not <i>the</i> first,</p> +<p class="i2">But of the first, our little friend Don Juan</p> +<p>Walked o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst such scenes—though this was quite a new one</p> +<p>To him, and I should hope to <i>most</i>. The thirst</p> +<p class="i2">Of Glory, which so pierces through and through one,</p> +<p>Pervaded him—although a generous creature,</p> +<p>As warm in heart as feminine in feature.<a name="FNanchor_IG" id="FNanchor_IG"></a><a href="#Footnote_IG" class="fnanchor">[IG]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And here he was—who upon Woman's breast,</p> +<p class="i2">Even from a child, felt like a child; howe'er</p> +<p>The Man in all the rest might be confessed,</p> +<p class="i2">To him it was Elysium to be there;</p> +<p>And he could even withstand that awkward test</p> +<p class="i2">Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair,</p> +<p>"Observe your lover when he <i>leaves</i> your arms;"</p> +<p>But Juan never <i>left</i> them—while they had charms,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Unless compelled by Fate, or wave, or wind,</p> +<p class="i2">Or near relations—who are much the same.</p> +<p>But <i>here</i> he was!—where each tie that can bind</p> +<p class="i2">Humanity must yield to steel and flame:</p> +<p>And <i>he</i> whose very body was all mind,</p> +<p class="i2">Flung here by Fate or Circumstance, which tame</p> +<p>The loftiest, hurried by the time and place,</p> +<p>Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So was his blood stirred while he found resistance,</p> +<p class="i2">As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate,</p> +<p>Or double post and rail, where the existence</p> +<p class="i2">Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>The lightest being the safest: at a distance</p> +<p class="i2">He hated cruelty, as all men hate</p> +<p>Blood, until heated—and even then his own</p> +<p>At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The General Lascy, who had been hard pressed,</p> +<p class="i2">Seeing arrive an aid so opportune</p> +<p>As were some hundred youngsters all abreast,</p> +<p class="i2">Who came as if just dropped down from the moon</p> +<p>To Juan, who was nearest him, addressed</p> +<p class="i2">His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon,</p> +<p>Not reckoning him to be a "base Bezonian"<a name="FNanchor_438" id="FNanchor_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> +<p>(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian.<a name="FNanchor_439" id="FNanchor_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew</p> +<p class="i2">As much of German as of Sanscrit, and</p> +<p>In answer made an inclination to</p> +<p class="i2">The General who held him in command;</p> +<p>For seeing one with ribands, black and blue,</p> +<p class="i2">Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand,</p> +<p>Addressing him in tones which seemed to thank,</p> +<p>He recognised an officer of rank.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Short speeches pass between two men who speak</p> +<p class="i2">No common language; and besides, in time</p> +<p>Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek</p> +<p class="i2">Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime</p> +<p>Is perpetrated ere a word can break</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime</p> +<p>In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,</p> +<p>There cannot be much conversation there.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore all we have related in</p> +<p class="i2">Two long octaves, passed in a little minute;</p> +<p>But in the same small minute, every sin</p> +<p class="i2">Contrived to get itself comprised within it.</p> +<p>The very cannon, deafened by the din,</p> +<p class="i2">Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet,</p> +<p>As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise</p> +<p>Of Human Nature's agonizing voice!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The town was entered. Oh Eternity!—</p> +<p class="i2">"God made the country, and man made the town,"</p> +<p>So Cowper says<a name="FNanchor_440" id="FNanchor_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a>—and I begin to be</p> +<p class="i2">Of his opinion, when I see cast down</p> +<p>Rome—Babylon-Tyre-Carthage—Nineveh—</p> +<p class="i2">All walls men know, and many never known;</p> +<p>And pondering on the present and the past,</p> +<p>To deem the woods shall be our home at last:—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of all men, saving Sylla,<a name="FNanchor_441" id="FNanchor_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> the man-slayer,</p> +<p class="i2">Who passes for in life and death most lucky,</p> +<p>Of the great names which in our faces stare,</p> +<p class="i2">The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_442" id="FNanchor_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p> +<p>Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;</p> +<p class="i2">For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he</p> +<p>Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days</p> +<p>Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Crime came not near him—she is not the child</p> +<p class="i2">Of solitude; Health shrank not from him—for</p> +<p>Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,</p> +<p class="i2">Where if men seek her not, and death be more</p> +<p>Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled</p> +<p class="i2">By habit to what their own hearts abhor—</p> +<p>In cities caged. The present case in point I</p> +<p>Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And, what's still stranger, left behind a name</p> +<p class="i2">For which men vainly decimate the throng,</p> +<p>Not only famous, but of that <i>good</i> fame,</p> +<p class="i2">Without which Glory's but a tavern song—</p> +<p>Simple, serene, the <i>antipodes</i> of Shame,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Hate nor Envy e'er could tinge with wrong;</p> +<p>An active hermit, even in age the child</p> +<p>Of Nature—or the Man of Ross<a name="FNanchor_443" id="FNanchor_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> run wild.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is true he shrank from men even of his nation,</p> +<p class="i2">When they built up unto his darling trees,—</p> +<p>He moved some hundred miles off, for a station</p> +<p class="i2">Where there were fewer houses and more ease;</p> +<p>The inconvenience of civilisation</p> +<p class="i2">Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please;</p> +<p>But where he met the individual man,</p> +<p>He showed himself as kind as mortal can.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was not all alone: around him grew</p> +<p class="i2">A sylvan tribe of children of the chase,</p> +<p>Whose young, unwakened world was ever new,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace</p> +<p>On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view</p> +<p class="i2">A frown on Nature's or on human face;</p> +<p>The free-born forest found and kept them free,</p> +<p>And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,</p> +<p class="i2">Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,</p> +<p>Because their thoughts had never been the prey</p> +<p class="i2">Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions;</p> +<p>No sinking spirits told them they grew grey,</p> +<p class="i2">No fashion made them apes of her distortions;</p> +<p>Simple they were, not savage—and their rifles,</p> +<p>Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers,</p> +<p class="i2">And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;</p> +<p>Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;</p> +<p class="i2">Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;</p> +<p>The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers,</p> +<p class="i2">With the free foresters divide no spoil;</p> +<p>Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes</p> +<p>Of this unsighing people of the woods.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So much for Nature:—by way of variety,</p> +<p class="i2">Now back to thy great joys, Civilisation!</p> +<p>And the sweet consequence of large society,</p> +<p class="i2">War—pestilence—the despot's desolation,</p> +<p>The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety,</p> +<p class="i2">The millions slain by soldiers for their ration,</p> +<p>The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at threescore,<a name="FNanchor_444" id="FNanchor_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a></p> +<p>With Ismail's storm to soften it the more.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The town was entered: first one column made</p> +<p class="i2">Its sanguinary way good—then another;</p> +<p>The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade</p> +<p class="i2">Clashed 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother</p> +<p>With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:—</p> +<p class="i2">Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother</p> +<p>The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot</p> +<p>The maddened Turks their city still dispute.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Koutousow,<a name="FNanchor_445" id="FNanchor_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> he who afterwards beat back</p> +<p class="i2">(With some assistance from the frost and snow)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span></p> +<p>Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,</p> +<p class="i2">It happened was himself beat back just now:</p> +<p>He was a jolly fellow, and could crack</p> +<p class="i2">His jest alike in face of friend or foe,</p> +<p>Though Life, and Death, and Victory were at stake;<a name="FNanchor_446" id="FNanchor_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a></p> +<p>But here it seemed his jokes had ceased to take:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For having thrown himself into a ditch,</p> +<p class="i2">Followed in haste by various grenadiers,</p> +<p>Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich,</p> +<p class="i2">He climbed to where the parapet appears;</p> +<p>But there his project reached its utmost pitch</p> +<p class="i2">('Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre's</p> +<p>Was much regretted), for the Moslem men</p> +<p>Threw them all down into the ditch again.<a name="FNanchor_447" id="FNanchor_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And had it not been for some stray troops landing</p> +<p class="i2">They knew not where, being carried by the stream</p> +<p>To some spot, where they lost their understanding,</p> +<p class="i2">And wandered up and down as in a dream,</p> +<p>Until they reached, as daybreak was expanding,</p> +<p class="i2">That which a portal to their eyes did seem,—</p> +<p>The great and gay Koutousow might have lain</p> +<p>Where three parts of his column yet remain.<a name="FNanchor_448" id="FNanchor_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops,</p> +<p class="i2">After the taking of the "Cavalier,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_449" id="FNanchor_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a></p> +<p>Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes"</p> +<p class="i2">Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear,</p> +<p>Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups<a name="FNanchor_450" id="FNanchor_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near,</p> +<p>Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud,</p> +<p>Now thawed into a marsh of human blood.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Kozacks, or, if so you please, Cossacques—</p> +<p class="i2">(I don't much pique myself upon orthography,</p> +<p>So that I do not grossly err in facts,</p> +<p class="i2">Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography)—</p> +<p>Having been used to serve on horses' backs,</p> +<p class="i2">And no great dilettanti in topography</p> +<p>Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases</p> +<p>Their chiefs to order,—were all cut to pieces.<a name="FNanchor_451" id="FNanchor_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their column, though the Turkish batteries thundered</p> +<p class="i2">Upon them, ne'ertheless had reached the rampart,<a name="FNanchor_452" id="FNanchor_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a></p> +<p>And naturally thought they could have plundered</p> +<p class="i2">The city, without being farther hampered;</p> +<p>But as it happens to brave men, they blundered—</p> +<p class="i2">The Turks at first pretended to have scampered,</p> +<p>Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion corners,<a name="FNanchor_453" id="FNanchor_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p> +<p>From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then being taken by the tail—a taking</p> +<p class="i2">Fatal to bishops as to soldiers—these<a name="FNanchor_IH" id="FNanchor_IH"></a><a href="#Footnote_IH" class="fnanchor">[IH]</a></p> +<p>Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking,</p> +<p class="i2">And found their lives were let at a short lease—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>But perished without shivering or shaking,</p> +<p class="i2">Leaving as ladders their heaped carcasses,</p> +<p>O'er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi</p> +<p>Marched with the brave battalion of Polouzki:—<a name="FNanchor_454" id="FNanchor_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This valiant man killed all the Turks he met,</p> +<p class="i2">But could not eat them, being in his turn</p> +<p>Slain by some Mussulmans,<a name="FNanchor_455" id="FNanchor_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> who would not yet,</p> +<p class="i2">Without resistance, see their city burn.</p> +<p>The walls were won, but 't was an even bet</p> +<p class="i2">Which of the armies would have cause to mourn:</p> +<p>'T was blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,</p> +<p>For one would not retreat, nor 't other flinch.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Another column also suffered much:—</p> +<p class="i2">And here we may remark with the historian,</p> +<p>You should but give few cartridges to such</p> +<p class="i2">Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on:</p> +<p>When matters must be carried by the touch</p> +<p class="i2">Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on;</p> +<p>They sometimes, with a hankering for existence,</p> +<p>Keep merely firing at a foolish distance.<a name="FNanchor_456" id="FNanchor_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A junction of the General Meknop's men</p> +<p class="i2">(Without the General, who had fallen some time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span></p> +<p>Before, being badly seconded just then)</p> +<p class="i2">Was made at length with those who dared to climb</p> +<p>The death-disgorging rampart once again;</p> +<p class="i2">And, though the Turk's resistance was sublime,</p> +<p>They took the bastion, which the Seraskier</p> +<p>Defended at a price extremely dear.<a name="FNanchor_457" id="FNanchor_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers,</p> +<p class="i2">Among the foremost, offered him good quarter,</p> +<p>A word which little suits with Seraskiers,</p> +<p class="i2">Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar.</p> +<p>He died, deserving well his country's tears,</p> +<p class="i2">A savage sort of military martyr:</p> +<p>An English naval officer, who wished</p> +<p>To make him prisoner, was also dished:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For all the answer to his proposition</p> +<p class="i2">Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;<a name="FNanchor_458" id="FNanchor_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a></p> +<p>On which the rest, without more intermission,</p> +<p class="i2">Began to lay about with steel and lead—</p> +<p>The pious metals most in requisition</p> +<p class="i2">On such occasions: not a single head</p> +<p>Was spared;—three thousand Moslems perished here,</p> +<p>And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.<a name="FNanchor_459" id="FNanchor_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The city's taken—only part by part—</p> +<p class="i2">And Death is drunk with gore: there's not a street</p> +<p>Where fights not to the last some desperate heart</p> +<p class="i2">For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_460" id="FNanchor_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a></p> +<p>Here War forgot his own destructive art</p> +<p class="i2">In more destroying Nature; and the heat</p> +<p>Of Carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime,</p> +<p>Engendered monstrous shapes of every crime.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A Russian officer, in martial tread</p> +<p class="i2">Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel</p> +<p>Seized fast, as if 't were by the serpent's head</p> +<p class="i2">Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel;</p> +<p>In vain he kicked, and swore, and writhed, and bled,</p> +<p class="i2">And howled for help as wolves do for a meal—</p> +<p>The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,</p> +<p>As do the subtle snakes described of old.<a name="FNanchor_II" id="FNanchor_II"></a><a href="#Footnote_II" class="fnanchor">[II]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot</p> +<p class="i2">Of a foe o'er him, snatched at it, and bit</p> +<p>The very tendon which is most acute—</p> +<p class="i2">(That which some ancient Muse or modern wit</p> +<p>Named after thee, Achilles!) and quite through't</p> +<p class="i2">He made the teeth meet, nor relinquished it</p> +<p>Even with his life—for (but they lie) 't is said</p> +<p>To the live leg still clung the severed head.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>However this may be, 't is pretty sure</p> +<p class="i2">The Russian officer for life was lamed,</p> +<p>For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer,</p> +<p class="i2">And left him 'midst the invalid and maimed:</p> +<p>The regimental surgeon could not cure</p> +<p class="i2">His patient, and, perhaps, was to be blamed</p> +<p>More than the head of the inveterate foe,</p> +<p>Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But then the fact's a fact—and 't is the part</p> +<p class="i2">Of a true poet to escape from fiction</p> +<p>Whene'er he can; for there is little art</p> +<p class="i2">in leaving verse more free from the restriction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span></p> +<p>Of Truth than prose, unless to suit the mart</p> +<p class="i2">For what is sometimes called poetic diction,</p> +<p>And that outrageous appetite for lies</p> +<p>Which Satan angles with for souls, like flies.<a name="FNanchor_IJ" id="FNanchor_IJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_IJ" class="fnanchor">[IJ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The city's taken, but not rendered!—No!</p> +<p class="i2">There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword:</p> +<p>The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow</p> +<p class="i2">Rolls by the city wall; but deed nor word</p> +<p>Acknowledge aught of dread of Death or foe:</p> +<p class="i2">In vain the yell of victory is roared</p> +<p>By the advancing Muscovite—the groan</p> +<p>Of the last foe is echoed by his own.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves,</p> +<p class="i2">And human lives are lavished everywhere,</p> +<p>As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves<a name="FNanchor_IK" id="FNanchor_IK"></a><a href="#Footnote_IK" class="fnanchor">[IK]</a></p> +<p class="i2">When the stripped forest bows to the bleak air,</p> +<p>And groans; and thus the peopled city grieves,</p> +<p class="i2">Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare;</p> +<p>But still it falls in vast and awful splinters,</p> +<p>As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is an awful topic—but 't is not</p> +<p class="i2">My cue for any time to be terrific:</p> +<p>For checkered as is seen our human lot</p> +<p class="i2">With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific</p> +<p>Of melancholy merriment, to quote</p> +<p class="i2">Too much of one sort would be soporific;—</p> +<p>Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,</p> +<p>I sketch your world exactly as it goes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And one good action in the midst of crimes</p> +<p class="i2">Is "quite refreshing," in the affected phrase<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_461" id="FNanchor_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a></p> +<p>Of these ambrosial, Pharisaic times,</p> +<p class="i2">With all their pretty milk-and-water ways,</p> +<p>And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes,</p> +<p class="i2">A little scorched at present with the blaze</p> +<p>Of conquest and its consequences, which</p> +<p>Make Epic poesy so rare and rich.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Upon a taken bastion, where there lay</p> +<p class="i2">Thousands of slaughtered men, a yet warm group</p> +<p>Of murdered women, who had found their way</p> +<p class="i2">To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop</p> +<p>And shudder;—while, as beautiful as May,</p> +<p class="i2">A female child of ten years tried to stoop</p> +<p>And hide her little palpitating breast</p> +<p>Amidst the bodies lulled in bloody rest.<a name="FNanchor_462" id="FNanchor_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Two villanous Cossacques pursued the child</p> +<p class="i2">With flashing eyes and weapons: matched with <i>them</i>,</p> +<p>The rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild</p> +<p class="i2">Has feelings pure and polished as a gem,—</p> +<p>The bear is civilised, the wolf is mild;</p> +<p class="i2">And whom for this at last must we condemn?</p> +<p>Their natures? or their sovereigns, who employ</p> +<p>All arts to teach their subjects to destroy?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Their sabres glittered o'er her little head,</p> +<p class="i2">Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright,</p> +<p>Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead:</p> +<p class="i2">When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight,</p> +<p>I shall not say exactly what he <i>said</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Because it might not solace "ears polite;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_463" id="FNanchor_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a></p> +<p>But what he <i>did</i>, was to lay on their backs,</p> +<p>The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>One's hip he slashed, and split the other's shoulder,</p> +<p class="i2">And drove them with their brutal yells to seek</p> +<p>If there might be chirurgeons who could solder</p> +<p class="i2">The wounds they richly merited,<a name="FNanchor_464" id="FNanchor_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> and shriek</p> +<p>Their baffled rage and pain; while waxing colder</p> +<p class="i2">As he turned o'er each pale and gory cheek,</p> +<p>Don Juan raised his little captive from</p> +<p>The heap a moment more had made her tomb.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And she was chill as they, and on her face</p> +<p class="i2">A slender streak of blood announced how near</p> +<p>Her fate had been to that of all her race;</p> +<p class="i2">For the same blow which laid her mother here</p> +<p>Had scarred her brow, and left its crimson trace,</p> +<p class="i2">As the last link with all she had held dear;<a name="FNanchor_465" id="FNanchor_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a></p> +<p>But else unhurt, she opened her large eyes,</p> +<p>And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Just at this instant, while their eyes were fixed</p> +<p class="i2">Upon each other, with dilated glance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span></p> +<p>In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mixed</p> +<p class="i2">With joy to save, and dread of some mischance</p> +<p>Unto his protégée; while hers, transfixed</p> +<p class="i2">With infant terrors, glared as from a trance,</p> +<p>A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,</p> +<p>Like to a lighted alabaster vase:—<a name="FNanchor_466" id="FNanchor_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Up came John Johnson (I will not say <i>"Jack,"</i></p> +<p class="i2">For that were vulgar, cold, and common-place</p> +<p>On great occasions, such as an attack</p> +<p class="i2">On cities, as hath been the present case):</p> +<p>Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back,</p> +<p class="i2">Exclaiming—"Juan! Juan! On, boy! brace</p> +<p>Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar,</p> +<p>That you and I will win St. George's collar.<a name="FNanchor_467" id="FNanchor_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The Seraskier is knocked upon the head,</p> +<p class="i2">But the stone bastion still remains, wherein</p> +<p>The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead,</p> +<p class="i2">Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din</p> +<p>Of our artillery and his own: 't is said</p> +<p class="i2">Our killed, already piled up to the chin,</p> +<p>Lie round the battery; but still it batters,</p> +<p>And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Then up with me!"—But Juan answered, "Look</p> +<p class="i2">Upon this child—I saved her—must not leave</p> +<p>Her life to chance; but point me out some nook</p> +<p class="i2">Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve,</p> +<p>And I am with you."—Whereon Johnson took</p> +<p class="i2">A glance around—and shrugged—and twitched his sleeve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span></p> +<p>And black silk neckcloth—and replied, "You're right;</p> +<p>Poor thing! what's to be done? I'm puzzled quite."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Said Juan—"Whatsoever is to be</p> +<p class="i2">Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure</p> +<p>Of present life a good deal more than we."—</p> +<p class="i2">Quoth Johnson—"<i>Neither</i> will I quite insure;</p> +<p>But at the least <i>you</i> may die gloriously."—</p> +<p class="i2">Juan replied—" At least I will endure</p> +<p>Whate'er is to be borne—but not resign</p> +<p>This child, who is parentless, and therefore mine."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Johnson said—"Juan, we've no time to lose;</p> +<p class="i2">The child's a pretty child—a very pretty—</p> +<p>I never saw such eyes—but hark! now choose</p> +<p class="i2">Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity:—</p> +<p>Hark! how the roar increases!—no excuse</p> +<p class="i2">Will serve when there is plunder in a city;—</p> +<p>I should be loath to march without you, but,</p> +<p>By God! we'll be too late for the first cut."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was immovable; until</p> +<p class="i2">Johnson, who really loved him in his way,</p> +<p>Picked out amongst his followers with some skill</p> +<p class="i2">Such as he thought the least given up to prey,</p> +<p>And, swearing, if the infant came to ill</p> +<p class="i2">That they should all be shot on the next day,—</p> +<p>But if she were delivered safe and sound,</p> +<p>They should at least have fifty rubles round,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And all allowances besides of plunder</p> +<p class="i2">In fair proportion with their comrades;—then</p> +<p>Juan consented to march on through thunder,</p> +<p class="i2">Which thinned at every step their ranks of men:</p> +<p>And yet the rest rushed eagerly—no wonder,</p> +<p class="i2">For they were heated by the hope of gain,</p> +<p>A thing which happens everywhere each day—</p> +<p>No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And such is Victory, and such is Man!</p> +<p class="i2">At least nine tenths of what we call so:—God</p> +<p>May have another name for half we scan</p> +<p class="i2">As human beings, or his ways are odd.</p> +<p>But to our subject: a brave Tartar Khan—</p> +<p class="i2">Or "Sultan," as the author (to whose nod</p> +<p>In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call</p> +<p>This chieftain—somehow would not yield at all:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But flanked by <i>five</i> brave sons (such is polygamy,</p> +<p class="i2">That she spawns warriors by the score, where none</p> +<p>Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy),</p> +<p class="i2">He never would believe the city won</p> +<p>While Courage clung but to a single twig.—Am I</p> +<p class="i2">Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son?</p> +<p>Neither—but a good, plain, old, temperate man,</p> +<p>Who fought with his five children in the van.<a name="FNanchor_468" id="FNanchor_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To <i>take</i> him was the point.—The truly brave,</p> +<p class="i2">When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,</p> +<p>Are touched with a desire to shield and save;—</p> +<p class="i2">A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods</p> +<p>Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave,</p> +<p class="i2">Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods</p> +<p>The rugged tree unto the summer wind,</p> +<p>Compassion breathes along the savage mind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But he would <i>not</i> be <i>taken</i>, and replied</p> +<p class="i2">To all the propositions of surrender</p> +<p>By mowing Christians down on every side,</p> +<p class="i2">As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_469" id="FNanchor_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a></p> +<p>His five brave boys no less the foe defied;</p> +<p class="i2">Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender</p> +<p>As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,<a name="FNanchor_IL" id="FNanchor_IL"></a><a href="#Footnote_IL" class="fnanchor">[IL]</a></p> +<p>Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who</p> +<p class="i2">Expended all their Eastern phraseology</p> +<p>In begging him, for God's sake, just to show</p> +<p class="i2">So much less fight as might form an apology</p> +<p>For <i>them</i> in saving such a desperate foe—</p> +<p class="i2">He hewed away, like Doctors of Theology</p> +<p>When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses</p> +<p>Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both</p> +<p class="i2">Juan and Johnson; whereupon they fell,</p> +<p>The first with sighs, the second with an oath,</p> +<p class="i2">Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell,</p> +<p>And all around were grown exceeding wroth</p> +<p class="i2">At such a pertinacious infidel,</p> +<p>And poured upon him and his sons like rain,</p> +<p>Which they resisted like a sandy plain</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished—</p> +<p class="i2">His second son was levelled by a shot;</p> +<p>His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherished</p> +<p class="i2">Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot;</p> +<p>The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished,</p> +<p class="i2">Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not,</p> +<p>Because deformed, yet died all game and bottom,<a name="FNanchor_IM" id="FNanchor_IM"></a><a href="#Footnote_IM" class="fnanchor">[IM]</a></p> +<p>To save a Sire who blushed that he begot him.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar,</p> +<p class="i2">As great a scorner of the Nazarene</p> +<p>As ever Mahomet picked out for a martyr,</p> +<p class="i2">Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green,</p> +<p>Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter</p> +<p class="i2">On earth, in Paradise; and when once seen,</p> +<p>Those houris, like all other pretty creatures,</p> +<p>Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And what they pleased to do with the young Khan</p> +<p class="i2">In Heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess;</p> +<p>But doubtless they prefer a fine young man</p> +<p class="i2">To tough old heroes, and can do no less;<a name="FNanchor_IN" id="FNanchor_IN"></a><a href="#Footnote_IN" class="fnanchor">[IN]</a></p> +<p>And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan</p> +<p class="i2">A field of battle's ghastly wilderness,</p> +<p>For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body,</p> +<p>You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Your houris also have a natural pleasure</p> +<p class="i2">In lopping off your lately married men,</p> +<p>Before the bridal hours have danced their measure</p> +<p class="i2">And the sad, second moon grows dim again,</p> +<p>Or dull Repentance hath had dreary leisure</p> +<p class="i2">To wish him back a bachelor now and then:</p> +<p>And thus your Houri (it may be) disputes</p> +<p>Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus the young Khan, with Houris in his sight,</p> +<p class="i2">Thought not upon the charms of four young brides,</p> +<p>But bravely rushed on his first heavenly night.</p> +<p class="i2">In short, howe'er <i>our</i> better faith derides,</p> +<p>These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight,</p> +<p class="i2">As though there were one Heaven and none besides—</p> +<p>Whereas, if all be true we hear of Heaven</p> +<p>And Hell, there must at least be six or seven.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So fully flashed the phantom on his eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">That when the very lance was in his heart,</p> +<p>He shouted "Allah!" and saw Paradise</p> +<p class="i2">With all its veil of mystery drawn apart,</p> +<p>And bright Eternity without disguise</p> +<p class="i2">On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart:—</p> +<p>With Prophets—Houris—Angels—Saints, descried</p> +<p>In one voluptuous blaze,—and then he died,—<a name="FNanchor_IO" id="FNanchor_IO"></a><a href="#Footnote_IO" class="fnanchor">[IO]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But with a heavenly rapture on his face.</p> +<p class="i2">The good old Khan, who long had ceased to see</p> +<p>Houris, or aught except his florid race,</p> +<p class="i2">Who grew like cedars round him gloriously—</p> +<p>When he beheld his latest hero grace</p> +<p class="i2">The earth, which he became like a felled tree,</p> +<p>Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast</p> +<p>A glance on that slain son, his first and last.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,</p> +<p class="i2">Stopped as if once more willing to concede</p> +<p>Quarter, in case he bade them not "aroynt!"</p> +<p class="i2">As he before had done. He did not heed</p> +<p>Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint,</p> +<p class="i2">And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed,</p> +<p>As he looked down upon his children gone,</p> +<p>And felt—though done with life—he was alone.<a name="FNanchor_470" id="FNanchor_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But 't was a transient tremor:—with a spring</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung,</p> +<p>As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing</p> +<p class="i2">Against the light wherein she dies: he clung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span></p> +<p>Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring,</p> +<p class="i2">Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young;</p> +<p>And throwing back a dim look on his sons,</p> +<p>In one wide wound poured forth his soul at once.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is strange enough—the rough, tough soldiers, who</p> +<p class="i2">Spared neither sex nor age in their career</p> +<p>Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through,</p> +<p class="i2">And lay before them with his children near,</p> +<p>Touched by the heroism of him they slew,</p> +<p class="i2">Were melted for a moment; though no tear</p> +<p>Flowed from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife,</p> +<p>They honoured such determined scorn of Life.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,</p> +<p class="i2">Where the chief Pacha calmly held his post:</p> +<p>Some twenty times he made the Russ retire,</p> +<p class="i2">And baffled the assaults of all their host;</p> +<p>At length he condescended to inquire</p> +<p class="i2">If yet the city's rest were won or lost;</p> +<p>And being told the latter, sent a Bey</p> +<p>To answer Ribas' summons to give way.<a name="FNanchor_471" id="FNanchor_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In the mean time, cross-legged, with great sang-froid,</p> +<p class="i2">Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking</p> +<p>Tobacco on a little carpet;—Troy</p> +<p class="i2">Saw nothing like the scene around;—yet looking</p> +<p>With martial Stoicism, nought seemed to annoy</p> +<p class="i2">His stern philosophy; but gently stroking</p> +<p>His beard, he puffed his pipe's ambrosial gales,</p> +<p>As if he had three lives, as well as tails.<a name="FNanchor_472" id="FNanchor_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a></p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The town was taken—whether he might yield</p> +<p class="i2">Himself or bastion, little mattered now:</p> +<p>His stubborn valour was no future shield.</p> +<p class="i2">Ismail's no more! The Crescent's silver bow</p> +<p>Sunk, and the crimson Cross glared o'er the field,</p> +<p class="i2">But red with no <i>redeeming</i> gore: the glow</p> +<p>Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water,</p> +<p>Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.<a name="FNanchor_IP" id="FNanchor_IP"></a><a href="#Footnote_IP" class="fnanchor">[IP]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All that the mind would shrink from of excesses—</p> +<p class="i2">All that the body perpetrates of bad;</p> +<p>All that we read—hear—dream, of man's distresses—</p> +<p class="i2">All that the Devil would do if run stark mad;</p> +<p>All that defies the worst which pen expresses,—</p> +<p class="i2">All by which Hell is peopled, or as sad</p> +<p>As Hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—</p> +<p>Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If here and there some transient trait of pity</p> +<p class="i2">Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through</p> +<p>Its bloody bond, and saved, perhaps, some pretty</p> +<p class="i2">Child, or an agéd, helpless man or two—</p> +<p>What's this in one annihilated city,</p> +<p class="i2">Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew?</p> +<p>Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris!</p> +<p>Just ponder what a pious pastime War is.<a name="FNanchor_IQ" id="FNanchor_IQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_IQ" class="fnanchor">[IQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Think how the joys of reading a Gazette</p> +<p class="i2">Are purchased by all agonies and crimes:</p> +<p>Or if these do not move you, don't forget</p> +<p class="i2">Such doom may be your own in after-times.</p> +<p>Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt,</p> +<p class="i2">Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p> +<p>Read your own hearts and Ireland's present story,</p> +<p>Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley's glory.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3><a id="c8scxxvi" name="c8scxxvi"></a>CXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But still there is unto a patriot nation,</p> +<p class="i2">Which loves so well its country and its King,</p> +<p>A subject of sublimest exultation—</p> +<p class="i2">Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing!</p> +<p>Howe'er the mighty locust, Desolation,</p> +<p class="i2">Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling,</p> +<p>Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne—</p> +<p>Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone.<a name="FNanchor_473" id="FNanchor_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But let me put an end unto my theme:</p> +<p class="i2">There was an end of Ismail—hapless town!</p> +<p>Far flashed her burning towers o'er Danube's stream,</p> +<p class="i2">And redly ran his blushing waters down.</p> +<p>The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream</p> +<p class="i2">Rose still; but fainter were the thunders grown:</p> +<p>Of forty thousand who had manned the wall,</p> +<p>Some hundreds breathed—the rest were silent all!<a name="FNanchor_474" id="FNanchor_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In one thing ne'ertheless 't is fit to praise</p> +<p class="i2">The Russian army upon this occasion,</p> +<p>A virtue much in fashion now-a-days,</p> +<p class="i2">And therefore worthy of commemoration:<a name="FNanchor_IR" id="FNanchor_IR"></a><a href="#Footnote_IR" class="fnanchor">[IR]</a></p> +<p>The topic's tender, so shall be my phrase—</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps the season's chill, and their long station</p> +<p>In Winter's depth, or want of rest and victual,</p> +<p>Had made them chaste;—they ravished very little.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less</p> +<p class="i2">Might here and there occur some violation</p> +<p>In the other line;—but not to such excess</p> +<p class="i2">As when the French, that dissipated nation,</p> +<p>Take towns by storm: no causes can I guess,</p> +<p class="i2">Except cold weather and commiseration;<a name="FNanchor_IS" id="FNanchor_IS"></a><a href="#Footnote_IS" class="fnanchor">[IS]</a></p> +<p>But all the ladies, save some twenty score,</p> +<p>Were almost as much virgins as before.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some odd mistakes, too, happened in the dark,</p> +<p class="i2">Which showed a want of lanterns, or of taste—</p> +<p>Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark</p> +<p class="i2">Their friends from foes,—besides such things from haste</p> +<p>Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark</p> +<p class="i2">Of light to save the venerably chaste:</p> +<p>But six old damsels, each of seventy years,</p> +<p>Were all deflowered by different grenadiers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But on the whole their continence was great;</p> +<p class="i2">So that some disappointment there ensued</p> +<p>To those who had felt the inconvenient state</p> +<p class="i2">Of "single blessedness," and thought it good</p> +<p>(Since it was not their fault, but only fate,</p> +<p class="i2">To bear these crosses) for each waning prude</p> +<p>To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding,</p> +<p>Without the expense and the suspense of bedding.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some voices of the buxom middle-aged</p> +<p class="i2">Were also heard to wonder in the din</p> +<p>(Widows of forty were these birds long caged)</p> +<p class="i2">"Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!"</p> +<p>But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged,</p> +<p class="i2">There was small leisure for superfluous sin;</p> +<p>But whether they escaped or no, lies hid</p> +<p>In darkness—I can only hope they did.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suwarrow now was conqueror—a match</p> +<p class="i2">For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.</p> +<p>While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch</p> +<p class="i2">Blazed, and the cannon's roar was scarce allayed,</p> +<p>With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch;</p> +<p class="i2">And here exactly follows what he said:—</p> +<p>"Glory to <i>God</i> and to the Empress!" (<i>Powers</i></p> +<p><i>Eternal! such names mingled!</i>) "Ismail's ours."<a name="FNanchor_475" id="FNanchor_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a></p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>CXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Methinks these are the most tremendous words,</p> +<p class="i2">Since "<span class="smcap">Mene, Mene, Tekel</span>," and "<span class="smcap">Upharsin</span>,"</p> +<p>Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords.</p> +<p class="i2">Heaven help me! I'm but little of a parson:</p> +<p>What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's,</p> +<p class="i2">Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on</p> +<p>The fate of nations;—but this Russ so witty</p> +<p>Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning city.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He wrote this Polar melody, and set it,</p> +<p class="i2">Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans,</p> +<p>Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it—</p> +<p class="i2">For I will teach, if possible, the stones<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p> +<p>To rise against Earth's tyrants. Never let it</p> +<p class="i2">Be said that we still truckle unto thrones;—</p> +<p>But ye—our children's children! think how we</p> +<p>Showed <i>what things were</i> before the World was free!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That hour is not for us, but 't is for you:</p> +<p class="i2">And as, in the great joy of your Millennium,</p> +<p>You hardly will believe such things were true</p> +<p class="i2">As now occur, I thought that I would pen you 'em;</p> +<p>But may their very memory perish too!—</p> +<p class="i2">Yet if perchance remembered, still disdain you 'em</p> +<p>More than you scorn the savages of yore,</p> +<p>Who <i>painted</i> their <i>bare</i> limbs, but <i>not</i> with gore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when you hear historians talk of thrones,</p> +<p class="i2">And those that sate upon them, let it be</p> +<p>As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones,</p> +<p class="i2">And wonder what old world such things could see,</p> +<p>Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones,</p> +<p class="i2">The pleasant riddles of futurity—</p> +<p>Guessing at what shall happily be hid,</p> +<p>As the real purpose of a pyramid.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Reader! I have kept my word,—at least so far</p> +<p class="i2">As the first Canto promised. You have now</p> +<p>Had sketches of Love—Tempest—Travel—War,—</p> +<p class="i2">All very accurate, you must allow,</p> +<p>And <i>Epic</i>, if plain truth should prove no bar;</p> +<p class="i2">For I have drawn much less with a long bow</p> +<p>Than my forerunners. Carelessly I sing,</p> +<p>But Phoebus lends me now and then a string,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle.</p> +<p class="i2">What further hath befallen or may befall</p> +<p>The hero of this grand poetic riddle,</p> +<p class="i2">I by and by may tell you, if at all:</p> +<p>But now I choose to break off in the middle,</p> +<p class="i2">Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span></p> +<p>While Juan is sent off with the despatch,</p> +<p>For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This special honour was conferred, because</p> +<p class="i2">He had behaved with courage and humanity—</p> +<p>Which last men like, when they have time to pause</p> +<p class="i2">From their ferocities produced by vanity.</p> +<p>His little captive gained him some applause</p> +<p class="i2">For saving her amidst the wild insanity</p> +<p>Of carnage,—and I think he was more glad in her</p> +<p>Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Moslem orphan went with her protector,</p> +<p class="i2">For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all</p> +<p>Her friends, like the sad family of Hector,</p> +<p class="i2">Had perished in the field or by the wall:</p> +<p>Her very place of birth was but a spectre</p> +<p class="i2">Of what it had been; there the Muezzin's call</p> +<p>To prayer was heard no more!—and Juan wept,</p> +<p>And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412" id="Footnote_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> <a name="Note_331" id="Note_331"></a>{331}["La nuit était obscure; un brouillard épais ne nous +permettait de distinguer autre chose que le feu de notre artillerie, +dont l'horizon était embrasé de tous côtés: ce feu, partant du milieu du +Danube, se réfléchissait sur les eaux, et offrait un coup d'oeil +très-singulier."-<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 209.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413" id="Footnote_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <a name="Note_332" id="Note_332"></a>{332}["À peine eut-on parcouru l'espace de quelques +toises au-delà des batteries, que les Turcs, qui n'avaient point tiré +pendant toute la nuit s'apperçevant de nos mouvemens, commencèrent de +leur côté un feu très-vif, qui embrasa le reste de l'horizon: mais ce +fut bien autre chose lorsque, avancés davantage, le feu de la +mousqueterie commença dans toute l'étendue du rempart que nous +appercevions. Ce fut alors que la place parut à nos yeux comme un volcan +dont le feu sortait de toutes parts."-<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. +209.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414" id="Footnote_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> ["Un cri universel d'<i>allah</i>, qui se répétait tout autour +de la ville, vint encore rendre plus extraordinaire cet instant, dont il +est impossible de se faire une idée."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 209.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415" id="Footnote_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Allah Hu! is properly the war-cry of the Mussulmans, and +they dwell on the last syllable, which gives it a wild and peculiar +effect. +</p><p> +[See <i>The Giaour</i>, line 734, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 120, note 1; +see, too, <i>Siege of Corinth</i>, line 713, ibid., p. 481.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416" id="Footnote_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> ["Toutes les colonnes étaient en mouvement; celles qui +attaquaient par eau commandées par le général Arséniew, essuyèrent un +feu épouvantable, et perdirent avant le jour un tiers de leurs +officiers."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 209.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417" id="Footnote_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But <i>Thy</i>[*] most dreaded instrument,</p> +<p>In working out a pure intent,</p> +<p>Is Man—arrayed for mutual slaughter,—</p> +<p>Yea, <i>Carnage is thy daughter!</i>"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +Wordsworth's <i>Thanksgiving Ode</i> (January 18, 1816), stanza xii. lines +20, 23. +</p><p> +[*]To wit, the Deity's: this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder +as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms.—What would have been +said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage? +</p><p> +[Wordsworth omitted the lines in the last edition of his poems, which +was revised by his own hand.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IA" id="Footnote_IA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IA"><span class="label">[IA]</span></a> <a name="Note_333" id="Note_333"></a>{333}<i>The Duc de Richelieu</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418" id="Footnote_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> ["Le Prince de Ligne fut blessé au genou; le Duc de +Richelieu eut une balle entre le fond de son bonnet et sa tête."—<i>Hist. +de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 210. +</p><p> +For the gallantry of Prince Charles de Ligne (died September 14, 1792) +eldest son of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735-1814), see <i>The +Prince de Ligne</i>, 1899, ii. 46. +</p><p> +Armand Emanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, born 1767, a grandson of +Louis François Duc de Richelieu, the Marshal of France (1696-1780), +served under Catherine II., and afterwards under the Czar Paul. On the +restoration of Louis XVIII. he entered the King's household; and after +the battle of Waterloo took office as President of the Council and +Minister for Foreign Affairs. His <i>Journal de mon Voyage en Allemagne</i>, +which was then unpublished, was placed at the disposal of the Marquis de +Castelnau (see <i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, 1827, i. 241). It has been +printed in full by the <i>Société Impériale d'Histoire de Russie</i>, 1886, +tom. liv. pp. 111-198. See for further mention of the manuscript, <i>Le +Duc de Richelieu</i>, par Raoul de Cisternes, 1898, Preface, p. 3, note 1. +He died May 17, 1822, two months before Cantos VI., VII., VIII. were +completed.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419" id="Footnote_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> <a name="Note_334" id="Note_334"></a>{334}["Le brigadier Markow, insistant pour qu'on emportât +le prince blessé, reçut un coup de fusil qui lui fracassa le +pied."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 210.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420" id="Footnote_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> ["Trois cents bouches à feu vomissaient sans +interruption, et trente mille fusils alimentaient sans reláche une grêle +de balles."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 210.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421" id="Footnote_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> <a name="Note_335" id="Note_335"></a>{335}["Les troupes, déja débarquées, se portèrent á +droite pour s'emparer d'une batterie; et celles débarquées plus bas, +principalement composées des grenadiers de Fanagorie, escaladaient le +retranchement et la palissade."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. +210.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422" id="Footnote_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. I recollect remarking +at the time to a friend:—"<i>There</i> is <i>fame!</i> a man is killed, his name +is Grose, and they print it Grove." I was at college with the deceased, +who was a very amiable and clever man, and his society in great request +for his wit, gaiety, and "Chansons à boire." +</p><p> +[In the <i>London Gazette Extraordinary</i> of June 22, 1815, Captain Grove, +1st Guards, is among the list of killed. In the supplement to the +<i>London Gazette</i>, published July 3, 1815, the mistake was corrected, and +the entry runs, "1st Guards, 3d Batt. Lieut. Edward Grose, (Captain)." I +am indebted to the courtesy of the Registrar of the University of +Cambridge for the information that Edward Grose matriculated at St. +John's College as a pensioner, December 7, 1805. Thanks to the +"misprint" in the <i>Gazette</i>, and to Byron, he is "a name for +ever."—<i>Vir nullâ non donatus lauru!</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423" id="Footnote_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> <a name="Note_337" id="Note_337"></a>{337}[At the Battle of Mollwitz, April 10, 1741, "the +king vanishes for sixteen hours into the regions of Myth 'into +Fairyland,' ... of the king's flight ... the king himself, who alone +could have told us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and +nowhere drops the least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us +involved in a great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured +character, set a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."—Carlyle's +<i>Frederick the Great</i>, 1862, iii. 314, 322, sq.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424" id="Footnote_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence Parsons. +</p><p> +[Charles Vallancey (1721-1812), general in the Royal Engineers, +published an "Essay on the Celtic Language," etc., in 1782. "The +language [the Iberno-Celtic]," he writes (p. 4), "we are now going to +explain, had such an affinity with the Punic, that it may be said to +have been, in a great degree, the language of Hanibal (<i>sic</i>), Hamilcar, +and of Asdrubal." Sir Laurence Parsons (1758-1841), second Earl of +Rosse, represented the University of Dublin 1782-90, and afterwards +King's County, in the Irish House of Commons. He was an opponent of the +Union. In a pamphlet entitled <i>Defence of the Antient History of +Ireland</i>, published in 1795, he maintains (p. 158) "that the +Carthaginian and the Irish language being originally the same, either +the Carthaginians must have been descended from the Irish, or the Irish +from the Carthaginians."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425" id="Footnote_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> <a name="Note_338" id="Note_338"></a>{338}The Portuguese proverb says that "hell is paved with +good intentions."—[See <i>Vision of Judgment</i>, stanza xxxvii. line 8, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 499, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IB" id="Footnote_IB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IB"><span class="label">[IB]</span></a> <i>At least the sharp faints of that "burning marle."</i>—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426" id="Footnote_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> +<a name="Note_339" id="Note_339"></a>{339}["The Nervii marched to the number of sixty +thousand, and fell upon Cæsar, as he was fortifying his camp, and had +not the least notion of so sudden an attack. They first routed his +cavalry, and then surrounded the twelfth and the seventh legions, and +killed all the officers. Had not Cæsar snatched a buckler from one of +his own men, forced his way through the combatants before him, and +rushed upon the barbarians; or had not the tenth legion, seeing his +danger, ran from the heights where they were posted, and mowed down the +enemy's ranks, not one Roman would have survived the battle."—Plutarch, +<i>Cæsar</i>, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 502.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427" id="Footnote_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["As near a field of corn, a stubborn ass ...</p> +<p>E'en so great Ajax son of Telamon."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Iliad</i>, Lord Derby's translation, bk. xi. lines 639, 645.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IC" id="Footnote_IC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IC"><span class="label">[IC]</span></a> +<a name="Note_340" id="Note_340"></a>{340}<i>Nor care a single damn about his corps</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428" id="Footnote_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> ["N'apercevant plus le commandant du corps dont je +faisais partie, et ignorant où je devais porter mes pas, je crus +reconnaître le lieu où le rempart était situé; on y faisait un feu assez +vif, que je jugeai être celui ... du général-major de Lascy."—<i>Hist. de +la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 210. The speaker is the Duc de Richelieu. See, +for original, his <i>Journal de mon Voyage, etc., Soc. Imp. d'Hist. de +Russie</i>, tom. liv. p. 179]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ID" id="Footnote_ID"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ID"><span class="label">[ID]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>For he was dizzy, busy, and his blood</i></p> +<p><i>Lightening along his veins, and where he heard</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>The liveliest fire, and saw the fiercest flood</i></p> +<p><i>Of Friar Bacon's mild discovery, shared</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>By Turks and Christians equally, he could</i></p> +<p><i>No longer now resist the attraction of gunpowder</i></p> +<p><i>But flew to where the merry orchestra played louder</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429" id="Footnote_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar. +[N.B. Though Friar Bacon seems to have discovered gunpowder, he had the +<i>humanity</i> not to record his discovery in intelligible language.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IE" id="Footnote_IE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IE"><span class="label">[IE]</span></a> <a name="Note_341" id="Note_341"></a>{341} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>—— <i>whose short breath, and long faces</i></p> +<p><i>Kept always pushing onwards to the Glacis</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430" id="Footnote_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> <a name="Note_342" id="Note_342"></a>{342}[<i>I Henry IV.</i>, act iii. sc. 1, line 53.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IF" id="Footnote_IF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IF"><span class="label">[IF]</span></a> <i>And that mechanic impulse</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431" id="Footnote_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> [<i>Hamlet</i>, act iii, sc. 1, lines 79, 80.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432" id="Footnote_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> <a name="Note_343" id="Note_343"></a>{343}["<i>Talus:</i> the slope or inclination of a wall, +whereby, reclining at the top so as to fall within its base, the +thickness is gradually lessened according to the height."—<i>Milit. +Dict.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433" id="Footnote_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> ["Appelant ceux des chasseurs qui étaient autour de moi +en assez grand nombre, je m'avançai et reconnus ne m'être point trompé +dans mon calcul; c'était en effet cette colonne qui à l'instant +parvenait au sommet du rempart. Les Turcs de derrière les travers et les +flancs des bastions voisins fasaient sur elle un feu très-vif de canon +et de mousqueterie. Je gravis, avec les gens qui m'avaient suivi, le +talus intérieur du rempart."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 210.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434" id="Footnote_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> <a name="Note_344" id="Note_344"></a>{344}[Baron Menno van Coehoorn (circ. 1641-1704), a Dutch +military engineer, the contemporary and rival of Vauban, invented a +mortar which bore his name. He was the author of a celebrated work on +fortification, published in 1692.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435" id="Footnote_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> ["Ce fut dans cet instant que je reconnus combien +l'ignorance du constructeur des palissades était importante pour nous; +car, comme elles étaient placées au milieu du parapet," etc.—<i>Hist. de +la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 211.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436" id="Footnote_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> They were but two feet above the level.—[MS.] +</p><p> +["Il y avait de chaque côté neuf à dix pieds sur lesquels on pouvait +marcher; et les soldats, après être montés, avaient pu se ranger +commodément sur l'espace extérieur et enjamber ensuite les palissades, +qui ne s'élevaient que d'à-peu-près deux pieds au-dessus du niveau de la +terre."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 211.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437" id="Footnote_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> <a name="Note_345" id="Note_345"></a>{345}[Friederich Wilhelm, Baron von Bülow (1755-1816), +was in command of the 4th corps of the Prussian Army at Waterloo. August +Wilhelm Antonius Neidhart von Gneisenau (1760-1831) was chief of staff, +and after Blücher was disabled by a fall at Ligny, assumed temporary +command, June 16-17, 1815. He headed the triumphant pursuit of the +French on the night of the battle. For Blücher's official account of the +battles of Ligny and Waterloo (subscribed by Gneisenau), see W.H. +Maxwell's <i>Life of the Duke of Wellington</i>, 1841, iii. 566-571; and for +Wellington's acknowledgment of Blücher's "cordial and timely +assistance," see <i>Dispatches</i>, 1847, viii. 150. See, too, <i>The Life of +Wellington</i>, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., 1899, ii. 88, +<i>et passim</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IG" id="Footnote_IG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IG"><span class="label">[IG]</span></a> <a name="Note_346" id="Note_346"></a>{346} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>—— <i>as feminine of feature</i>.—[MS.]</p> +<p></p><p></p> +<p><i>Led him on—although he was the gentlest creature</i>,</p> +<p><i>As kind in heart as feminine of feature</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438" id="Footnote_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> <a name="Note_347" id="Note_347"></a>{347}[Pistol's "<i>Bezonian</i>" is a corruption of +<i>bisognoso</i>—a rogue, needy fellow. Byron, quoting from memory, confuses +two passages. In <i>2 Henry VI.</i>, act iv. sc. 1, line 134, Suffolk says, +"Great men oft die of vile bezonians;" in <i>2 Henry IV.</i>, act v. sc. 3, +line 112, Pistol says, "Under which King, Besonian? speak or die."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439" id="Footnote_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> ["Le Général Lascy, voyant arriver un corps, si à-propos +à son secours, s'avança vers l'officier qui l'avait conduit, et, le +prenant pour un Livonien, lui fit, en allemand, les complimens les plus +flatteurs; le jeune militaire (le Duc de Richelieu) qui parlait +parfaitement cette langue, y répondit avec sa modestie +ordinaire."-<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 211.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440" id="Footnote_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> <a name="Note_348" id="Note_348"></a>{348}[<i>The Task</i>, bk. i. line 749. It was pointed out to +Cowper that the same thought had been expressed by Isaac Hawkins Browne, +in <i>The Fire-side, a Pastoral Soliloquy</i>, lines 15, 16 (<i>Poems</i>, ed. +1768, p. 125)— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"I have said it at home, I have said it abroad,</p> +<p>That the town is Man's world, but that this is of God."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +There is a parallel passage in M.T. Varro, <i>Rerum Rusticarum</i>, lib. iii. +I. 4, "Nee minim, quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humami aedificavit +urbes."—See <i>The Task, etc.</i>, ed. by H.T. Griffith, 1896, ii. 234.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441" id="Footnote_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> [Sulla spoke of himself as the "fortunate," and in the +twenty-second book of his Commentaries, finished only two days before +his death, "he tells us that the Chaldeans had predicted, that after a +life of glory he would depart in the height of his prosperity." He was +fortunate, too, with regard to his funeral, for, at first, a brisk wind +blew which fanned the pile into flame, and it was not till the fire had +begun to die out that the rain, which had been expected throughout the +day, began to fall in torrents.—Langhorne's <i>Plutarch</i>, 1838, pp. 334, +335. See, too, <i>Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte</i>, stanza vii. <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1900, in. 308, note I.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442" id="Footnote_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> [Daniel Boone (1735-1820) was the grandson of an English +settler, George Boone, of Exeter. His great work in life was the +conquest of Kentucky. Following in the steps of another pioneer, John +Finley, he left his home in North Carolina in May, 1769, and, after +numerous adventures, effected a settlement on the Kentucky river. He +constructed a fort, which he named Boonesborough, and carried on a +protracted campaign with varying but final success against the Indians. +When Kentucky was admitted into the Union, February 4, 1791, he failed +to make good his title to his property at Boonesborough, and withdrew to +Mount Pleasant, beyond the Ohio. Thence, in 1795, he removed to +Missouri, then a Spanish possession. Napoleon wrested Missouri from the +Spaniards, only to sell the territory to the United States, with the +result that in 1810 he was confirmed in the possession of 850 out of the +8000 acres which he had acquired in 1795. "Boone was then seventy-five +years of age, hale and strong. The charm of the hunter's life clung to +him to the last, and in his eighty-second year he went on a hunting +excursion to the mouth of the Kansas river."—Appleton's <i>Encyclopedia, +etc</i>., art. "Boone." His fine and gracious nature reveals itself in his +autobiography (<i>The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, Formerly a +Hunter; Containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucky</i>; Imlay's <i>North +America</i>, 1793, ii. 52-54). "One day," he writes (pp. 330, <i>sq</i>.), "I +undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of +nature ... expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the +close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the +disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. +I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with +astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts +below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled +in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with +inconceivable grandeur. ... All things were still. I kindled a fire near +a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loins of a buck, which a +few hours before I had killed.... No populous city, with all the +varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford so much +pleasure to my mind as the beauties of nature I found here." (See, too, +<i>The Kentucky Pioneers</i>, by John Brown, <i>Harper's New Monthly Magazine</i>, +1887, vol. lxxv. pp. 48-71.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443" id="Footnote_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> <a name="Note_350" id="Note_350"></a>{350}[For John Kyrle, "the Man of Ross" (1635-1724), see +Pope's <i>Moral Essays</i>, epist. iii. lines 249-284. See, too, <i>Letters of +S.T. Coleridge</i>, 1895 (letter to R. Southey, July 13, 1794), i. 77.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444" id="Footnote_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> <a name="Note_351" id="Note_351"></a>{351}[Byron seems to have derived his knowledge of +Catherine's <i>vie intime</i> from the <i>Mémoires Secrets sur la Russie</i>, of +C.F.P. Masson, which were published in Amsterdam in 1800, and translated +into English in the same year.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445" id="Footnote_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> [Michailo Smolenskoi Koutousof (1743-1813), who was +raised to eminence through the influence of Potemkin, was in command of +the Austro-Russian Army at Austerlitz. During the retreat from Moscow he +repulsed Napoleon at Malo-yaroslavetz, and pursued the French to Kalisz. +Tolstoi introduces Koutousof in his novel, <i>War and Peace</i>, and dwells +on his fatalism.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446" id="Footnote_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> <a name="Note_352" id="Note_352"></a>{352}["Parmi les colonnes, une de celles qui souffrirent +le plus était commandée par le général Koutouzow (aujourd'hui Prince de +Smolensko). Ce brave militaire réunit l'intrépidité à un grand nombre de +connaissances acquises; il marche au feu avec la même gaîeté qu'il va à +une fête; il sait commander avec autant de sang froid qu'il déploie +d'esprit et d'amabilité dans le commerce habituel de la vie."—<i>Hist. de +la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 212.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447" id="Footnote_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> ["Ce brave Koutouzow se jeta dans le fossé, fut suivi des +siens, et ne pénétra jusqu'au haut du parapet qu'après avoir éprouvé des +difficultés incroyables. (Le brigadier de Ribaupierre perdit la vie dans +cette occasion: il avail fixé l'estime générale, et sa mort occasionna +beaucoup de regrets.) Les Turcs accoururent en grand nombre; cette +multitude repoussa deux fois le général jusqu'au fossé."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. +212.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448" id="Footnote_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> ["Quelques troupes russes, emportées par le courant, +n'ayant pu débarquer sur le terrain qu'on leur avait prescrit," +etc.—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449" id="Footnote_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> ["A 'Cavalier' is an elevation of earth, situated +ordinarily in the gorge of a bastion, bordered with a parapet, and cut +into more or fewer embrasures, according to its capacity."—<i>Milit. +Dict.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450" id="Footnote_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> <a name="Note_353" id="Note_353"></a>{353}[" ... longèrent le rempart, après la prise du +cavalier, et ouvrirent la porte dite <i>de Kilia</i> aux soldats du général +Koutouzow."—<i>Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451" id="Footnote_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> ["Il était réservé aux Kozaks de combler de leurs corps +la partie du fossé où ils combattaient; leur colonne avail été divisée +entre MM. Platow et d'Orlow ..."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452" id="Footnote_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> [" ... la première partie, devant se joindre à la gauche +du général Arséniew, fut foudroyée par le feu des batteries, et parvint +néanmoins au haut du rempart."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453" id="Footnote_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> ["Les Turcs la laissèrent un peu s'avancer, dans la +ville, et firent deux sorties par les angles saillans des +bastions."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IH" id="Footnote_IH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IH"><span class="label">[IH]</span></a> <i>Fatal to warriors as to women—these</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454" id="Footnote_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> <a name="Note_354" id="Note_354"></a>{354}["Alors, se trouvant prise en queue, elle fut +écrasée; cependant le Lieutenant-colonel Yesouskoï, qui commandait la +réserve composée d'un bataillon du régiment de Polozk, traversa le fossé +sur les cadavres des Kozaks ..."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvell Russia</i>, ii. +212.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455" id="Footnote_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> [" ... et extermina tous les Turcs qu'il eut en tête: ce +brave homme fut tué pendant l'action."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456" id="Footnote_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> ["L'autre partie des Kozaks, qu' Orlow commandait, +souffrit de la manière la plus cruelle: elle attaqua à maintes reprises, +fut souvent repoussée, et perdit les deux tiers de son monde (c'est ici +le lieu de placer une observation, que nous prenons dans les mémoires +qui nous guident; elle fait remarquer combien il est raal vu de donner +beaucoup de cartouches aux soldats qui doivent emporter un poste de vive +force, et par conséquent où la baïonnette doit principalement agir; ils +pensent ne devoir se servir de cette derniere arme, que lorsque les +cartouches sont epuisées: dans cette persuasion, ils retardent leur +marche, et restent plus long-temps exposés au canon et à la mitraille de +l'ennemi)."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 214.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457" id="Footnote_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> <a name="Note_355" id="Note_355"></a>{355}["La jonction de la colonne de Meknop—(le général +fut nial secondé et tué)—ne put s'effectuer avec celle qui +l'avoisinait, ... ces colonnes attaquèrent un bastion, et éprouvèrent +une résistance opiniâtre; raais bientôt des cris de victoire se font +entendre de toutes parts, et le bastion est emporté: le séraskier +défendait cette partie."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 214.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458" id="Footnote_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> [" ... un officier de marine Anglais veut le faire +prisonnier, et reçoit un coup de pistolet qui l'étend roide +mort."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 214.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459" id="Footnote_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> ["Les Russes passent trois mille Turcs au fil de l'épée; +seize baïonnettes percent à la fois le séraskier."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 214.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460" id="Footnote_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> ["La ville est emportée; l'image de la mort et de la +désolation se représente de tous les côtés le soldat furieux n'écoute +plus la voix de ses officiers, il ne respire que le carnage; altéré de +sang, tout est indifférent pour lui."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, +ii. 214.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_II" id="Footnote_II"></a><a href="#FNanchor_II"><span class="label">[II]</span></a> <a name="Note_356" id="Note_356"></a>{356}<i>As do the subtle snake's denounced of old</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IJ" id="Footnote_IJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IJ"><span class="label">[IJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_357" id="Note_357"></a>{357}<i>Which most of all doth man characterise</i>.—[MS. +Alternative reading.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IK" id="Footnote_IK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IK"><span class="label">[IK]</span></a> <i>As Autumn winds disperse the yellow leaves</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461" id="Footnote_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> [See <i>The Blues</i>, ecl. i. line 25, <i>Poetical Works</i>, +1901, iv. 574, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462" id="Footnote_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> <a name="Note_358" id="Note_358"></a>{358}["Je sauvai la vie à une fille de dix ans, don't +l'innocence et la candeur formaient un contraste bien frappant avec la +rage de tout ce qui m'environnait. En arrivant sur le bastion où +commença le carnage, j'aperçus un groupe de quatre femmes égorgées, +entre lesquelles cet enfant, d'une figure charmante, cherchait un asile +contre la fureur de deux Kozaks qui étaient sur le point de la +massacrer,"—Duc de Richelieu. (See <i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. +217.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463" id="Footnote_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> ["Who never mentions Hell to ears polite."—Pope, <i>Moral +Essays</i>, ep. iv, line 150.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464" id="Footnote_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> <a name="Note_359" id="Note_359"></a>{359}["Ce spectacle m'attira bientôt, et je n'hésitai +pas, comme on peut le croire, à prendre entre mes bras cette infortunée, +que les barbares voulaient y poursuivre encore. J'eus bien de la peine à +me retenir et à ne pas percer ces misérables du sabre que je tenais +suspendu sur leur tête:—je me contentai cependant de les éloigner, non +sans leur prodiguer les coups et les injures qu'ils méritaient...."—Duc +de Richelieu, <i>vide Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 217.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465" id="Footnote_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> [" ... J'eus le plaisir d'apercevoir que ma petite +prisonnière n'avait d'autre mal qu'une coupure legere que lui avail +faite au visage le même fer qui avail percé sa mére."—Duc de Richelieu, +<i>ibid</i>. +</p><p> +The Turks clamoured for the child, and Richelieu was forced to give way. +But in the original the story ends unhappily. +</p><p> +"Je fus obligé de céder á leurs instances et á celles de l'officier qui +parlementait avec eux; ... ce ne fut pas sans de grandes difficultés et +sans une promesse expresse de la parl de cet officier [Colonel Ribas] de +me la faire rendre aussitôt que les Tures auraient mis bas les armes. Je +me séparai donc de cet enfant qui m'était déjà devenu très-cher, et même +a présent, je ne puis penser á ce moment sans amertume, puisque malgré +toutes les recherches et les peines que je me donnai pour la retrouver, +il me fut impossible d'y réussir, el je n'ai que trop sujet de craindre +qu'elle n'ait péri malheureusement."—<i>Société Impériale d'Histoire de +Russie</i>, tom. liv. p. 185.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466" id="Footnote_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> <a name="Note_360" id="Note_360"></a>{360}[Sir Walter Scott (<i>Quarterly Review</i>, October, +1816, vol. xvi. p. 177) says that a "brother-poet" compared Byron's +features to the sculpture of a beautiful alabaster vase, only seen to +perfection when lighted up from within. Byron alludes to this comparison +in his <i>Detached Thoughts</i>, October 15, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 408. +It may be noted that Lorenzo Bartolini, the Italian sculptor who took a +bust of Byron at Pisa, in the spring of 1822, had been employed by +Napoleon, in 1814, to design marble vases for a terrace at Elba, which +were to be illuminated at night "from within."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467" id="Footnote_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> A Russian military order.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468" id="Footnote_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> <a name="Note_362" id="Note_362"></a>{362}["Le sultan périt dans l'action en brave homme, +digne d'un meilleur destin; ce fut lui qui rallia les Turcs lorsque +l'ennemi pénétra dans la place ... ce sultan, d'une valeur éprouvée, +surpassait en générosité les plus civilisés de sa nation; cinq de ses +fils combattaient à ses côtés, il les encourageait par son +exemple."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 215.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469" id="Footnote_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> ["When Charles XII. reached Bender, August 1, 1709, he +refused, in the first instance, to cross the river Dniester, and on +yielding to the representations of the Turks, he declined to enter the +town, but decided on remaining encamped on an island, in spite of the +assurances of the inhabitants that it was occasionally flooded." But, +perhaps, Byron had in mind Voltaire's remarks on Charles's +<i>Opiniâtreté</i>. (See <i>Histoire de Charles XII.</i>, 1772, p. 377. See, too, +<i>Charles XII.</i>, by Oscar Browning, 1899, pp. 231-234.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IL" id="Footnote_IL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IL"><span class="label">[IL]</span></a>—— <i>like celestial patience</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IM" id="Footnote_IM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IM"><span class="label">[IM]</span></a> <i>Because a hunchback</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IN" id="Footnote_IN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IN"><span class="label">[IN]</span></a> <a name="Note_364" id="Note_364"></a>{364}<i>In battle to old age and ugliness</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IO" id="Footnote_IO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IO"><span class="label">[IO]</span></a> <a name="Note_365" id="Note_365"></a>{365}<i>In one immortal glance, and then he died</i>.—[MS. +erased]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470" id="Footnote_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> ["Tous cinq furent tous tués sous ces yeux: il ne cessa +point de se battre, répondit par des coups de sabre aux propositions de +se rendre, et ne fut atteint du coup mortel qu'après avoir abattu de sa +main beaucoup de Kozaks des plus acharnée à sa prise; le reste de sa +troupe fut massacré."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 215.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471" id="Footnote_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> <a name="Note_366" id="Note_366"></a>{366}["Quoique les Russes fussent répandus dans la ville, +le bastion de pierre résistait encore; il était défendu par un +vicillard, pacha à trois queues, et commandant les forces réunies à +Ismaël. On lui proposa une capitulation; il demanda si le reste de la +ville était conquis; sur cette réponse, il autorisa quelques-uns de ces +officiers à capituler avec M. de Ribas."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, +ii. 215.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472" id="Footnote_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> ["Pendant ce colloque, il resta étendu sur des tapis +placés sur les ruines de la forteresse, fumant sa pipe avec la même +tranquillité et la même indifférence que s'il eût été étranger à tout ce +qui se passait."—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 215.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IP" id="Footnote_IP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IP"><span class="label">[IP]</span></a> <a name="Note_367" id="Note_367"></a>{367} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of burning cities, those full moons of slaughter</i></p> +<p><i>Was imaged back in blood instead of water</i>.—[MS. Alternative reading.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IQ" id="Footnote_IQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IQ"><span class="label">[IQ]</span></a> <i>Would</i> you <i>do less</i>, "pro focis et pro aris"?—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473" id="Footnote_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> <a name="Note_368" id="Note_368"></a>{368}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Spread—spread for Vitellius, the royal repast,</p> +<p class="i2">Till the gluttonous despot be stuffed to the gorge!"</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Irish Avatar</i>, stanza 20, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1891, iv. 559.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474" id="Footnote_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> ["On égorgea indistinctement, on saccagea la place; et la +rage du vainqueur ... se répandit comme un torrent furieux qui a +renversé les digues qui le rétenaient: personne obtint de grâce, et +<i>trente huit mille huit cent soixante</i> Turcs périrent dans cette journée +de sang."—<i>Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie</i>, ii. 216.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IR" id="Footnote_IR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IR"><span class="label">[IR]</span></a>—— <i>of my peroration</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IS" id="Footnote_IS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IS"><span class="label">[IS]</span></a> <a name="Note_369" id="Note_369"></a>{369} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>—— <i>the cause I cannot guess</i>—</p> +<p><i>I hardly think it was commiseration</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475" id="Footnote_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> <a name="Note_370" id="Note_370"></a>{370}In the original Russian— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Slava bogu! slava vam!</p> +<p>Krépost vzata i ya tam;"</p> +</div></div> +<p> +a kind of couplet; for he was a poet. +</p><p> +[J.H. Castéra (<i>Vie de Catherine II.</i>, 1797, ii. 374) relates this +incident in connection with the fall of Turtukey (or Tutrakaw) in +Bulgaria, giving the words in French, "Gloire à Dieu! Louange à +Catherine! Toutoukai est pris. Souwaroff y est entré." W. Tooke (<i>Life +of Catherine II.</i>, 1800, iii. 278). Castéra's translator, gives the +original Russian with an English version. But according to Spalding +(<i>Suvóroff</i>, 1890, pp. 42, 43), the words, which were written on a scrap +of paper, and addressed to Soltikoff, ran thus: "Your Excellency, we +have conquered. Glory to God! Glory to you! Alexander Suvóroff." When +Ismail was taken he wrote to Potemkin, "The Russian standard floats +above the walls of Ismail," and to the Empress, "Proud Ismail lies at +your Majesty's feet." The tenour of the poetical message on the fall of +Tutrakaw recalls the triumphant piety of the Emperor William I. of +Germany. See, too, for "mad Suwarrow's rhymes," Canto IX. stanza lx. +lines 1-4.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_NINTH" id="CANTO_THE_NINTH"></a> +CANTO THE NINTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.<a name="FNanchor_476" id="FNanchor_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_476" class="fnanchor">[476]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, Wellington! (or "Villainton"<a name="FNanchor_477" id="FNanchor_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_477" class="fnanchor">[477]</a>—for Fame<a name="FNanchor_IT" id="FNanchor_IT"></a><a href="#Footnote_IT" class="fnanchor">[IT]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;</p> +<p>France could not even conquer your great name,</p> +<p class="i2">But punned it down to this facetious phrase—</p> +<p>Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,)</p> +<p class="i2">You have obtained great pensions and much praise:</p> +<p>Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,</p> +<p>Humanity would rise, and thunder "Nay!"<a name="FNanchor_478" id="FNanchor_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well</p> +<p class="i2">In Marinèt's affair<a name="FNanchor_479" id="FNanchor_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a>—in fact, 't was shabby,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span></p> +<p>And like some other things won't do to tell</p> +<p class="i2">Upon your tomb in Westminster's old Abbey.</p> +<p>Upon the rest 't is not worth while to dwell,</p> +<p class="i2">Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_480" id="FNanchor_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_480" class="fnanchor">[480]</a></p> +<p>But though your years as <i>man</i> tend fast to zero,</p> +<p>In fact your Grace is still but a <i>young Hero</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more:</p> +<p>You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch,</p> +<p class="i2">A prop not quite so certain as before:</p> +<p>The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,</p> +<p class="i2">Have seen, and felt, how strongly you <i>restore</i>;</p> +<p>And Waterloo has made the world your debtor</p> +<p>(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You are "the best of cut-throats:"<a name="FNanchor_481" id="FNanchor_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_481" class="fnanchor">[481]</a>—do not start;</p> +<p class="i2">The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied:—</p> +<p>War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless her cause by right be sanctified.</p> +<p>If you have acted <i>once</i> a generous part,</p> +<p class="i2">The World, not the World's masters, will decide,</p> +<p>And I shall be delighted to learn who,</p> +<p>Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I am no flatterer—you've supped full of flattery:<a name="FNanchor_482" id="FNanchor_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_482" class="fnanchor">[482]</a></p> +<p class="i2">They say you like it too—'t is no great wonder.</p> +<p>He whose whole life has been assault and battery,</p> +<p class="i2">At last may get a little tired of thunder;</p> +<p>And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he</p> +<p class="i2">May like being praised for every lucky blunder,</p> +<p>Called "Saviour of the Nations"—not yet saved,—</p> +<p>And "Europe's Liberator"—still enslaved.<a name="FNanchor_483" id="FNanchor_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_483" class="fnanchor">[483]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span></p><h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate</p> +<p class="i2">Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,</p> +<p>And send the sentinel before your gate</p> +<p class="i2">A slice or two from your luxurious meals:<a name="FNanchor_484" id="FNanchor_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a></p> +<p>He fought, but has not fed so well of late.</p> +<p class="i2">Some hunger, too, they say the people feels:—</p> +<p>There is no doubt that you deserve your ration,</p> +<p>But pray give back a little to the nation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't mean to reflect—a man so great as</p> +<p class="i2">You, my lord Duke! is far above reflection:</p> +<p>The high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus,</p> +<p class="i2">With modern history has but small connection:</p> +<p>Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,</p> +<p class="i2">You need not take them under your direction;</p> +<p>And half a million for your Sabine farm</p> +<p>Is rather dear!—I'm sure I mean no harm.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Great men have always scorned great recompenses:</p> +<p class="i2">Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,</p> +<p>Not leaving even his funeral expenses:<a name="FNanchor_485" id="FNanchor_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a></p> +<p class="i2">George Washington had thanks, and nought beside,</p> +<p>Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is)</p> +<p class="i2">To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,</p> +<p>And as a high-souled Minister of state is</p> +<p>Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis.<a name="FNanchor_486" id="FNanchor_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span></p><h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Never had mortal man such opportunity,</p> +<p class="i2">Except Napoleon, or abused it more:</p> +<p>You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity</p> +<p class="i2">Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore:</p> +<p>And <i>now</i>—what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Now</i>—that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er?</p> +<p>Go! hear it in your famished country's cries!</p> +<p>Behold the World! and curse your victories!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,</p> +<p class="i2">To <i>you</i> the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe<a name="FNanchor_IU" id="FNanchor_IU"></a><a href="#Footnote_IU" class="fnanchor">[IU]</a></p> +<p>Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,</p> +<p class="i2">But which 't is time to teach the hireling tribe</p> +<p>Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts,</p> +<p class="i2">Must be recited—and without a bribe.</p> +<p>You <i>did great</i> things, but not being <i>great</i> in mind,</p> +<p>Have left <i>undone</i> the <i>greatest</i>—and mankind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Death laughs—Go ponder o'er the skeleton</p> +<p class="i2">With which men image out the unknown thing</p> +<p>That hides the past world, like to a set sun</p> +<p class="i2">Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring—</p> +<p>Death laughs at all you weep for!—look upon</p> +<p class="i2">This hourly dread of all! whose <i>threatened sting</i></p> +<p>Turns Life to terror, even though in its sheath:</p> +<p>Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!</p> +<p class="i2">And yet <i>was</i> what you are; from <i>ear</i> to <i>ear</i></p> +<p>It <i>laughs not</i>—there is now no fleshy bar</p> +<p class="i2">So called; the Antic long hath ceased to <i>hear</i>,</p> +<p>But still he <i>smiles</i>; and whether near or far,</p> +<p class="i2">He strips from man that mantle (far more dear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span></p> +<p>Than even the tailor's), his incarnate skin,<a name="FNanchor_IV" id="FNanchor_IV"></a><a href="#Footnote_IV" class="fnanchor">[IV]</a></p> +<p>White, black, or copper—the dead bones will grin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus Death laughs,—it is sad merriment,</p> +<p class="i2">But still it <i>is</i> so; and with such example</p> +<p>Why should not Life be equally content</p> +<p class="i2">With his Superior, in a smile to trample</p> +<p>Upon the nothings which are daily spent</p> +<p class="i2">Like bubbles on an Ocean much less ample</p> +<p>Than the Eternal Deluge, which devours</p> +<p>Suns as rays—worlds like atoms—years like hours?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"To be, or not to be? <i>that</i> is the question,"</p> +<p class="i2">Says Shakespeare,<a name="FNanchor_487" id="FNanchor_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> who just now is much in fashion.</p> +<p>I am neither Alexander nor Hephæstion,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor ever had for <i>abstract</i> fame much passion;</p> +<p>But would much rather have a sound digestion</p> +<p class="i2">Than Buonaparte's cancer:—could I dash on</p> +<p>Through fifty victories to shame or fame—</p> +<p>Without a stomach what were a good name?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>"O dura ilia messorum!"</i><a name="FNanchor_488" id="FNanchor_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a>—"Oh</p> +<p class="i2">Ye rigid guts of reapers!" I translate<a name="FNanchor_IW" id="FNanchor_IW"></a><a href="#Footnote_IW" class="fnanchor">[IW]</a></p> +<p>For the great benefit of those who know</p> +<p class="i2">What indigestion is—that inward fate</p> +<p>Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.</p> +<p class="i2">A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate:</p> +<p>Let <i>this</i> one toil for bread—<i>that</i> rack for rent,</p> +<p>He who sleeps best may be the most content.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"To be, or not to be?"—Ere I decide,</p> +<p class="i2">I should be glad to know that which <i>is being</i>.</p> +<p>'T is true we speculate both far and wide,</p> +<p class="i2">And deem, because we <i>see</i>, we are <i>all-seeing</i>:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p> +<p>For my part, I'll enlist on neither side,</p> +<p class="i2">Until I see both sides for once agreeing.</p> +<p>For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,</p> +<p>Rather than Life a mere affair of breath.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>"Que scais-je"</i><a name="FNanchor_489" id="FNanchor_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a> was the motto of Montaigne,</p> +<p class="i2">As also of the first academicians:</p> +<p>That all is dubious which man may attain,</p> +<p class="i2">Was one of their most favourite positions.</p> +<p>There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain</p> +<p class="i2">As any of Mortality's conditions;</p> +<p>So little do we know what we're about in</p> +<p>This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Pyrrho,<a name="FNanchor_490" id="FNanchor_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> on a sea of speculation;</p> +<p>But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?</p> +<p class="i2">Your wise men don't know much of navigation;</p> +<p>And swimming long in the abyss of thought</p> +<p class="i2">Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station</p> +<p>Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers</p> +<p>Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But Heaven," as Cassio says, "is above all—<a name="FNanchor_491" id="FNanchor_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_491" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p> +<p class="i2">No more of this, then, let us pray!" We have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span></p> +<p>Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall,</p> +<p class="i2">Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,</p> +<p>Besides fish, beasts, and birds. "The sparrow's fall</p> +<p class="i2">Is special providence,"<a name="FNanchor_492" id="FNanchor_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> though how <i>it</i> gave</p> +<p>Offence, we know not; probably it perched</p> +<p>Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! ye immortal Gods! what is Theogony?</p> +<p class="i2">Oh! thou, too, mortal man! what is Philanthropy?</p> +<p>Oh! World, which was and is, what is Cosmogony?</p> +<p class="i2">Some people have accused me of Misanthropy;</p> +<p>And yet I know no more than the mahogany</p> +<p class="i2">That forms this desk, of what they mean;—<i>Lykanthropy</i><a name="FNanchor_493" id="FNanchor_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a></p> +<p>I comprehend, for without transformation</p> +<p>Men become wolves on any slight occasion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Moses, or Melancthon,<a name="FNanchor_494" id="FNanchor_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_494" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> who have ne'er<a name="FNanchor_IX" id="FNanchor_IX"></a><a href="#Footnote_IX" class="fnanchor">[IX]</a></p> +<p>Done anything exceedingly unkind,—</p> +<p class="i2">And (though I could not now and then forbear</p> +<p>Following the bent of body or of mind)</p> +<p class="i2">Have always had a tendency to spare,—</p> +<p>Why do they call me Misanthrope? Because</p> +<p><i>They hate me, not I them:</i>—and here we'll pause.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is time we should proceed with our good poem,—</p> +<p class="i2">For I maintain that it is really good,</p> +<p>Not only in the body but the proem,</p> +<p class="i2">However little both are understood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></p> +<p>Just now,—but by and by the Truth will show 'em</p> +<p class="i2">Herself in her sublimest attitude:</p> +<p>And till she doth, I fain must be content</p> +<p>To share her beauty and her banishment.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader! yours)</p> +<p class="i2">Was left upon his way to the chief city</p> +<p>Of the immortal Peter's polished boors,</p> +<p class="i2">Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.</p> +<p>I know its mighty Empire now allures</p> +<p class="i2">Much flattery—even Voltaire's,<a name="FNanchor_495" id="FNanchor_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> and that's a pity.</p> +<p>For me, I deem an absolute autocrat</p> +<p><i>Not</i> a barbarian, but much worse than that.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And I will war, at least in words (and—should</p> +<p class="i2">My chance so happen—deeds), with all who war</p> +<p>With Thought;—and of Thought's foes by far most rude,</p> +<p class="i2">Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.</p> +<p>I know not who may conquer: if I could</p> +<p class="i2">Have such a prescience, it should be no bar</p> +<p>To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation</p> +<p>Of every despotism in every nation.<a name="FNanchor_IY" id="FNanchor_IY"></a><a href="#Footnote_IY" class="fnanchor">[IY]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is not that I adulate the people:</p> +<p class="i2">Without <i>me</i>, there are demagogues enough,<a name="FNanchor_496" id="FNanchor_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a></p> +<p>And infidels, to pull down every steeple,</p> +<p class="i2">And set up in their stead some proper stuff.</p> +<p>Whether they may sow scepticism to reap Hell,</p> +<p class="i2">As is the Christian dogma rather rough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span></p> +<p>I do not know;—I wish men to be free</p> +<p>As much from mobs as kings—from you as me.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The consequence is, being of no party,</p> +<p class="i2">I shall offend all parties:—never mind!</p> +<p>My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty</p> +<p class="i2">Than if I sought to sail before the wind.</p> +<p>He who has nought to gain can have small art: he</p> +<p class="i2">Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,</p> +<p>May still expatiate freely, as will I,</p> +<p>Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry.<a name="FNanchor_IZ" id="FNanchor_IZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_IZ" class="fnanchor">[IZ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That's</i> an appropriate simile, <i>that jackal;</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">I've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl<a name="FNanchor_497" id="FNanchor_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a></p> +<p>By night, as do that mercenary pack all,</p> +<p class="i2">Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl,</p> +<p>And scent the prey their masters would attack all.</p> +<p class="i2">However, the poor jackals are less foul</p> +<p>(As being the brave lions' keen providers)</p> +<p>Than human insects, catering for spiders.<a name="FNanchor_JA" id="FNanchor_JA"></a><a href="#Footnote_JA" class="fnanchor">[JA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Raise but an arm! 't will brush their web away,</p> +<p class="i2">And without <i>that</i>, their poison and their claws</p> +<p>Are useless. Mind, good people! what I say—</p> +<p class="i2">(Or rather Peoples)—<i>go on</i> without pause!</p> +<p>The web of these Tarantulas each day</p> +<p class="i2">Increases, till you shall make common cause:</p> +<p>None, save the Spanish Fly and Attic Bee,</p> +<p>As yet are strongly stinging to be free.<a name="FNanchor_JB" id="FNanchor_JB"></a><a href="#Footnote_JB" class="fnanchor">[JB]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter,</p> +<p class="i2">Was left upon his way with the despatch,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span></p> +<p>Where blood was talked of as we would of water;</p> +<p class="i2">And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch</p> +<p>O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter</p> +<p class="i2">Fair Catherine's pastime—who looked on the match</p> +<p>Between these nations as a main of cocks,</p> +<p>Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And there in a <i>kibitka</i> he rolled on,</p> +<p class="i2">(A cursed sort of carriage without springs,</p> +<p>Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone,)</p> +<p class="i2">Pondering on Glory, Chivalry, and Kings,</p> +<p>And Orders, and on all that he had done—</p> +<p class="i2">And wishing that post-horses had the wings</p> +<p>Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises</p> +<p>Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At every jolt—and they were many—still</p> +<p class="i2">He turned his eyes upon his little charge,</p> +<p>As if he wished that she should fare less ill</p> +<p class="i2">Than he, in these sad highways left at large</p> +<p>To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill,</p> +<p class="i2">Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge</p> +<p>On <i>her</i> canals, where God takes sea and land,</p> +<p>Fishery and farm, both into his own hand.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At least he pays no rent, and has best right</p> +<p class="i2">To be the first of what we used to call</p> +<p>"Gentlemen farmers"—a race worn out quite,</p> +<p class="i2">Since lately there have been no rents at all,</p> +<p>And "gentlemen" are in a piteous plight,</p> +<p class="i2">And "farmers" can't raise Ceres from her fall:</p> +<p>She fell with Buonaparte,<a name="FNanchor_498" id="FNanchor_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_498" class="fnanchor">[498]</a>—What strange thoughts</p> +<p>Arise, when we see Emperors fall with oats!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan turned his eyes on the sweet child</p> +<p class="i2">Whom he had saved from slaughter—what a trophy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p> +<p>Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled</p> +<p class="i2">With gore, like Nadir Shah,<a name="FNanchor_499" id="FNanchor_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> that costive Sophy,</p> +<p>Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild,</p> +<p class="i2">And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee</p> +<p>To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!</p> +<p>Because he could no more digest his dinner;—<a name="FNanchor_JC" id="FNanchor_JC"></a><a href="#Footnote_JC" class="fnanchor">[JC]</a><a name="FNanchor_500" id="FNanchor_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect,</p> +<p class="i2">That <i>one</i> life saved, especially if young</p> +<p>Or pretty, is a thing to recollect</p> +<p class="i2">Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung</p> +<p>From the manure of human clay, though decked</p> +<p class="i2">With all the praises ever said or sung:</p> +<p>Though hymned by every harp, unless within</p> +<p>Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! ye great authors luminous, voluminous!</p> +<p class="i2">Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes!</p> +<p>Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us!</p> +<p class="i2">Whether you're paid by government in bribes,</p> +<p>To prove the public debt is not consuming us—</p> +<p class="i2">Or, roughly treading on the "courtier's kibes"</p> +<p>With clownish heel<a name="FNanchor_501" id="FNanchor_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> your popular circulation</p> +<p>Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation;—</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, ye great authors!—<i>A propos des bottes,</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">I have forgotten what I meant to say,</p> +<p>As sometimes have been greater sages' lots;—</p> +<p class="i2">'T was something calculated to allay</p> +<p>All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:</p> +<p class="i2">Certes it would have been but thrown away,</p> +<p>And that's one comfort for my lost advice,</p> +<p>Although no doubt it was beyond all price.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But let it go:—it will one day be found</p> +<p class="i2">With other relics of "a former World,"</p> +<p>When this World shall be <i>former,</i> underground,</p> +<p class="i2">Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,</p> +<p>Baked, fried, or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,</p> +<p class="i2">Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled</p> +<p>First out of, and then back again to chaos—</p> +<p>The superstratum which will overlay us.<a name="FNanchor_JD" id="FNanchor_JD"></a><a href="#Footnote_JD" class="fnanchor">[JD]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So Cuvier says:<a name="FNanchor_502" id="FNanchor_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_502" class="fnanchor">[502]</a>—and then shall come again</p> +<p class="i2">Unto the new creation, rising out</p> +<p>From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain</p> +<p class="i2">Of things destroyed and left in airy doubt;</p> +<p>Like to the notions we now entertain</p> +<p class="i2">Of Titans, giants, fellows of about</p> +<p>Some hundred feet in height, <i>not</i> to say <i>miles,</i></p> +<p>And mammoths, and your winged crocodiles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up!<a name="FNanchor_503" id="FNanchor_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a></p> +<p class="i2">How the new worldlings of the then new East</p> +<p>Will wonder where such animals could sup!</p> +<p class="i2">(For they themselves will be but of the least:</p> +<p>Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup,</p> +<p class="i2">And every new creation hath decreased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p> +<p>In size, from overworking the material—</p> +<p>Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>How</i> will—to these young people, just thrust out</p> +<p class="i2">From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough,</p> +<p>And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about,</p> +<p class="i2">And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow,</p> +<p>Till all the arts at length are brought about,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially of War and taxing,—<i>how</i>,</p> +<p>I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em,</p> +<p>Look like the monsters of a new Museum!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I am apt to grow too metaphysical:</p> +<p class="i2">"The time is out of joint,"<a name="FNanchor_504" id="FNanchor_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_504" class="fnanchor">[504]</a>—and so am I;</p> +<p>I quite forget this poem's merely quizzical,</p> +<p class="i2">And deviate into matters rather dry.</p> +<p>I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I call<a name="FNanchor_JE" id="FNanchor_JE"></a><a href="#Footnote_JE" class="fnanchor">[JE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Much too poetical: men should know why</p> +<p>They write, and for what end; but, note or text,</p> +<p>I never know the word which will come next.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So on I ramble, now and then narrating,</p> +<p class="i2">Now pondering:—it is time we should narrate.</p> +<p>I left Don Juan with his horses baiting—</p> +<p class="i2">Now we'll get o'er the ground at a great rate:</p> +<p>I shall not be particular in stating</p> +<p class="i2">His journey, we've so many tours of late:</p> +<p>Suppose him then at Petersburgh; suppose</p> +<p>That pleasant capital of painted snows;<a name="FNanchor_505" id="FNanchor_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suppose him in a handsome uniform—</p> +<p class="i2">A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume,</p> +<p>Waving, like sails new shivered in a storm,</p> +<p class="i2">Over a cocked hat in a crowded room,</p> +<p>And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme,</p> +<p class="i2">Of yellow casimire we may presume,</p> +<p>White stockings drawn uncurdled as new milk</p> +<p>O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk;<a name="FNanchor_JF" id="FNanchor_JF"></a><a href="#Footnote_JF" class="fnanchor">[JF]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand,</p> +<p class="i2">Made up by Youth, Fame, and an army tailor—</p> +<p>That great enchanter, at whose rod's command</p> +<p class="i2">Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler,</p> +<p>Seeing how Art can make her work more grand</p> +<p class="i2">(When she don't pin men's limbs in like a gaoler),—</p> +<p>Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He<a name="FNanchor_JG" id="FNanchor_JG"></a><a href="#Footnote_JG" class="fnanchor">[JG]</a></p> +<p>Seems Love turned a Lieutenant of Artillery!<a name="FNanchor_506" id="FNanchor_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_506" class="fnanchor">[506]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His bandage slipped down into a cravat—</p> +<p class="i2">His wings subdued to epaulettes—his quiver</p> +<p>Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at</p> +<p class="i2">His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever—</p> +<p>His bow converted into a cocked hat—</p> +<p class="i2">But still so like, that Psyche were more clever</p> +<p>Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid),</p> +<p>If she had not mistaken him for Cupid.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The courtiers stared, the ladies whispered, and</p> +<p class="i2">The Empress smiled: the reigning favourite frowned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span>—<a name="FNanchor_JH" id="FNanchor_JH"></a><a href="#Footnote_JH" class="fnanchor">[JH]</a></p> +<p>I quite forget which of them was in hand</p> +<p class="i2">Just then, as they are rather numerous found,<a name="FNanchor_507" id="FNanchor_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a></p> +<p>Who took, by turns, that difficult command</p> +<p class="i2">Since first her Majesty was singly crowned:<a name="FNanchor_508" id="FNanchor_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_508" class="fnanchor">[508]</a></p> +<p>But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows,</p> +<p>All fit to make a Patagonian jealous.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was none of these, but slight and slim,</p> +<p class="i2">Blushing and beardless; and, yet, ne'ertheless,</p> +<p>There was a something in his turn of limb,</p> +<p class="i2">And still more in his eye, which seemed to express,</p> +<p>That, though he looked one of the Seraphim,</p> +<p class="i2">There lurked a man beneath the Spirit's dress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span></p> +<p>Besides, the Empress sometimes liked a boy,</p> +<p>And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi.<a name="FNanchor_JI" id="FNanchor_JI"></a><a href="#Footnote_JI" class="fnanchor">[JI]</a><a name="FNanchor_509" id="FNanchor_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_509" class="fnanchor">[509]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff,<a name="FNanchor_510" id="FNanchor_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_510" class="fnanchor">[510]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Or Scherbatoff, or any other <i>off</i></p> +<p>Or <i>on</i>, might dread her Majesty had not room enough</p> +<p class="i2">Within her bosom (which was not too tough),</p> +<p>For a new flame; a thought to cast of gloom enough</p> +<p class="i2">Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough,</p> +<p>Of him who, in the language of his station,</p> +<p>Then held that "high official situation."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O gentle ladies! should you seek to know</p> +<p class="i2">The import of this diplomatic phrase,</p> +<p>Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess<a name="FNanchor_511" id="FNanchor_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_511" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> show</p> +<p class="i2">His parts of speech, and in the strange displays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span></p> +<p>Of that odd string of words, all in a row,</p> +<p class="i2">Which none divine, and every one obeys,</p> +<p>Perhaps you may pick out some queer <i>no</i> meaning,—</p> +<p>Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think I can explain myself without</p> +<p class="i2">That sad inexplicable beast of prey—</p> +<p>That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">Did not his deeds unriddle them each day—</p> +<p>That monstrous hieroglyphic—that long spout</p> +<p class="i2">Of blood and water—leaden Castlereagh!</p> +<p>And here I must an anecdote relate,</p> +<p>But luckily of no great length or weight.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An English lady asked of an Italian,</p> +<p class="i2">What were the actual and official duties</p> +<p>Of the strange thing some women set a value on,</p> +<p class="i2">Which hovers oft about some married beauties,</p> +<p>Called "Cavalier Servente?"<a name="FNanchor_512" id="FNanchor_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_512" class="fnanchor">[512]</a>—a Pygmalion</p> +<p class="i2">Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is)</p> +<p>Beneath his art:<a name="FNanchor_JJ" id="FNanchor_JJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_JJ" class="fnanchor">[JJ]</a>—the dame, pressed to disclose them,</p> +<p>Said—"Lady, I beseech you to <i>suppose them</i>."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus I supplicate your supposition,</p> +<p class="i2">And mildest, matron-like interpretation,</p> +<p>Of the imperial favourite's condition.</p> +<p class="i2">'T was a high place, the highest in the nation</p> +<p>In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion</p> +<p class="i2">Of any one's attaining to his station,</p> +<p>No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,</p> +<p>If rather broad, made stocks rise—and their holders.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy,</p> +<p class="i2">And had retained his boyish look beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p> +<p>The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,</p> +<p class="i2">With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond</p> +<p><i>Parisian</i> aspect, which upset old Troy</p> +<p class="i2">And founded Doctors' Commons:<a name="FNanchor_JK" id="FNanchor_JK"></a><a href="#Footnote_JK" class="fnanchor">[JK]</a>—I have conned</p> +<p>The history of divorces, which, though chequered,</p> +<p>Calls Ilion's the first damages on record.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Catherine, who loved all things (save her Lord,</p> +<p class="i2">Who was gone to his place), and passed for much,</p> +<p>Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorred)</p> +<p class="i2">Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch</p> +<p>Of sentiment: and he she most adored</p> +<p class="i2">Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such</p> +<p>A lover as had cost her many a tear,</p> +<p>And yet but made a middling grenadier.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh thou "<i>teterrima causa</i>" of all "<i>belli</i>"—<a name="FNanchor_513" id="FNanchor_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Thou gate of Life and Death—thou nondescript!</p> +<p>Whence is our exit and our entrance,—well I</p> +<p class="i2">May pause in pondering how all souls are dipped</p> +<p>In thy perennial fountain:—how man <i>fell</i> I</p> +<p class="i2">Know not, since Knowledge saw her branches stripped</p> +<p>Of her first fruit; but how he <i>falls</i> and rises</p> +<p>Since,—<i>thou</i> hast settled beyond all surmises.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some call thee "the <i>worst</i> cause of War," but I</p> +<p class="i2">Maintain thou art the <i>best</i>:—for after all,</p> +<p>From thee we come, to thee we go, and why</p> +<p class="i2">To get at thee not batter down a wall,</p> +<p>Or waste a World? since no one can deny</p> +<p class="i2">Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:</p> +<p>With—or without thee—all things at a stand<a name="FNanchor_JL" id="FNanchor_JL"></a><a href="#Footnote_JL" class="fnanchor">[JL]</a></p> +<p>Are, or would be, thou sea of Life's dry land!<a name="FNanchor_JM" id="FNanchor_JM"></a><a href="#Footnote_JM" class="fnanchor">[JM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span></p><h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Catherine, who was the grand Epitome</p> +<p class="i2">Of that great cause of War, or Peace, or what</p> +<p>You please (it causes all the things which be,</p> +<p class="i2">So you may take your choice of this or that)—</p> +<p>Catherine, I say, was very glad to see</p> +<p class="i2">The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat<a name="FNanchor_514" id="FNanchor_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_514" class="fnanchor">[514]</a></p> +<p>Victory; and, pausing as she saw him kneel</p> +<p>With his despatch, forgot to break the seal.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor</p> +<p class="i2">Forgetting quite the Woman (which composed</p> +<p>At least three parts of this great whole), she tore</p> +<p class="i2">The letter open with an air which posed</p> +<p>The Court, that watched each look her visage wore,</p> +<p class="i2">Until a royal smile at length disclosed</p> +<p>Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,</p> +<p>Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.<a name="FNanchor_515" id="FNanchor_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_515" class="fnanchor">[515]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Great joy was hers, or rather joys: the first</p> +<p class="i2">Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand slain:</p> +<p>Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst,</p> +<p class="i2">As an East Indian sunrise on the main:—</p> +<p>These quenched a moment her Ambition's thirst—</p> +<p class="i2">So Arab deserts drink in Summer's rain:</p> +<p>In vain!—As fall the dews on quenchless sands,</p> +<p>Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her next amusement was more fanciful;</p> +<p class="i2">She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw</p> +<p>Into a Russian couplet rather dull</p> +<p class="i2">The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew:</p> +<p>Her third was feminine enough to annul</p> +<p class="i2">The shudder which runs naturally through</p> +<p>Our veins, when things called Sovereigns think it best</p> +<p>To kill, and Generals turn it into jest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The two first feelings ran their course complete,</p> +<p class="i2">And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth:</p> +<p>The whole court looked immediately most sweet,</p> +<p class="i2">Like flowers well watered after a long drouth:—</p> +<p>But when on the Lieutenant at her feet</p> +<p class="i2">Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on youth</p> +<p>Almost as much as on a new despatch,</p> +<p>Glanced mildly,—all the world was on the watch.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent,</p> +<p class="i2">When <i>wroth</i>—while <i>pleased</i>, she was as fine a figure</p> +<p>As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent,</p> +<p class="i2">Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.</p> +<p>She could repay each amatory look you lent</p> +<p class="i2">With interest, and, in turn, was wont with rigour</p> +<p>To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount</p> +<p>At sight, nor would permit you to discount.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With her the latter, though at times convenient,</p> +<p class="i2">Was not so necessary; for they tell</p> +<p>That she was handsome, and though fierce <i>looked</i> lenient,</p> +<p class="i2">And always used her favourites too well.</p> +<p>If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went,</p> +<p class="i2">Your "fortune" was in a fair way "to swell</p> +<p>A man" (as Giles says);<a name="FNanchor_516" id="FNanchor_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> for though she would widow all</p> +<p>Nations, she liked Man as an individual.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What a strange thing is Man! and what a stranger</p> +<p class="i2">Is Woman! What a whirlwind is her head,</p> +<p>And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger</p> +<p class="i2">Is all the rest about her! Whether wed,</p> +<p>Or widow—maid—or mother, she can change her</p> +<p class="i2">Mind like the wind: whatever she has said</p> +<p>Or done, is light to what she'll say or do;—</p> +<p>The oldest thing on record, and yet new!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections,</p> +<p class="i2">To thee both <i>oh!</i> and <i>ah!</i> belong, of right,</p> +<p>In Love and War) how odd are the connections</p> +<p class="i2">Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!</p> +<p>Just now <i>yours</i> were cut out in different sections:</p> +<p class="i2"><i>First</i> Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite;</p> +<p><i>Next</i> of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch:</p> +<p>And <i>thirdly</i> he who brought you the despatch!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Shakespeare talks of "the herald Mercury</p> +<p class="i2">New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:"<a name="FNanchor_517" id="FNanchor_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a></p> +<p>And some such visions crossed her Majesty,</p> +<p class="i2">While her young herald knelt before her still.</p> +<p>'T is very true the hill seemed rather high,</p> +<p class="i2">For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill</p> +<p>Smoothed even the Simplon's steep, and by God's blessing,</p> +<p>With Youth and Health all kisses are "Heaven-kissing."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her Majesty looked down, the youth looked up—</p> +<p class="i2">And so they fell in love;—she with his face,</p> +<p>His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid's cup</p> +<p class="i2">With the first draught intoxicates apace,</p> +<p>A quintessential laudanum or "Black Drop,"</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes one drunk at once, without the base</p> +<p>Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye</p> +<p>In love drinks all Life's fountains (save tears) dry.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He, on the other hand, if not in love,</p> +<p class="i2">Fell into that no less imperious passion,</p> +<p>Self-love—which, when some sort of thing above</p> +<p class="i2">Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,</p> +<p>Or Duchess—Princess—Empress, "deigns to prove"<a name="FNanchor_518" id="FNanchor_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_518" class="fnanchor">[518]</a></p> +<p class="i2">('T is Pope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,</p> +<p>For one especial person out of many,</p> +<p>Make us believe ourselves as good as any.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides, he was of that delighted age</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes all female ages equal—when</p> +<p>We don't much care with whom we may engage,</p> +<p class="i2">As bold as Daniel in the lions' den,</p> +<p>So that we can our native sun assuage</p> +<p class="i2">In the next ocean, which may flow just then—</p> +<p>To make a <i>twilight</i> in, just as Sol's heat is</p> +<p>Quenched in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),</p> +<p class="i2">Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing</p> +<p>Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,</p> +<p class="i2">Because each lover looked a sort of King,</p> +<p>Made up upon an amatory pattern,</p> +<p class="i2">A royal husband in all save the <i>ring</i>—<a name="FNanchor_JN" id="FNanchor_JN"></a><a href="#Footnote_JN" class="fnanchor">[JN]</a></p> +<p>Which, (being the damnedest part of matrimony,)</p> +<p>Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when you add to this, her Womanhood</p> +<p class="i2">In its meridian, her blue eyes<a name="FNanchor_519" id="FNanchor_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_519" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> or gray—</p> +<p>(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,</p> +<p class="i2">Or better, as the best examples say:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span></p> +<p>Napoleon's, Mary's<a name="FNanchor_520" id="FNanchor_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_520" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> (Queen of Scotland), should</p> +<p class="i2">Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;</p> +<p>And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,</p> +<p>Too wise to look through optics black or blue)—</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,<a name="FNanchor_JO" id="FNanchor_JO"></a><a href="#Footnote_JO" class="fnanchor">[JO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,</p> +<p>Her preference of a boy to men much bigger</p> +<p class="i2">(Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension),</p> +<p>Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,</p> +<p class="i2">With other <i>extras</i>, which we need not mention,—</p> +<p>All these, or any one of these, explain</p> +<p>Enough to make a stripling very vain.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And that's enough, for Love is vanity,</p> +<p class="i2">Selfish in its beginning as its end,<a name="FNanchor_JP" id="FNanchor_JP"></a><a href="#Footnote_JP" class="fnanchor">[JP]</a></p> +<p>Except where 't is a mere insanity,</p> +<p class="i2">A maddening spirit which would strive to blend</p> +<p>Itself with Beauty's frail inanity,</p> +<p class="i2">On which the Passion's self seems to depend;</p> +<p>And hence some heathenish philosophers</p> +<p>Make Love the main-spring of the Universe.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides Platonic love, besides the love</p> +<p class="i2">Of God, the love of sentiment, the</p> +<p>loving Of faithful pairs—(I needs must rhyme with dove,</p> +<p class="i2">That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving</p> +<p>'Gainst reason—Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove</p> +<p class="i2">With rhyme, but always leant less to improving</p> +<p>The sound than sense)—besides all these pretences</p> +<p>To Love, there are those things which words name senses;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Those movements, those improvements in our bodies</p> +<p class="i2">Which make all bodies anxious to get out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span></p> +<p>Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,</p> +<p class="i2">For such all women are at first no doubt.<a name="FNanchor_JQ" id="FNanchor_JQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_JQ" class="fnanchor">[JQ]</a></p> +<p>How beautiful that moment! and how odd is</p> +<p class="i2">That fever which precedes the languid rout</p> +<p>Of our sensations! What a curious way</p> +<p>The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!<a name="FNanchor_JR" id="FNanchor_JR"></a><a href="#Footnote_JR" class="fnanchor">[JR]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.<a name="FNanchor_521" id="FNanchor_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_521" class="fnanchor">[521]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,</p> +<p class="i2">To end or to begin with; the next grand</p> +<p>Is that which may be christened love canonical,</p> +<p class="i2">Because the clergy take the thing in hand;</p> +<p>The third sort to be noted in our chronicle</p> +<p class="i2">As flourishing in every Christian land,</p> +<p>Is when chaste matrons to their other ties</p> +<p>Add what may be called <i>marriage in disguise</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Well, we won't analyse—our story must</p> +<p class="i2">Tell for itself: the Sovereign was smitten,</p> +<p>Juan much flattered by her love, or lust;—</p> +<p class="i2">I cannot stop to alter words once written,</p> +<p>And the <i>two</i> are so mixed with human dust,</p> +<p class="i2">That he who <i>names one</i>, both perchance may hit on:</p> +<p>But in such matters Russia's mighty Empress</p> +<p>Behaved no better than a common sempstress.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The whole court melted into one wide whisper,</p> +<p class="i2">And all lips were applied unto all ears!</p> +<p>The elder ladies' wrinkles curled much crisper</p> +<p class="i2">As they beheld; the younger cast some leers</p> +<p>On one another, and each lovely lisper</p> +<p class="i2">Smiled as she talked the matter o'er; but tears</p> +<p>Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye</p> +<p>Of all the standing army who stood by.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All the ambassadors of all the powers</p> +<p class="i2">Inquired, Who was this very new young man,</p> +<p>Who promised to be great in some few hours?</p> +<p class="i2">Which is full soon (though Life is but a span).</p> +<p>Already they beheld the silver showers</p> +<p class="i2">Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,</p> +<p>Upon his cabinet, besides the presents</p> +<p>Of several ribands, and some thousand peasants.<a name="FNanchor_522" id="FNanchor_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Catherine was generous,—all such ladies are:</p> +<p class="i2">Love—that great opener of the heart and all</p> +<p>The ways that lead there, be they near or far,</p> +<p class="i2">Above, below, by turnpikes great or small,—</p> +<p>Love—(though she had a cursed taste for War,</p> +<p class="i2">And was not the best wife unless we call</p> +<p>Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 't is better</p> +<p>That one should die—than two drag on the fetter)—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune,</p> +<p class="i2">Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth,</p> +<p>Whose avarice all disbursements did importune,</p> +<p class="i2">If History, the grand liar, ever saith</p> +<p>The truth; and though grief her old age might shorten,</p> +<p class="i2">Because she put a favourite to death,</p> +<p>Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,</p> +<p>And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But when the levée rose, and all was bustle</p> +<p class="i2">In the dissolving circle, all the nations'</p> +<p>Ambassadors began as 't were to hustle</p> +<p class="i2">Round the young man with their congratulations.</p> +<p>Also the softer silks were heard to rustle</p> +<p class="i2">Of gentle dames, among whose recreations</p> +<p>It is to speculate on handsome faces,</p> +<p>Especially when such lead to high places.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,</p> +<p class="i2">A general object of attention, made</p> +<p>His answers with a very graceful bow,</p> +<p class="i2">As if born for the ministerial trade.</p> +<p>Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow</p> +<p class="i2">Nature had written "Gentleman!" He said</p> +<p>Little, but to the purpose; and his manner</p> +<p>Flung hovering graces o'er him like a banner.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An order from her Majesty consigned</p> +<p class="i2">Our young Lieutenant to the genial care</p> +<p>Of those in office: all the world looked kind,</p> +<p class="i2">(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,</p> +<p>Which Youth would not act ill to keep in mind,)</p> +<p class="i2">As also did Miss Protasoff<a name="FNanchor_523" id="FNanchor_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_523" class="fnanchor">[523]</a> then there,<a name="FNanchor_JS" id="FNanchor_JS"></a><a href="#Footnote_JS" class="fnanchor">[JS]</a></p> +<p>Named from her mystic office "l'Eprouveuse,"</p> +<p>A term inexplicable to the Muse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With <i>her</i> then, as in humble duty bound,</p> +<p class="i2">Juan retired,—and so will I, until</p> +<p>My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.</p> +<p class="i2">We have just lit on a "heaven-kissing hill,"</p> +<p>So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,</p> +<p class="i2">And all my fancies whirling like a mill;</p> +<p>Which is a signal to my nerves and brain,</p> +<p>To take a quiet ride in some green lane.<a name="FNanchor_524" id="FNanchor_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476" id="Footnote_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> <a name="Note_373" id="Note_373"></a>{373}[Stanzas i.-viii., which are headed "<i>Don Juan</i>, +Canto III., July 10, 1819," are in the handwriting of (?) the Countess +Guiccioli. Stanzas ix., x., which were written on the same sheet of +paper, are in Byron's handwriting. The original MS. opens with stanza +xi., "Death laughs," etc. (See letter to Moore, July 12, 1822, +<i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 96.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477" id="Footnote_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Faut qu' lord Villain-ton ait tout pris;</p> +<p>N'y a plus d' argent dans c' gueux de Paris."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +De Béranger, "Complainte d'une de ces Demoiselles a l'Occasion des +Affaires du Temps (Février, 1816)," <i>Chansons</i>, 1821, ii. 17. +</p><p> +Compare a retaliatory epigram which appeared in a contemporary +newspaper— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"These French <i>petit-maîtres</i> who the spectacle throng,</p> +<p>Say of Wellington's dress <i>qu'il fait vilain ton!</i></p> +<p>But, at Waterloo, Wellington made the French stare</p> +<p>When their army he dressed <i>à la mode Angleterre!</i>"]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IT" id="Footnote_IT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IT"><span class="label">[IT]</span></a> <i>Oh Wellington</i> (<i>or "Vilainton"</i>)——.—[MS. B.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478" id="Footnote_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> Query, <i>Ney?</i>—Printer's Devil. [Michel Ney, Duke of +Elchingen, "the bravest of the brave" (see <i>Ode from the French</i>, stanza +i. <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 431), born January 10, 1769, was +arrested August 5, and shot December 7, 1815.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479" id="Footnote_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> [The story of the attempted assassination (February 11, +1818) of the Duke of Wellington, which is dismissed by Alison in a few +words (<i>Hist. of Europe</i> (1815-1852), 1853, i. 577, 578), occupies many +pages of the <i>Supplementary Despatches</i> (1865, xii. 271-546). Byron +probably drew his own conclusions as to the Kinnaird-Marinet incident, +from the <i>Letter to the Duke of Wellington on the Arrest of M. Marinet</i>, +by Lord Kinnaird, 1818. The story, which is full of interest, may be +briefly recounted. On January 30, 1818, Lord Kinnaird informed Sir +George Murray (Chief of the Staff of the Army of Occupation) that a +person, whose name he withheld, had revealed to him the existence of a +plot to assassinate the Duke of Wellington. At 12.30 a.m., February 11, +1818, the Duke, on returning to his Hotel, was fired at by an unknown +person; and then, but not till then, he wrote to urge Lord Clancarty to +advise the Prince Regent to take steps to persuade or force Kinnaird to +disclose the name of his informant. A Mr. G.W. Chad, of the Consular +Service, was empowered to proceed to Brussels, and to seek an interview +with Kinnaird. He carried with him, among other documents, a letter from +the Duke to Lord Clancarty, dated February 12, 1818. A postscript +contained this intimation: "It may be proper to mention to you that the +French Government are disposed to go every length in the way of +negotiation with the person mentioned by Lord Kinnaird, or others, to +discover the plot." +</p><p> +Kinnaird absolutely declined to give up the name of his informant, but, +acting on the strength of the postscript, which had been read but not +shown to him, started for Paris with "the great unknown." Some days +after their arrival, and while Kinnaird was a guest of the Duke, the man +was arrested, and discovered to be one Nicholle or Marinet, who had been +appointed <i>receveur</i> under the restored government of Louis XVIII., but +during the <i>Cent jours</i> had fled to Belgium, retaining the funds he had +amassed during his term of office. Kinnaird regarded this action of the +French Government as a breach of faith, and in a "Memorial" to the +French Chamber of Peers, and his <i>Letter</i>, maintained that the Duke's +postscript implied a promise of a safe conduct for Marinet to and from +Paris to Brussels. The Duke, on the other hand, was equally positive +(see his letter to Lord Liverpool, May 30, 1818) "that he never intended +to have any negotiations with anybody." Kinnaird was a "dog with a bad +name." He had been accused (see his <i>Letter to the Earl of Liverpool</i>, +1816, p. 16) of "the promulgation of dangerous opinions," and of +intimacy "with persons suspected." The Duke speaks of him as "the friend +of Revolutionists"! It is evident that he held the dangerous doctrine +that a promise to a rogue <i>is</i> a promise, and that the authorities took +a different view of the ethics of the situation. It is clear, too, that +the Duke's postscript was ambiguous, but that it did not warrant the +assumption that if Marinet went to Paris he should be protected. The air +was full of plots. The great Duke despised and was inclined to ignore +the pistol or the dagger of the assassin; but he believed that "mischief +was afoot," and that "great personages" might or might not be +responsible. He was beset by difficulties at every turn, and would have +been more than mortal if he had put too favourable a construction on the +scruples, or condoned the imprudence of a "friend of Revolutionists."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480" id="Footnote_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> <a name="Note_374" id="Note_374"></a>{374}[The reference may be to the Duke of Wellington's +intimacy with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. Byron had "passed that +way" himself (see <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 251, note i, 323, etc.), and +could hardly attack the Duke on <i>that</i> score.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481" id="Footnote_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> ["Thou art the best o' the cut-throats." +</p><p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iii. sc. 4, line 17.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482" id="Footnote_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> ["I have supped full of horrors." +</p><p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act v. sc. 5, line 13.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483" id="Footnote_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> <i>Vide</i> speeches in Parliament, after the battle of +Waterloo.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484" id="Footnote_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> <a name="Note_376" id="Note_376"></a>{376}["I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with +four others. We were sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for Lord +Wellington's hounds. I was very hungry, and thought it a good job at the +time, as we got our own fill, while we broke the biscuit,—a thing I had +not got for some days. When thus engaged, the Prodigal Son was never +once out of my mind; and I sighed, as I fed the dogs, over my humble +situation and my ruined hopes."—<i>Journal of a Soldier of the 71st +Regiment</i>, 1806 to 1815 (Edinburgh, 1822), pp. 132, 133.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485" id="Footnote_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> ["We are assured that Epaminondas died so poor that the +Thebans buried him at the public charge; for at his death nothing was +found in his house but an iron spit."—Plutarch's <i>Fabius Maximus</i>, +Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 140. See, too, Cornelius Nepos, +<i>Epam</i>., cap. iii. "Paupertatem adeo facilè perpessus est, ut de +Republica nihil præter gloriam ceperit."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486" id="Footnote_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> [For Pitt's refusal to accept £100,000 from the merchants +of London towards the payment of his debts, or £30,000 from the King's +Privy Purse, see <i>Pitt</i>, by Lord Rosebery, 1891. p. 231.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IU" id="Footnote_IU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IU"><span class="label">[IU]</span></a> +<a name="Note_377" id="Note_377"></a>{377}<i>To</i> you <i>this</i> one <i>unflattering Muse +inscribes</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IV" id="Footnote_IV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IV"><span class="label">[IV]</span></a> +<a name="Note_378" id="Note_378"></a>{378} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>He strips from man his mantle (which is dear</i></p> +<p><i>Though beautiful in youth) his carnal skin</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487" id="Footnote_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> +[<i>Hamlet</i>, act iii. sc. i, line 56.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488" id="Footnote_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> +["O dura messorum ilia!" etc.-Hor., <i>Epod.</i> iii. 4.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IW" id="Footnote_IW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IW"><span class="label">[IW]</span></a> +<i>Ye iron guts</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489" id="Footnote_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> +<a name="Note_379" id="Note_379"></a>{379}["Ce n'est qu'à l'édition de 1635 qu'on voit +paraître la devise que Montaigne avait adoptée, le <i>que sais-je</i>? avec +l'emblème des balances. ... Ce <i>que sais-je</i> que Pascal a si sévèrement +analysé se lit au chapitre douze du livre ii; il caractérise +parfaitement la philosophie de Montaigne; il est la conséquence de cette +maxime qu'il avait inscrite en grec sur les solives de sa librairie: 'Il +n'est point de raisonnement au quel on n'oppose un raissonnement +contraire.'"—<i>Oeuvres de ... Montaigne</i>, 1837, "Notice +Bibliographique," p. xvii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490" id="Footnote_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> [Concerning the Pyrrhonists or Sceptics and their master +Pyrrho, who held that Truth was incomprehensible (<i>inprensibilis</i>), and +that you may not affirm of aught that it be rather this or that, or +neither this nor that +(<span title="ou) ma~llon ou(/tôs e)/chei to/de">οὐ μᾶλλον +οὕτως ἔχει τόδε</span> +<span title="ê)\ e)kei/nôs ê)\ ou)dete/rôs"> +ἢ ἐκείνως ἢ +οὐδετέρως</span>), +see Aul. Gellii <i>Noct. Attic.</i>, lib. xi. cap. v.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491" id="Footnote_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> See <i>Othello</i>, [act ii. sc. 3, lines 206, 207: "Well, +God's above all, and there be souls must be saved; and there be souls +must not be saved—Let's have no more of this."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492" id="Footnote_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> <a name="Note_380" id="Note_380"></a>{380}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act v. sc. 2, lines 94, 98, 102.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493" id="Footnote_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> [For "Lycanthropy," see "The Soldier's Story" in the +<i>Satyricôn</i> of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 62; see, too, <i>Letters on +Demonology, etc.</i>, by Sir W. Scott, 1830, pp. 211, 212.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494" id="Footnote_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> [In respect of suavity and forbearance Melancthon was the +counterpart of Luther. John Arrowsmith (1602-1657), in his <i>Tractica +Sacra</i>, describes him as "Vir in quo cum pietate doctrina, et cum +utrâque candor certavit."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IX" id="Footnote_IX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IX"><span class="label">[IX]</span></a> <i>Like Moses or like Cobbett who have ne'er.</i> +</p><p> +Moses and Cobbet proclaim themselves the "meekest of men." See their +writings.—[MS.] +</p><p> +<i>Like Moses who was "very meek" had ne'er</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495" id="Footnote_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> <a name="Note_381" id="Note_381"></a>{381}[See his "Correspondance avec L'Impératrice de +Russie," <i>Oeuvres Complètes</i> de Voltaire, 1836, x. 393-477. M. +Waliszewski, in his <i>Story of a Throne</i>, 1895, i. 224, has gathered a +handful of these flowers of speech: "She is the chief person in the +world.... She is the fire and life of nations.... She is a saint.... She +is above all saints.... She is equal to the mother of God.... She is the +divinity of the North.—<i>Te Catherinam laudamus, te Dominam confitemur, +etc., etc.</i>"]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IY" id="Footnote_IY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IY"><span class="label">[IY]</span></a> <i>Of everything that ever cursed a nation.</i>—[<i>MS. erased.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496" id="Footnote_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> ["It is still more difficult to say which form of +government is the <i>worst</i>—all are so bad. As for democracy, it is the +worst of the whole; for what is (<i>in fact</i>) democracy?—an Aristocracy +of Blackguards."—See "My Dictionary" (May 1, 1821), <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. +405, 406.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_IZ" id="Footnote_IZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_IZ"><span class="label">[IZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_382" id="Note_382"></a>{382}<i>Though priests and slaves may join the servile +cry</i>.—[<i>MS. erased.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497" id="Footnote_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> In Greece I never saw or heard these animals; but among +the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. +</p><p> +[See <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 6, <i>Poetical Works</i>, +1899, ii. 441; and <i>Siege of Corinth</i>, line 329, ibid., 1900, iii. 462, +note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JA" id="Footnote_JA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JA"><span class="label">[JA]</span></a> <i>Whereas the others hunt for rascal spiders.</i>—[<i>MS. +erased.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JB" id="Footnote_JB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JB"><span class="label">[JB]</span></a> <i>Which still are strongly fluttering to be free</i>.—[<i>MS. +erased.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498" id="Footnote_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> <a name="Note_383" id="Note_383"></a>{383}[Compare <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, line 576, sq., +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 570.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499" id="Footnote_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> <a name="Note_384" id="Note_384"></a>{384}[Nadir Shah, or Thamas Kouli Khan, born November, +1688, invaded India, 1739-40, was assassinated June 19, 1747.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JC" id="Footnote_JC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JC"><span class="label">[JC]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>—— <i>went mad and was</i></p> +<p><i>Killed because what he swallowed would not pass</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500" id="Footnote_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> He was killed in a conspiracy, after his temper had been +exasperated by his extreme costivity to a degree of insanity. +</p><p> +[To such a height had his madness (attributed to <i>melancholia</i> produced +by dropsy) attained, that he actually ordered the Afghan chiefs to rise +suddenly upon the Persian guard, and seize the ... chief nobles; but the +project being discovered, the intended victims conspired in turn, and a +body of them, including Nadir's guard, and the chief of his own tribe of +Afshar, entered his tent at midnight, and, after a moment's involuntary +pause—when challenged by the deep voice at which they had so often +trembled—rushed upon the king, who being brought to the ground by a +sabre-stroke, begged for life, and attempted to rise, but soon expired +beneath the repeated blows of the conspirators.—<i>The Indian Empire</i>, by +R. Montgomery Martin (1857), i. 172.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501" id="Footnote_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 64, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JD" id="Footnote_JD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JD"><span class="label">[JD]</span></a> <a name="Note_385" id="Note_385"></a>{385}<i>Or the substrata</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502" id="Footnote_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> [Compare Preface to <i>Cain</i>, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, V. +210, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503" id="Footnote_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> +[<i>Vide ante,</i> <a href="#c8scxxvi">Canto VIII. stanza cxxvi</a>. line 9, p. 368.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504" id="Footnote_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> <a name="Note_386" id="Note_386"></a>{386}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act i. sc. 5, line 189.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JE" id="Footnote_JE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JE"><span class="label">[JE]</span></a> <i>I never know what's next to come</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505" id="Footnote_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> [It is possible that the phrase "painted snows" was +suggested by Tooke's description of the winter-garden of the Taurida +Palace: "The genial warmth, ... the voluptuous silence that reigns in +this enchanting garden, lull the fancy into sweet romantic dreams: we +think ourselves in the groves of Italy, while torpid nature, through the +windows of this pavilion, announces the severity of a northern winter" +(<i>The Life, etc.</i>, 1800, iii. 48).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JF" id="Footnote_JF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JF"><span class="label">[JF]</span></a> <a name="Note_387" id="Note_387"></a>{387}<i>O'er limits which mightily</i>——:—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JG" id="Footnote_JG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JG"><span class="label">[JG]</span></a>—— <i>in Youth and Glory's pillory</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506" id="Footnote_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> [In his <i>Notes sur le Don Juanisme</i> (<i>Mercure de France</i>, +1898, xxvi. 66), M. Bruchard says that this phrase defines and +summarizes the Byronic Don Juan.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JH" id="Footnote_JH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JH"><span class="label">[JH]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>The Empress smiled while all the Orloff frowned</i>—</p> +<p><i>A numerous family, to whose heart or hand</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Mild Catherine owed the chance of being crowned,</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507" id="Footnote_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> <a name="Note_388" id="Note_388"></a>{388}[C.F.P. Masson, in his <i>Mémoires Secrets, etc.</i>, +1880, i. 150-178, gives a list of twelve favourites, and in this Canto, +Don Juan takes upon himself the characteristics of at least three, +Lanskoï, Zoritch (or Zovitch), and Plato Zoubof. For example (p. 167), +"Zoritch ... est le seul étranger qu'elle ait osé créer son favori +pendant son regne. C'étoit un <i>Servien</i> échappé du bagne de +Constantinople où il étoit prisonnier: il parut, pour la première fois, +en habit de hussard à la cour. Il éblouit tout le monde par sa beauté, +et les vielles dames en parlent encore comme d'un Adonis." M. +Waliszewski, in his <i>Romance of an Empress</i> (1894), devotes a chapter to +"Private Life and Favouritism" (ii. 234-286), in which he graphically +describes the election and inauguration of the <i>Vremienchtchik</i>, "the +man of the moment," paramour regnant, and consort of the Empress <i>pro +hac vice</i>: "'We may observe in Russia a sort of interregnum in affairs, +caused by the displacement of one favourite and the installation of his +successor.' ... The interregnums are, however, of very short duration. +Only one lasts for several months, between the death of Lanskoï (1784) +and the succession of Iermolof.... There is no lack of candidates. The +place is good.... Sometimes, too, on the height by the throne, reached +at a bound, these spoilt children of fate grow giddy.... It is over in +an instant, at an evening reception it is noticed that the Empress has +gazed attentively at some obscure lieutenant, presented but just before +... next day it is reported that he has been appointed aide-de-camp to +her Majesty. What that means is well known. Next day he finds himself in +the special suite of rooms.... The rooms are already vacated, and +everything is prepared for the new-comer. All imaginable comfort and +luxury ... await him; and, on opening a drawer, he finds a hundred +thousand roubles [about £20,000], the usual first gift, a foretaste of +Pactolus. That evening, before the assembled court, the Empress appears, +leaning familiarly on his arm, and on the stroke of ten, as she retires, +the new favourite follows her" (<i>ibid.</i>, pp. 246-249).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508" id="Footnote_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> [After the death or murder of her husband, Peter III., +Catherine Alexievna (1729-1796) (born Sophia Augusta), daughter of the +Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, was solemnly crowned (September, 1762) Empress +of all the Russias.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JI" id="Footnote_JI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JI"><span class="label">[JI]</span></a> <a name="Note_389" id="Note_389"></a>{389}<i>And almost died for the scarce-fledged +Lanskoi</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509" id="Footnote_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> He was the grande passion of the grande Catherine. See +her Lives under the head of "Lanskoi." +</p><p> +[Lanskoi was a youth of as fine and interesting a figure as the +imagination can paint. Of all Catherine's favourites, he was the man +whom she loved the most. In 1784 he was attacked with a fever, and +perished in the arms of her Majesty. When he was no more, Catherine gave +herself up to the most poignant grief, and remained three months without +going out of her palace of Tzarsko-selo. She afterwards raised a superb +monument to his memory. (See <i>Life of Catherine II.</i>, by W. Tooke, 1800, +iii. 88, 89.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510" id="Footnote_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> [Ten months after the death of Lanskoi, the Empress +consoled herself with Iermolof, described, by Bezborodky, as "a modest +refined young man, who cultivates the society of serious people." In +less than a year this excellent youth is, in turn, displaced by Dmitrief +Mamonof. His <i>petit nom</i> was <i>Red Coat</i>, and, for a time, he is a +"priceless creature." "He has," says Catherine, "two superb black eyes, +with eyebrows outlined as one rarely sees; about the middle height, +noble in manner, easy in demeanour." But Mamonof suffered from "scruples +of conscience," and, after a while, with Catherine's consent and +blessing, was happily married to the Princess Shtcherbatof, a maid of +honour, and not, as Byron supposed, a rival "man of the moment."—See +<i>The Story of a Throne</i>, by K. Waliszewski, 1895, ii. 135, sq.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511" id="Footnote_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> This was written long before the suicide of that person. +[For "his parts of speech" compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i16">" ... that long mandarin</p> +<p>C-stle-r-agh (whom Fum calls the Confucius of Prose)</p> +<p>Was rehearsing a speech upon Europe's repose</p> +<p>To the deep double bass of the fat Idol's nose."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Moore's <i>Fum and Hum, The Two Birds of Royalty</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512" id="Footnote_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> <a name="Note_390" id="Note_390"></a>{390}[Compare <i>Beppo</i>, stanza xvii. line 8, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 165. See, too, letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819, +<i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 393.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JJ" id="Footnote_JJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JJ"><span class="label">[JJ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"><i>Beneath his chisel</i>—</p> +<p>or, <i>Beneath his touches</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JK" id="Footnote_JK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JK"><span class="label">[JK]</span></a> <a name="Note_391" id="Note_391"></a>{391}—— <i>and bound fair Helen in a bond</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513" id="Footnote_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> Hor., <i>Sat.</i>, lib. i. sat. iii. lines 107, 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JL" id="Footnote_JL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JL"><span class="label">[JL]</span></a> <i>That Riddle which all read, none understand</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JM" id="Footnote_JM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JM"><span class="label">[JM]</span></a>—— <i>thou Sea which lavest Life's sand</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514" id="Footnote_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> <a name="Note_392" id="Note_392"></a>{392}["Fortune and victory sit on thy helm."—<i>Richard +III.</i>, act v, sc. 3, line 79.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515" id="Footnote_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> ["Catherine had been handsome in her youth, and she +preserved a gracefulness and majesty to the last period of her life. She +was of a moderate stature, but well proportioned; and as she carried her +head very high, she appeared rather tall. She had an open front, an +aquiline nose, an agreeable mouth, and her chin, though long, was not +mis-shapen. Her hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, +and her blue eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but oftener +still a mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not deficient in +expression; but this expression never discovered what was passing in the +soul of Catherine, or rather it served her the better to disguise +it."—<i>Life of Catherine II.</i>, by W. Tooke, iii. 381 (translated from +<i>Vie de Catherine II.</i> (J.H. Castéra), 1797, ii. 450).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516" id="Footnote_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> <a name="Note_393" id="Note_393"></a>{393}["His fortune swells him: 'Tis rank, he's +married."—<i>Sir Giles Overreach</i>, in Massinger's <i>New Way to pay Old +Debts</i>, act v. sc. 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517" id="Footnote_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> <a name="Note_394" id="Note_394"></a>{394}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act iii. sc. iv. lines 58, 59.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518" id="Footnote_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> <a name="Note_395" id="Note_395"></a>{395} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove;</p> +<p class="i2">No! make me mistress to the man I love."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Pope, <i>Eloisa to Abelard</i>, lines 87, 88.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JN" id="Footnote_JN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JN"><span class="label">[JN]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>O'er whom an Empress her Crown-jewels scattering</i></p> +<p><i>Was wed with something better than a ring</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519" id="Footnote_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> ["Several persons who lived at the court affirm that +Catherine had very blue eyes, and not brown, as M. Rulhières has +stated."—<i>Life of Catherine II.</i>, by W. Tooke, 1800, iii. 382.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520" id="Footnote_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> <a name="Note_396" id="Note_396"></a>{396}[The historic Catherine (<i>æt.</i> 62) was past her +meridian in the spring of 1791.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JO" id="Footnote_JO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JO"><span class="label">[JO]</span></a> <i>Her figure, and her vigour, and her rigour</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JP" id="Footnote_JP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JP"><span class="label">[JP]</span></a> <i>In its sincere beginning, or dull end</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JQ" id="Footnote_JQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JQ"><span class="label">[JQ]</span></a> <a name="Note_397" id="Note_397"></a>{397}<i>For such all women are just</i> then, <i>no +doubt</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JR" id="Footnote_JR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JR"><span class="label">[JR]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of such sensations, in the drowsy drear</i></p> +<p>After—<i>which shadows the, say</i>—second <i>year</i>.—[MS.]</p> +<p><i>Of that sad heavy, drowsy, doubly drear</i></p> +<p>After, <i>which shadows the first—say, year</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521" id="Footnote_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> [Stanza lxxvi. is not in the MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522" id="Footnote_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> <a name="Note_398" id="Note_398"></a>{398}A Russian estate is always valued by the number of +the slaves upon it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523" id="Footnote_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> <a name="Note_399" id="Note_399"></a>{399}[The "Protassova" (born 1744) was a cousin of the +Orlofs. She survived Catherine by many years, and was, writes M. +Waliszewski (<i>The Story of a Throne</i>, 1895, ii. 193), "present at the +Congress of Vienna, covered with diamonds like a reliquary, and claiming +precedence of every one." She is named <i>l'éprouveuse</i> in a note to the +<i>Mémoires Secrets</i>, 1800, i. 148.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JS" id="Footnote_JS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JS"><span class="label">[JS]</span></a> <i>And not be dazzled by its early glare</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524" id="Footnote_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> End of Canto 9<sup>th</sup>, Augt. Sept., 1822. B.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_TENTH" id="CANTO_THE_TENTH"></a> +CANTO THE TENTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Newton saw an apple fall, he found</p> +<p class="i2">In that slight startle from his contemplation—</p> +<p>'T is <i>said</i> (for I'll not answer above ground</p> +<p class="i2">For any sage's creed or calculation)—</p> +<p>A mode of proving that the Earth turned round</p> +<p class="i2">In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation;"</p> +<p>And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,<a name="FNanchor_JT" id="FNanchor_JT"></a><a href="#Footnote_JT" class="fnanchor">[JT]</a></p> +<p>Since Adam—with a fall—or with an apple.<a name="FNanchor_JU" id="FNanchor_JU"></a><a href="#Footnote_JU" class="fnanchor">[JU]</a><a name="FNanchor_525" id="FNanchor_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_525" class="fnanchor">[525]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,</p> +<p class="i2">If this be true; for we must deem the mode</p> +<p>In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose</p> +<p class="i2">Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_JV" id="FNanchor_JV"></a><a href="#Footnote_JV" class="fnanchor">[JV]</a></p> +<p>A thing to counterbalance human woes:<a name="FNanchor_526" id="FNanchor_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_526" class="fnanchor">[526]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For ever since immortal man hath glowed</p> +<p>With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon</p> +<p>Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And wherefore this exordium?—Why, just now,</p> +<p class="i2">In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,</p> +<p>My bosom underwent a glorious glow,</p> +<p class="i2">And my internal spirit cut a caper:</p> +<p>And though so much inferior, as I know,</p> +<p class="i2">To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour,</p> +<p>Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye,</p> +<p>I wish to do as much by Poesy.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In the wind's eye I have sailed, and sail; but for</p> +<p class="i2">The stars, I own my telescope is dim;</p> +<p>But at the least I have shunned the common shore,</p> +<p class="i2">And leaving land far out of sight, would skim</p> +<p>The Ocean of Eternity:<a name="FNanchor_527" id="FNanchor_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_527" class="fnanchor">[527]</a> the roar</p> +<p class="i2">Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,</p> +<p>But <i>still</i> sea-worthy skiff; and she may float</p> +<p>Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We left our hero, Juan, in the <i>bloom</i></p> +<p class="i2">Of favouritism, but not yet in the <i>blush;—</i></p> +<p>And far be it from my <i>Muses</i> to presume</p> +<p class="i2">(For I have more than one Muse at a push),</p> +<p>To follow him beyond the drawing-room:</p> +<p class="i2">It is enough that Fortune found him flush</p> +<p>Of Youth, and Vigour, Beauty, and those things</p> +<p>Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's wings.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But soon they grow again and leave their nest.</p> +<p class="i2">"Oh!" saith the Psalmist, "that I had a dove's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></p> +<p>Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!"</p> +<p class="i2">And who that recollects young years and loves,—</p> +<p>Though hoary now, and with a withering breast,</p> +<p class="i2">And palsied Fancy, which no longer roves</p> +<p>Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere,—but would much rather</p> +<p>Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,</p> +<p class="i2">Like Arno<a name="FNanchor_528" id="FNanchor_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_528" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> in the summer, to a shallow,</p> +<p>So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,</p> +<p class="i2">Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!</p> +<p>Such difference doth a few months make. You'd think</p> +<p class="i2">Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow;</p> +<p>No more it doth—its ploughs but change their boys,</p> +<p>Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But coughs will come when sighs depart—and now</p> +<p class="i2">And then before sighs cease; for oft the one</p> +<p>Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow</p> +<p class="i2">Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the Sun</p> +<p>Of Life reached ten o'clock: and while a glow,</p> +<p class="i2">Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done,</p> +<p>O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay,</p> +<p>Thousands blaze, love, hope, die,—how happy they!—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was not meant to die so soon:—</p> +<p class="i2">We left him in the focus of such glory</p> +<p>As may be won by favour of the moon</p> +<p class="i2">Or ladies' fancies—rather transitory</p> +<p>Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,</p> +<p class="i2">Because December, with his breath so hoary,</p> +<p>Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,</p> +<p>To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides, he had some qualities which fix</p> +<p class="i2">Middle-aged ladies even more than young:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span></p> +<p>The former know what's what; while new-fledged chicks</p> +<p class="i2">Know little more of Love than what is sung</p> +<p>In rhymes, or dreamt (for Fancy will play tricks)</p> +<p class="i2">In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung.</p> +<p>Some reckon women by their suns or years,</p> +<p>I rather think the Moon should date the dears.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And why? because she's changeable and chaste:</p> +<p class="i2">I know no other reason, whatsoe'er</p> +<p>Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,<a name="FNanchor_JW" id="FNanchor_JW"></a><a href="#Footnote_JW" class="fnanchor">[JW]</a></p> +<p class="i2">May choose to tax me with; which is not fair,</p> +<p>Nor flattering to "their temper or their taste,"</p> +<p class="i2">As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air:<a name="FNanchor_529" id="FNanchor_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a></p> +<p>However, I forgive him, and I trust</p> +<p>He will forgive himself;—if not, I must.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Old enemies who have become new friends</p> +<p class="i2">Should so continue—'t is a point of honour;</p> +<p>And I know nothing which could make amends</p> +<p class="i2">For a return to Hatred: I would shun her</p> +<p>Like garlic, howsoever she extends</p> +<p class="i2">Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.</p> +<p>Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes—</p> +<p>Converted foes should scorn to join with those.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This were the worst desertion:—renegadoes,</p> +<p class="i2">Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_JX" id="FNanchor_JX"></a><a href="#Footnote_JX" class="fnanchor">[JX]</a></p> +<p>Would scarcely join again the "reformadoes,"<a name="FNanchor_530" id="FNanchor_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's sty;</p> +<p>And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes,</p> +<p class="i2">Whether in Caledon or Italy,</p> +<p>Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize</p> +<p>To pain, the moment when you cease to please.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lawyer and the critic but behold</p> +<p class="i2">The baser sides of literature and life,</p> +<p>And nought remains unseen, but much untold,</p> +<p class="i2">By those who scour those double vales of strife.</p> +<p>While common men grow ignorantly old,</p> +<p class="i2">The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,</p> +<p>Dissecting the whole inside of a question,</p> +<p>And with it all the process of digestion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.<a name="FNanchor_531" id="FNanchor_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper,</p> +<p class="i2">And that's the reason he himself's so dirty;</p> +<p>The endless soot<a name="FNanchor_532" id="FNanchor_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> bestows a tint far deeper</p> +<p class="i2">Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he</p> +<p>Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper,</p> +<p class="i2">At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty,</p> +<p>In all their habits;—not so <i>you</i>, I own;</p> +<p>As Cæsar wore his robe you wear your gown.<a name="FNanchor_533" id="FNanchor_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And all our little feuds, at least all <i>mine</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span></p> +<p>(As far as rhyme and criticism combine</p> +<p class="i2">To make such puppets of us things below),</p> +<p>Are over: Here's a health to "Auld Lang Syne!"</p> +<p class="i2">I do not know you, and may never know</p> +<p>Your face—but you have acted on the whole</p> +<p>Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when I use the phrase of "Auld Lang Syne!"</p> +<p class="i2">'T is not addressed to you—the more's the pity</p> +<p>For me, for I would rather take my wine</p> +<p class="i2">With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city:</p> +<p>But somehow—it may seem a schoolboy's whine,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,</p> +<p>But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred</p> +<p>A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—<a name="FNanchor_534" id="FNanchor_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_534" class="fnanchor">[534]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all,<a name="FNanchor_535" id="FNanchor_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_535" class="fnanchor">[535]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,</p> +<p>The Dee—the Don—Balgounie's brig's <i>black wall</i>—<a name="FNanchor_536" id="FNanchor_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p> +<p class="i2">All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams</p> +<p>Of what I <i>then dreamt</i>, clothed in their own pall,—</p> +<p class="i2">Like Banquo's offspring—floating past me seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span></p> +<p>My childhood, in this childishness of mine:—</p> +<p>I care not—'t is a glimpse of "<i>Auld Lang Syne</i>."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And though, as you remember, in a fit</p> +<p class="i2">Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,</p> +<p>I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,</p> +<p class="i2">Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,</p> +<p>Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit,</p> +<p class="i2">They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:</p> +<p>I "<i>scotched</i> not killed" the Scotchman in my blood,</p> +<p>And love the land of "mountain and of flood."<a name="FNanchor_537" id="FNanchor_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan, who was real, or ideal,—</p> +<p class="i2">For both are much the same, since what men think</p> +<p>Exists when the once thinkers are less real</p> +<p class="i2">Than what they thought, for Mind can never sink,</p> +<p>And 'gainst the Body makes a strong appeal;</p> +<p class="i2">And yet 't is very puzzling on the brink</p> +<p>Of what is called Eternity to stare,</p> +<p>And know no more of what is <i>here</i>, than <i>there</i>;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan grew a very polished Russian—</p> +<p class="i2"><i>How</i> we won't mention, <i>why</i> we need not say:</p> +<p>Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion</p> +<p class="i2">Of any slight temptation in their way;</p> +<p>But <i>his</i> just now were spread as is a cushion</p> +<p class="i2">Smoothed for a Monarch's seat of honour: gay</p> +<p>Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money,</p> +<p>Made ice seem Paradise, and winter sunny.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The favour of the Empress was agreeable;</p> +<p class="i2">And though the duty waxed a little hard,</p> +<p>Young people at his time of life should be able</p> +<p class="i2">To come off handsomely in that regard.</p> +<p>He was now growing up like a green tree, able</p> +<p class="i2">For Love, War, or Ambition, which reward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span></p> +<p>Their luckier votaries, till old Age's tedium</p> +<p>Make some prefer the circulating medium.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>About this time, as might have been anticipated,</p> +<p class="i2">Seduced by Youth and dangerous examples,</p> +<p>Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated;</p> +<p class="i2">Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples</p> +<p>On our fresh feelings, but—as being participated</p> +<p class="i2">With all kinds of incorrigible samples</p> +<p>Of frail humanity—must make us selfish,</p> +<p>And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This we pass over. We will also pass</p> +<p class="i2">The usual progress of intrigues between</p> +<p>Unequal matches, such as are, alas!</p> +<p class="i2">A young Lieutenant's with a <i>not old</i> Queen,</p> +<p>But one who is not so youthful as she was</p> +<p class="i2">In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.<a name="FNanchor_JY" id="FNanchor_JY"></a><a href="#Footnote_JY" class="fnanchor">[JY]</a></p> +<p>Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter,</p> +<p>And wrinkles, the d——d democrats! won't flatter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Death, the Sovereign's Sovereign, though the great</p> +<p class="i2">Gracchus of all mortality, who levels,</p> +<p>With his <i>Agrarian</i> laws,<a name="FNanchor_538" id="FNanchor_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> the high estate</p> +<p class="i2">Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels,</p> +<p>To one small grass-grown patch (which must await</p> +<p class="i2">Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils</p> +<p>Who never had a foot of land till now,—</p> +<p>Death's a reformer—all men must allow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry</p> +<p class="i2">Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span></p> +<p>In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry—</p> +<p class="i2">Which (though I hate to say a thing that's bitter)</p> +<p>Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry,</p> +<p class="i2">Through all the "purple and fine linen," fitter</p> +<p>For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot—</p> +<p>And neutralise her outward show of scarlet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And this same state we won't describe: we would</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection:</p> +<p>But getting nigh grim Dante's "obscure wood,"<a name="FNanchor_539" id="FNanchor_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_539" class="fnanchor">[539]</a></p> +<p class="i2">That horrid equinox, that hateful section</p> +<p>Of human years—that half-way house—that rude</p> +<p class="i2">Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circumspection<a name="FNanchor_JZ" id="FNanchor_JZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_JZ" class="fnanchor">[JZ]</a></p> +<p>Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier</p> +<p>Of Age, and looking back to Youth, give <i>one</i> tear;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I won't describe,—that is, if I can help</p> +<p class="i2">Description; and I won't reflect,—that is,</p> +<p>If I can stave off thought, which—as a whelp</p> +<p class="i2">Clings to its teat—sticks to me through the abyss</p> +<p>Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp</p> +<p class="i2">Holds by the rock; or as a lover's kiss</p> +<p>Drains its first draught of lips:—but, as I said,</p> +<p>I <i>won't</i> philosophise, and <i>will</i> be read.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted,—</p> +<p class="i2">A thing which happens rarely: this he owed</p> +<p>Much to his youth, and much to his reported</p> +<p class="i2">Valour; much also to the blood he showed,</p> +<p>Like a race-horse; much to each dress he sported,</p> +<p class="i2">Which set the beauty off in which he glowed,</p> +<p>As purple clouds befringe the sun; but most</p> +<p>He owed to an old woman and his post.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He wrote to Spain;—and all his near relations,</p> +<p class="i2">Perceiving he was in a handsome way</p> +<p>Of getting on himself, and finding stations</p> +<p class="i2">For cousins also, answered the same day.</p> +<p>Several prepared themselves for emigrations;</p> +<p class="i2">And eating ices, were o'erheard to say,</p> +<p>That with the addition of a slight pelisse,</p> +<p>Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a piece.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too,</p> +<p class="i2">That in the lieu of drawing on his banker,</p> +<p>Where his assets were waxing rather few,</p> +<p class="i2">He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,—</p> +<p>Replied, "that she was glad to see him through</p> +<p class="i2">Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker;</p> +<p>As the sole sign of Man's being in his senses</p> +<p>Is—learning to reduce his past expenses.<a name="FNanchor_KA" id="FNanchor_KA"></a><a href="#Footnote_KA" class="fnanchor">[KA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"She also recommended him to God,</p> +<p class="i2">And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother,</p> +<p>Warned him against Greek worship, which looks odd</p> +<p class="i2">In Catholic eyes; but told him, too, to smother</p> +<p><i>Outward</i> dislike, which don't look well abroad;</p> +<p class="i2">Informed him that he had a little brother</p> +<p>Born in a second wedlock; and above</p> +<p>All, praised the Empress's <i>maternal</i> love.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"She could not too much give her approbation</p> +<p class="i2">Unto an Empress, who preferred young men</p> +<p>Whose age, and what was better still, whose nation</p> +<p class="i2">And climate, stopped all scandal (now and then);—</p> +<p>At home it might have given her some vexation;</p> +<p class="i2">But where thermometers sink down to ten,</p> +<p>Or five, or one, or zero, she could never</p> +<p>Believe that Virtue thawed before the river."<a name="FNanchor_KB" id="FNanchor_KB"></a><a href="#Footnote_KB" class="fnanchor">[KB]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh for a <i>forty-parson power</i><a name="FNanchor_540" id="FNanchor_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_540" class="fnanchor">[540]</a>—to chant</p> +<p class="i2">Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn</p> +<p>Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,</p> +<p class="i2">Not practise! Oh for trump of Cherubim!</p> +<p>Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,<a name="FNanchor_541" id="FNanchor_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,</p> +<p>Drew quiet consolation through its hint,</p> +<p>When she no more could read the pious print.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was no Hypocrite at least, poor soul,</p> +<p class="i2">But went to heaven in as sincere a way</p> +<p>As anybody on the elected roll,</p> +<p class="i2">Which portions out upon the Judgment Day</p> +<p>Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of Doomsday scroll,</p> +<p class="i2">Such as the conqueror William did repay</p> +<p>His knights with, lotting others' properties</p> +<p>Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't complain, whose ancestors are there,</p> +<p class="i2">Erneis, Radulphus—eight-and-forty manors</p> +<p>(If that my memory doth not greatly err)</p> +<p class="i2">Were <i>their</i> reward for following Billy's banners:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_542" id="FNanchor_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a></p> +<p>And though I can't help thinking 't was scarce fair</p> +<p class="i2">To strip the Saxons of their <i>hydes</i><a name="FNanchor_543" id="FNanchor_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> like tanners;</p> +<p>Yet as they founded churches with the produce,</p> +<p>You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use.<a name="FNanchor_KC" id="FNanchor_KC"></a><a href="#Footnote_KC" class="fnanchor">[KC]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The gentle Juan flourished, though at times</p> +<p class="i2">He felt like other plants called sensitive,</p> +<p>Which shrink from touch, as Monarchs do from rhymes,</p> +<p class="i2">Save such as Southey can afford to give.</p> +<p>Perhaps he longed in bitter frosts for climes</p> +<p class="i2">In which the Neva's ice would cease to live</p> +<p>Before May-day: perhaps, despite his duty,</p> +<p>In Royalty's vast arms he sighed for Beauty:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps—but, sans perhaps, we need not seek<a name="FNanchor_KD" id="FNanchor_KD"></a><a href="#Footnote_KD" class="fnanchor">[KD]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For causes young or old: the canker-worm</p> +<p>Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek,</p> +<p class="i2">As well as further drain the withered form:</p> +<p>Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week</p> +<p class="i2">His bills in, and however we may storm,</p> +<p>They must be paid: though six days smoothly run,</p> +<p>The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't know how it was, but he grew sick:</p> +<p class="i2">The Empress was alarmed, and her physician</p> +<p>(The same who physicked Peter) found the tick</p> +<p class="i2">Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition</p> +<p>Which augured of the dead, however <i>quick</i></p> +<p class="i2">Itself, and showed a feverish disposition;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span></p> +<p>At which the whole Court was extremely troubled,</p> +<p>The Sovereign shocked, and all his medicines doubled.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:</p> +<p class="i2">Some said he had been poisoned by Potemkin;</p> +<p>Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,</p> +<p class="i2">Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;<a name="FNanchor_544" id="FNanchor_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p> +<p>Some said 't was a concoction of the humours,</p> +<p class="i2">Which with the blood too readily will claim kin:</p> +<p>Others again were ready to maintain,</p> +<p>"'T was only the fatigue of last campaign."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here is one prescription out of many:</p> +<p class="i2">"<i>Sodae sulphat</i>. ʒvj. ʒfs. <i>Mannae optim.</i></p> +<p><i>Aq. fervent.</i> f. ℥ ifs. ʒij. <i>tinct. Sennae</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Haustus</i>" (And here the surgeon came and cupped him)</p> +<p>"℞ <i>Pulv. Com.</i> gr. iij. <i>Ipecacuanhæ</i>"</p> +<p class="i2">(With more beside if Juan had not stopped 'em).</p> +<p>"<i>Bolus Potassae Sulphuret. sumendus</i>,</p> +<p><i>Et haustus ter in die capiendus.</i>"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is the way physicians mend or end us,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Secundum artem</i>: but although we sneer</p> +<p>In health—when ill, we call them to attend us,</p> +<p class="i2">Without the least propensity to jeer;</p> +<p>While that "<i>hiatus maxime deflendus</i>"</p> +<p class="i2">To be filled up by spade or mattock's near,</p> +<p>Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,</p> +<p>We tease mild Baillie,<a name="FNanchor_545" id="FNanchor_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> or soft Abernethy.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan demurred at this first notice to</p> +<p class="i2">Quit; and though Death had threatened an ejection,</p> +<p>His youth and constitution bore him through,</p> +<p class="i2">And sent the doctors in a new direction.</p> +<p>But still his state was delicate: the hue</p> +<p class="i2">Of health but flickered with a faint reflection</p> +<p>Along his wasted cheek, and seemed to gravel</p> +<p>The faculty—who said that he must travel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The climate was too cold, they said, for him,</p> +<p class="i2">Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion</p> +<p>Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,</p> +<p class="i2">Who did not like at first to lose her minion:</p> +<p>But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim,</p> +<p class="i2">And drooping like an eagle's with clipt pinion,</p> +<p>She then resolved to send him on a mission,</p> +<p>But in a style becoming his condition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was just then a kind of a discussion,</p> +<p class="i2">A sort of treaty or negotiation,</p> +<p>Between the British cabinet and Russian,</p> +<p class="i2">Maintained with all the due prevarication</p> +<p>With which great states such things are apt to push on;</p> +<p class="i2">Something about the Baltic's navigation,</p> +<p>Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,</p> +<p>Which Britons deem their <i>uti possidetis</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So Catherine, who had a handsome way</p> +<p class="i2">Of fitting out her favourites, conferred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span></p> +<p>This secret charge on Juan, to display</p> +<p class="i2">At once her royal splendour, and reward</p> +<p>His services. He kissed hands the next day,</p> +<p class="i2">Received instructions how to play his card,</p> +<p>Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,</p> +<p>Which showed what great discernment was the donor's.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But she was lucky, and luck's all. Your Queens</p> +<p class="i2">Are generally prosperous in reigning—</p> +<p>Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means:—</p> +<p class="i2">But to continue—though her years were waning,</p> +<p>Her climacteric teased her like her teens;</p> +<p class="i2">And though her dignity brooked no complaining,</p> +<p>So much did Juan's setting off distress her,</p> +<p>She could not find at first a fit successor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Time, the comforter, will come at last;</p> +<p class="i2">And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number</p> +<p>Of candidates requesting to be placed,</p> +<p class="i2">Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber:—</p> +<p>Not that she meant to fix again in haste,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor did she find the quantity encumber,</p> +<p>But always choosing with deliberation,</p> +<p>Kept the place open for their emulation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While this high post of honour's in abeyance,</p> +<p class="i2">For one or two days, reader, we request</p> +<p>You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance</p> +<p class="i2">Which wafted him from Petersburgh: the best</p> +<p>Barouche, which had the glory to display once</p> +<p class="i2">The fair Czarina's autocratic crest,</p> +<p>When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris,</p> +<p>Was given to her favourite,<a name="FNanchor_546" id="FNanchor_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_546" class="fnanchor">[546]</a> and now <i>bore his</i>.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine,</p> +<p class="i2">All private favourites of Don Juan;—for</p> +<p>(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)</p> +<p class="i2">He had a kind of inclination, or</p> +<p>Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin,</p> +<p class="i2">Live animals: an old maid of threescore</p> +<p>For cats and birds more penchant ne'er displayed,</p> +<p>Although he was not old, nor even a maid;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The animals aforesaid occupied</p> +<p class="i2">Their station: there were valets, secretaries,</p> +<p>In other vehicles; but at his side</p> +<p class="i2">Sat little Leila, who survived the parries</p> +<p>He made 'gainst Cossacque sabres in the wide</p> +<p class="i2">Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies</p> +<p>Her note, she don't forget the infant girl</p> +<p>Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,</p> +<p class="i2">And with that gentle, serious character,</p> +<p>As rare in living beings as a fossile</p> +<p class="i2">Man, 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, "grand Cuvier!"<a name="FNanchor_KE" id="FNanchor_KE"></a><a href="#Footnote_KE" class="fnanchor">[KE]</a></p> +<p>Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle</p> +<p class="i2">With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err:</p> +<p>But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore</p> +<p>Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as</p> +<p class="i2">Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>I cannot tell exactly what it was;</p> +<p class="i2">He was not yet quite old enough to prove</p> +<p>Parental feelings, and the other class,</p> +<p class="i2">Called brotherly affection, could not move</p> +<p>His bosom,—for he never had a sister:</p> +<p>Ah! if he had—how much he would have missed her!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And still less was it sensual; for besides</p> +<p class="i2">That he was not an ancient debauchee,</p> +<p>(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides,</p> +<p class="i2">As acids rouse a dormant alkali,)<a name="FNanchor_KF" id="FNanchor_KF"></a><a href="#Footnote_KF" class="fnanchor">[KF]</a></p> +<p>Although (<i>'t will</i> happen as our planet guides)</p> +<p class="i2">His youth was not the chastest that might be,</p> +<p>There was the purest Platonism at bottom</p> +<p>Of all his feelings—only he forgot 'em.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Just now there was no peril of temptation;</p> +<p class="i2">He loved the infant orphan he had saved,</p> +<p>As patriots (now and then) may love a nation;</p> +<p class="i2">His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved</p> +<p>Owing to him;—as also her salvation</p> +<p class="i2">Through his means and the Church's might be paved.</p> +<p>But one thing's odd, which here must be inserted,</p> +<p>The little Turk refused to be converted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T was strange enough she should retain the impression</p> +<p class="i2">Through such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter;</p> +<p>But though three Bishops told her the transgression,</p> +<p class="i2">She showed a great dislike to holy water;</p> +<p>She also had no passion for confession;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps she had nothing to confess:—no matter,</p> +<p>Whate'er the cause, the Church made little of it—</p> +<p>She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In fact, the only Christian she could bear</p> +<p class="i2">Was Juan; whom she seemed to have selected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span></p> +<p>In place of what her home and friends once <i>were</i>.</p> +<p class="i2"><i>He</i> naturally loved what he protected:</p> +<p>And thus they formed a rather curious pair,</p> +<p class="i2">A guardian green in years, a ward connected</p> +<p>In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender;</p> +<p>And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They journeyed on through Poland and through Warsaw,</p> +<p class="i2">Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron:</p> +<p>Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw</p> +<p class="i2">Which gave her dukes the graceless name of "Biron."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_547" id="FNanchor_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_547" class="fnanchor">[547]</a></p> +<p>'T is the same landscape which the modern Mars saw,</p> +<p class="i2">Who marched to Moscow, led by Fame, the Siren!</p> +<p>To lose by one month's frost some twenty years</p> +<p>Of conquest, and his guard of Grenadiers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Let this not seem an anti-climax:—"Oh!</p> +<p class="i2">My guard! my old guard!"<a name="FNanchor_548" id="FNanchor_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> exclaimed that god of clay.</p> +<p>Think of the Thunderer's falling down below</p> +<p class="i2">Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!<a name="FNanchor_KG" id="FNanchor_KG"></a><a href="#Footnote_KG" class="fnanchor">[KG]</a></p> +<p>Alas! that glory should be chilled by snow!</p> +<p class="i2">But should we wish to warm us on our way</p> +<p>Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name</p> +<p>Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper,</p> +<p class="i2">And Königsberg, the capital, whose vaunt,</p> +<p>Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper,</p> +<p class="i2">Has lately been the great Professor Kant.<a name="FNanchor_549" id="FNanchor_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a></p> +<p>Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper</p> +<p class="i2">About philosophy, pursued his jaunt</p> +<p>To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions</p> +<p>Have princes who spur more than their postilions.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like,</p> +<p class="i2">Until he reached the castellated Rhine:—</p> +<p>Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike</p> +<p class="i2">All phantasies, not even excepting mine!</p> +<p>A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,</p> +<p class="i2">Make my soul pass the equinoctial line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span></p> +<p>Between the present and past worlds, and hover</p> +<p>Upon their airy confines, half-seas-over.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan posted on through Mannheim, Bonn,</p> +<p class="i2">Which Drachenfels<a name="FNanchor_550" id="FNanchor_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> frowns over like a spectre</p> +<p>Of the good feudal times for ever gone,</p> +<p class="i2">On which I have not time just now to lecture.</p> +<p>From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne,</p> +<p class="i2">A city which presents to the inspector</p> +<p>Eleven thousand maiden heads of bone.</p> +<p>The greatest number flesh hath ever known.<a name="FNanchor_551" id="FNanchor_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_551" class="fnanchor">[551]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>From thence to Holland's Hague and Helvoetsluys,</p> +<p class="i2">That water-land of Dutchmen and of ditches,</p> +<p>Where juniper expresses its best juice,</p> +<p class="i2">The poor man's sparkling substitute for riches.</p> +<p>Senates and sages have condemned its use—</p> +<p class="i2">But to deny the mob a cordial, which is</p> +<p>Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel,</p> +<p>Good government has left them, seems but cruel.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here he embarked, and with a flowing sail</p> +<p class="i2">Went bounding for the Island of the free,</p> +<p>Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale;</p> +<p class="i2">High dashed the spray, the bows dipped in the sea,</p> +<p>And sea-sick passengers turned somewhat pale;</p> +<p class="i2">But Juan, seasoned, as he well might be,</p> +<p>By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs</p> +<p>Which passed, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At length they rose, like a white wall along</p> +<p class="i2">The blue sea's border; and Don Juan felt—</p> +<p>What even young strangers feel a little strong</p> +<p class="i2">At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>A kind of pride that he should be among</p> +<p class="i2">Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt</p> +<p>Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole,</p> +<p>And made the very billows pay them toll.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I've no great cause to love that spot of earth,</p> +<p class="i2">Which holds what <i>might have been</i> the noblest nation;</p> +<p>But though I owe it little but my birth,</p> +<p class="i2">I feel a mixed regret and veneration</p> +<p>For its decaying fame and former worth.</p> +<p class="i2">Seven years (the usual term of transportation)</p> +<p>Of absence lay one's old resentments level,</p> +<p>When a man's country's going to the devil.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! could she but fully, truly, know</p> +<p class="i2">How her great name is now throughout abhorred;</p> +<p>How eager all the Earth is for the blow</p> +<p class="i2">Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword;</p> +<p>How all the nations deem her their worst foe,</p> +<p class="i2">That worse than <i>worst of foes</i>, the once adored</p> +<p>False friend, who held out Freedom to Mankind,</p> +<p>And now would chain them—to the very <i>mind</i>;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Would she be proud, or boast herself the free,</p> +<p class="i2">Who is but first of slaves? The nations are</p> +<p>In prison,—but the gaoler, what is he?</p> +<p class="i2">No less a victim to the bolt and bar.</p> +<p>Is the poor privilege to turn the key</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the captive, Freedom? He's as far</p> +<p>From the enjoyment of the earth and air</p> +<p>Who watches o'er the chain, as they who wear.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest beauties,</p> +<p class="i2">Thy cliffs, <i>dear</i> Dover! harbour, and hotel;</p> +<p>Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties;</p> +<p class="i2">Thy waiters running mucks at every bell;</p> +<p>Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties</p> +<p class="i2">To those who upon land or water dwell;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span></p> +<p>And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed,</p> +<p>Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, though careless, young, and <i>magnifique</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, and credit,</p> +<p>Who did not limit much his bills per week,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it,—</p> +<p>(His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle Greek,</p> +<p class="i2">Before him summed the awful scroll and read it):</p> +<p>But, doubtless, as the air—though seldom sunny—</p> +<p>Is free, the respiration's worth the money.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>On with the horses! Off to Canterbury!</p> +<p class="i2">Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, splash through puddle;</p> +<p>Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!</p> +<p class="i2">Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle</p> +<p>Along the road,<a name="FNanchor_552" id="FNanchor_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_552" class="fnanchor">[552]</a> as if they went to bury</p> +<p class="i2">Their fare; and also pause besides, to fuddle</p> +<p>With "schnapps"—sad dogs! whom "Hundsfot," or "Verflucter,"<a name="FNanchor_553" id="FNanchor_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_553" class="fnanchor">[553]</a></p> +<p>Affect no more than lightning a conductor.<a name="FNanchor_KH" id="FNanchor_KH"></a><a href="#Footnote_KH" class="fnanchor">[KH]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits,</p> +<p class="i2">Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry,</p> +<p>As going at full speed—no matter where its</p> +<p class="i2">Direction be, so 't is but in a hurry,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span></p> +<p>And merely for the sake of its own merits;</p> +<p class="i2">For the less cause there is for all this flurry,</p> +<p>The greater is the pleasure in arriving</p> +<p>At the great <i>end</i> of travel—which is driving.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They saw at Canterbury the cathedral;</p> +<p class="i2">Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone,</p> +<p>Were pointed out as usual by the bedral,</p> +<p class="i2">In the same quaint, uninterested tone:—</p> +<p>There's glory again for you, gentle reader! All</p> +<p class="i2">Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone,<a name="FNanchor_554" id="FNanchor_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a></p> +<p>Half-solved into these sodas or magnesias,</p> +<p>Which form that bitter draught, the human species.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The effect on Juan was of course sublime:</p> +<p class="i2">He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw</p> +<p>That casque, which never stooped except to Time.</p> +<p class="i2">Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe,</p> +<p>Who died in the then great attempt to climb</p> +<p class="i2">O'er Kings, who <i>now</i> at least <i>must talk</i> of Law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span></p> +<p>Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed,</p> +<p>And asked why such a structure had been raised:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And being told it was "God's House," she said</p> +<p class="i2">He was well lodged, but only wondered how</p> +<p>He suffered Infidels in his homestead,</p> +<p class="i2">The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low</p> +<p>His holy temples in the lands which bred</p> +<p class="i2">The True Believers;—and her infant brow</p> +<p>Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign</p> +<p>A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>On! on! through meadows, managed like a garden,</p> +<p class="i2">A paradise of hops and high production;</p> +<p>For, after years of travel by a bard in</p> +<p class="i2">Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction,</p> +<p>A green field is a sight which makes him pardon</p> +<p class="i2">The absence of that more sublime construction,</p> +<p>Which mixes up vines—olives—precipices—</p> +<p>Glaciers—volcanoes—oranges and ices.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when I think upon a pot of beer——</p> +<p class="i2">But I won't weep!—and so drive on, postilions!</p> +<p>As the smart boys spurred fast in their career,</p> +<p class="i2">Juan admired these highways of free millions—</p> +<p>A country in all senses the most dear</p> +<p class="i2">To foreigner or native, save some silly ones,</p> +<p>Who "kick against the pricks" just at this juncture,</p> +<p>And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.<a name="FNanchor_KI" id="FNanchor_KI"></a><a href="#Footnote_KI" class="fnanchor">[KI]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What a delightful thing's a turnpike road!</p> +<p class="i2">So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving</p> +<p>The Earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad</p> +<p class="i2">Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.</p> +<p>Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the god</p> +<p class="i2">Had told his son to satisfy his craving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span></p> +<p>With the York mail;—but onward as we roll,</p> +<p><i>Surgit amari aliquid</i>—the toll!<a name="FNanchor_555" id="FNanchor_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!</p> +<p class="i2">Take lives—take wives—take aught except men's purses:</p> +<p>As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,</p> +<p class="i2">Such is the shortest way to general curses.<a name="FNanchor_556" id="FNanchor_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a></p> +<p>They hate a murderer much less than a claimant</p> +<p class="i2">On that sweet ore which everybody nurses.—</p> +<p>Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,</p> +<p>But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken</p> +<p class="i2">To your instructor. Juan now was borne,</p> +<p>Just as the day began to wane and darken,</p> +<p class="i2">O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn</p> +<p>Toward the great city.—Ye who have a spark in</p> +<p class="i2">Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn</p> +<p>According as you take things well or ill;—</p> +<p>Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from</p> +<p class="i2">A half-unquenched volcano, o'er a space</p> +<p>Which well beseemed the "Devil's drawing-room,"</p> +<p class="i2">As some have qualified that wondrous place:</p> +<p>But Juan felt, though not approaching <i>Home</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">As one who, though he were not of the race,</p> +<p>Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother,</p> +<p>Who butchered half the earth, and bullied t' other.<a name="FNanchor_557" id="FNanchor_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,</p> +<p class="i2">Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye</p> +<p>Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping</p> +<p class="i2">In sight, then lost amidst the forestry</p> +<p>Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping</p> +<p class="i2">On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;</p> +<p>A huge, dun Cupola, like a foolscap crown</p> +<p>On a fool's head—and there is London Town!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke</p> +<p class="i2">Appeared to him but as the magic vapour</p> +<p>Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke</p> +<p class="i2">The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper):</p> +<p>The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke</p> +<p class="i2">Are bowed, and put the Sun out like a taper,</p> +<p>Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,</p> +<p>Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He paused—and so will I; as doth a crew</p> +<p class="i2">Before they give their broadside. By and by,</p> +<p>My gentle countrymen, we will renew</p> +<p class="i2">Our old acquaintance; and at least I'll try</p> +<p>To tell you truths <i>you</i> will not take as true,</p> +<p class="i2">Because they are so;—a male Mrs. Fry,<a name="FNanchor_558" id="FNanchor_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p> +<p>With a soft besom will I sweep your halls,</p> +<p>And brush a web or two from off the walls.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why</p> +<p class="i2">Preach to <i>poor</i> rogues? And wherefore not begin</p> +<p>With Carlton, or with other houses? Try</p> +<p class="i2">Your hand at hardened and imperial Sin.</p> +<p>To mend the People's an absurdity,</p> +<p class="i2">A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span></p> +<p>Unless you make their betters better:—Fie!</p> +<p>I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Teach <i>them</i> the decencies of good threescore;</p> +<p class="i2">Cure <i>them</i> of tours, hussar and highland dresses;</p> +<p>Tell <i>them</i> that youth once gone returns no more,</p> +<p class="i2">That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses;</p> +<p>Tell them Sir William Curtis<a name="FNanchor_559" id="FNanchor_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_559" class="fnanchor">[559]</a> is a bore,</p> +<p class="i2">Too dull even for the dullest of excesses—</p> +<p>The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal,</p> +<p>A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Tell them, though it may be, perhaps, too late—</p> +<p class="i2">On Life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated—</p> +<p>To set up vain pretence of being <i>great</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is not so to be <i>good</i>; and, be it stated,</p> +<p>The worthiest kings have ever loved least state:</p> +<p class="i2">And tell them—But you won't, and I have prated</p> +<p>Just now enough; but, by and by, I'll prattle</p> +<p>Like Roland's horn<a name="FNanchor_560" id="FNanchor_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> in Roncesvalles' battle.<a name="FNanchor_KJ" id="FNanchor_KJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_KJ" class="fnanchor">[KJ]</a><a name="FNanchor_561" id="FNanchor_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_561" class="fnanchor">[561]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JT" id="Footnote_JT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JT"><span class="label">[JT]</span></a> <a name="Note_400" id="Note_400"></a>{400}<i>In a most natural whirling of rotation</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JU" id="Footnote_JU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JU"><span class="label">[JU]</span></a> <i>Since Adam—gloriously against an apple</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525" id="Footnote_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> ["Neither Pemberton nor Whiston, who received from Newton +himself the history of his first Ideas of Gravity, records the story of +the falling apple. It was mentioned, however, to Voltaire by Catherine +Barton (afterwards Mrs. Conduit), Newton's niece. We saw the apple tree +in 1814.... The tree was so much decayed that it was taken down in 1820" +(<i>Memoirs, etc., of Sir Isaac Newton</i>, by Sir David Brewster, 1855, i. +27, note 1). Voltaire tells the story thus (<i>Éléments de la Philosophie +de Newton</i>, Partie III. chap, iii.): "Un jour, en l'année 1666 [1665], +Newton, retiré à la campagne, et voyant tomber des fruits d'un arbre, à +ce que m'a conté sa nièce (Madame Conduit), se laissa aller à une +méditation profonde sur la cause qui entraîne ainsi tous les corps dans +une ligne qui, si elle était prolongée, passerait à peu près par le +centre de la terre."—<i>Oeuvres Complètes</i>, 1837, v. 727.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JV" id="Footnote_JV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JV"><span class="label">[JV]</span></a> <i>To the then unploughed stars</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526" id="Footnote_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> <a name="Note_401" id="Note_401"></a>{401}[Compare <i>Churchill's Grave,</i> line 23, <i>Poetical +Works,</i> 1901, iv. 47, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527" id="Footnote_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> [Shelley entitles him "The Pilgrim of Eternity," in his +<i>Adonais</i> (stanza xxx. line 3), which was written and published at Pisa +in 1821.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528" id="Footnote_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> <a name="Note_402" id="Note_402"></a>{402}[Byron left Pisa (Palazzo Lanfranchi on the Arno) +for the Villa Saluzzo at Genoa, in the autumn of 1822.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JW" id="Footnote_JW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JW"><span class="label">[JW]</span></a>: <a name="Note_403" id="Note_403"></a>{403}<i>Malicious people</i>—.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529" id="Footnote_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> ["We think the abuse of Mr. Southey ... by far too savage +and intemperate. It is of ill example, we think, in the literary world, +and does no honour either to the <i>taste</i> or the <i>temper</i> of the noble +author." —<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, February, 1822, vol. xxxvi. p. 445. +</p><p> +"I have read the recent article of Jeffrey ... I suppose the long and +the short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to reply. But I won't, +for I owe him a good turn still for his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I +presume that the present opportunity of attacking me again was +irresistible; and I can't blame him, knowing what human nature +is."—Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 80.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JX" id="Footnote_JX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JX"><span class="label">[JX]</span></a>—<i>that essence of all Lie</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530" id="Footnote_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> <a name="Note_404" id="Note_404"></a>{404}"Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron +Bradwardine in <i>Waverley</i> is authority for the word. [The word is +certainly in Butler's <i>Hudibras</i>, Part II. Canto 2— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Although your Church be opposite</p> +<p>To mine as Black Fryars are to White,</p> +<p>In <i>Rule</i> and <i>Order</i>, yet I grant</p> +<p>You are a <i>Reformado Saint</i>."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531" id="Footnote_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> [Stanza XV. is not in the MS. The "legal broom," <i>sc.</i> +Brougham, was an afterthought.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532" id="Footnote_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> Query, <i>suit</i>?—Printer's Devil.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533" id="Footnote_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> [It has been argued that when "great Cæsar fell" he wore +his "robe" to muffle up his face, and that, in like manner, Jeffrey sank +the critic in the lawyer. A "deal likelier" interpretation is that +Jeffrey wore "his gown" right royally, as Cæsar wore his "triumphal +robe." (See Plutarch's <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. +515.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534" id="Footnote_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> <a name="Note_405" id="Note_405"></a>{405}["I don't like to bore you about the Scotch novels +(as they call them, though two of them are English, and the rest half +so); but nothing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first +ten minutes in your company, that you are <i>not</i> the man. To me these +novels have so much of 'Auld Lang Syne' (I was bred a canny Scot till +ten years old), that I never move without them."—Letter to Sir W. +Scott, January 12, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 4, 5.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535" id="Footnote_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> [Compare <i>The Island</i>, Canto II. lines 280-297.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536" id="Footnote_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with +its one arch, and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as +yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful +proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a +childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The +saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it +since I was nine years of age:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Brig of Balgounie, <i>black</i>'s your <i>wa'</i>,</p> +<p>Wi' a wife's <i>ae son</i>, and a mear's <i>ae foal</i>,</p> +<p>Doun ye shall fa'!"</p> +</div></div> +<p> +[See for illustration of the Brig o' Balgownie, with its single Gothic +arch, <i>Letters</i>, 1901 [L.P.], v. 406. ]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537" id="Footnote_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> <a name="Note_406" id="Note_406"></a>{406} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,</p> +<p class="i2">Land of the mountain and the flood," etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, Canto VI. stanza ii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JY" id="Footnote_JY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JY"><span class="label">[JY]</span></a> <a name="Note_407" id="Note_407"></a>{407} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"><i>Some thirty years before at fair eighteen</i>.—[MS.]</p> +<p>or, <i>Seven and twenty</i>—which, <i>it does not matter</i>,—</p> +<p class="i4"><i>Wrinkles, those damnedst democrats, won't flatter</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538" id="Footnote_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the people, demanded +in their name the execution of the Agrarian law; by which all persons +possessing above a certain number of acres were to be deprived of the +surplus for the benefit of the poor citizens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539" id="Footnote_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> <a name="Note_408" id="Note_408"></a>{408} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Inferno</i>, Canto I. line 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_JZ" id="Footnote_JZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_JZ"><span class="label">[JZ]</span></a> <i>Hut where we travellers bait with dim reflection</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KA" id="Footnote_KA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KA"><span class="label">[KA]</span></a> <a name="Note_409" id="Note_409"></a>{409}<i>Is when he learns to limit his expenses</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KB" id="Footnote_KB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KB"><span class="label">[KB]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i18">———- <i>till the ice</i></p> +<p><i>Cracked, she would ne'er believe in thaws for vice</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540" id="Footnote_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> <a name="Note_410" id="Note_410"></a>{410}A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse power" of a +steam-engine. That mad wag, the Reverend Sydney Smith, sitting by a +brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that his dull neighbour +had a <i>"twelve-parson power"</i> of conversation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541" id="Footnote_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> [In a letter to his sister, October 25, 1804 (<i>Letters</i>, +1898, i. 40), Byron mentions an aunt—"the amiable antiquated Sophia," +and asks, "Is she yet in the land of the living, or does she sing psalms +with the Blessed in the other world?" This was his father's sister, +Sophia Maria, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron. But his "good old +aunt" is, more probably, the Hon. Mrs. Frances Byron, widow of George +(born April 22, 1730) son of the fourth, and brother of the "Wicked" +lord. She was the daughter and co-heiress of Ellis Levett, Esq., and +lived "at Nottingham in her own house." She died, aged 86, June 13, +1822, not long before this Canto was written. She is described in the +obituary notice of the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, June, 1822, vol. 92, p. +573, as "Daughter of Vice-Admiral the Hon. John Byron (who sailed round +the world with Lord Anson), grandfather of the present Lord Byron." But +that is, chronologically, impossible. Byron must have retained a +pleasing recollection of the ear-trumpet and the spectacles, and it +gratified his kindlier humour to embalm their owner in his verse.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542" id="Footnote_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> [See Collins's <i>Peerage</i>, 1779, vii. 120. It is probable +that Byron was lineally descended from Ralph de Burun, of Horestan, who +is mentioned in Doomsday Book (sect. xi.) as holding eight lordships in +Notts and five in Derbyshire, but with regard to Ernysius or Erneis the +pedigree is silent. (See <i>Pedigree of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron</i>, +by Edward Bernard, 1870.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543" id="Footnote_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> <a name="Note_411" id="Note_411"></a>{411}"Hyde."—I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate +word, and, as such, subject to the tax of a quibble.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KC" id="Footnote_KC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KC"><span class="label">[KC]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And humbly hope that the same God which hath given</i></p> +<p><i>Us land on earth, will do no less in Heaven</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KD" id="Footnote_KD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KD"><span class="label">[KD]</span></a> <i>Perhaps—but d—n perhaps</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544" id="Footnote_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> <a name="Note_412" id="Note_412"></a>{412}[For the illness ("a scarlet fever, complicated by +angina, both aggravated by premature exhaustion") and death of Lanskoï, +see <i>The Story of a Throne</i>, by K. Waliszewsky, 1895, ii. 131, 133. For +the rumour that he was poisoned by Potemkin, see <i>Mémoires Secrets, +etc.</i> [by C.F.P. Masson], 1800, i. 170.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545" id="Footnote_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> [Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), the nephew of William +Hunter, the brother of Agnes and Joanna Baillie, was a celebrated +anatomist. He attended Byron (1799-1802), when an endeavour was made to +effect a cure of the muscular contraction of his right leg and foot. He +was consulted by Lady Byron, in 1816, with regard to her husband's +supposed derangement, but was not admitted when he called at the house +in Piccadilly. He is said to have "avoided technical and learned +phrases; to have affected no sentimental tenderness, but expressed what +he had to say in the simplest and plainest terms" (<i>Annual Biography</i>, +1824, p. 319). Jekyll (<i>Letters</i>, 1894, p. 110) repeats or invents an +anecdote that "the old king, in his mad fits, used to say he could bring +any dead people to converse with him, except those who had died under +Baillie's care, for that the doctor always dissected them into so many +morsels, that they had not a leg to walk to Windsor with." It is hardly +necessary to say that John Abernethy (1764-1831) "expressed what <i>he</i> +had to say" in the bluntest and rudest terms at his disposal.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546" id="Footnote_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> The empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the +Emperor Joseph, in the year—I forget which. +</p><p> +[The Prince de Ligne, who accompanied Catherine in her progress through +her southern provinces, in 1787, gives the following particulars: "We +have crossed during many days vast, solitary regions, from which her +Majesty has driven Zaporogua, Budjak, and Nogais Tartars, who, ten years +ago, threatened to ravage her empire. All these places were furnished +with magnificent tents for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, suppers, and +sleeping-rooms ... deserted regions were at once transformed into +fields, groves, villages: ... The Empress has left in each chief town +gifts to the value of a hundred thousand roubles. Every day that we +remained stationary was marked with diamonds, balls, fireworks, and +illuminations throughout a circuit of ten leagues." —<i>The Prince de +Ligne, His Memoirs, etc.</i>, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, +1899, ii. 31.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KE" id="Footnote_KE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KE"><span class="label">[KE]</span></a> <a name="Note_415" id="Note_415"></a>{415}<i>Man, midst thy mouldy mammoths, Cuvier.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KF" id="Footnote_KF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KF"><span class="label">[KF]</span></a> <a name="Note_416" id="Note_416"></a>{416} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Who like sour fruit to sharpen up the tides</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Of their salt veins, and stir their stagnancy.</i>—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547" id="Footnote_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> <a name="Note_417" id="Note_417"></a>{417}In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her favourite, +assumed the name and arms of the "Birons" of France; which families are +yet extant with that of England. There are still the daughters of +Courland of that name; one of them I remember seeing in England in the +blessed year of the Allies (1814)—the Duchess of S.—to whom the +English Duchess of Somerset presented me as a namesake. +</p><p> +["Ernest John Biren was born in Courland [in 1690]. His grandfather had +been head groom to James, the third Duke of Courland, and obtained from +his master the present of a small estate in land.... In 1714 he made his +appearance at St. Petersburg, and solicited the place of page to the +Princess Charlotte, wife of the Tzarovitch Alexey; but being +contemptuously rejected as a person of mean extraction, retired to +Mittau, where he chanced to ingratiate himself with Count Bestuchef, +Master of the Household to Anne, widow of Frederic William, Duke of +Courland, who resided at Mittau. Being of a handsome figure and polite +address, he soon gained the good will of the duchess, and became her +secretary and chief favourite. On her being declared sovereign of +Russia, Anne called Biren to Petersburg, and the secretary soon became +Duke of Courland, and first minister or rather despot of Russia. On the +death of Anne, which happened in 1740, Biren, being declared regent, +continued daily increasing his vexations and cruelties, till he was +arrested, on the 18th of December, only twenty days after he had been +appointed to the regency; and at the revolution that ensued he was +exiled to the frozen shores of the Oby." <i>Catherine II.</i>, by W. Tooke, +1800, i. 160, <i>footnote</i>. He was recalled in 1763, and died in 1772. +</p><p> +In a letter to his sister, dated June 18, 1814, Byron gives a slightly +different version of the incident, recorded in his note (<i>vide supra</i>): +"The Duchess of Somerset also, to mend matters, insisted on presenting +me to a Princess <i>Biron</i>, Duchess of Hohen-God-knows-what, and another +person to her two sisters, Birons too. But I flew off, and <i>would</i> not, +saying I had had enough of introductions for that night at +least."—<i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. 98. The "daughters of Courland" must have +been descendants of "Pierre, dernier Duc de Courlande, De la Maison de +Biron," viz. Jeanne Cathérine, born June 24, 1783, who married, in 1801, +François Pignatelli de Belmonte, Duc d'Acerenza, and Dorothée, born +August 21, 1793, who married, in 1809, Edmond de Talleyrand Périgord, +Duc de Talleyrand, nephew to the Bishop of Autun. (See <i>Almanach de +Gotha</i>, 1848, pp. 109, 110.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548" id="Footnote_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> <a name="Note_418" id="Note_418"></a>{418}[Napoleon's exclamation at the Elysée Bourbon, June +23, 1815. "When his civil counsellors talked of defence, the word wrung +from him the bitter ejaculation, 'Ah! my old guard! could they but +defend themselves like you!'"—<i>Life of Napoleon Buonaparte</i>, by Sir +Walter Scott, <i>Prose Works</i>, 1846, ii. 760.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KG" id="Footnote_KG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KG"><span class="label">[KG]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Who now that he is dead has not a foe</i>;</p> +<p class="i2"><i>The last expired in cut-throat Castlereagh</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549" id="Footnote_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> [Immanuel Kant, born at Königsberg, in 1729, became +Professor and Rector of the University, and died at Königsberg in +1804.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550" id="Footnote_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> <a name="Note_419" id="Note_419"></a>{419} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["The castled crag of Drachenfels</p> +<p>Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine," etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto III.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551" id="Footnote_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still +extant in 1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552" id="Footnote_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> <a name="Note_421" id="Note_421"></a>{421}["We left Ratzeburg at 7 o'clock Wednesday evening, +and arrived at Lüneburg—<i>i.e.</i> 35 English miles—at 3 o'clock on +Thursday afternoon. This is a fair specimen! In England I used to laugh +at the 'flying waggons;' but compared with a German Post-Coach, the +metaphor is perfectly justifiable, and for the future I shall never meet +a flying waggon without thinking respectfully of its speed."—S.T. +Coleridge, March 12, 1799, <i>Letters of S.T.C.</i>, 1895, i. 278.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553" id="Footnote_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> [See for German oaths, "Extracts from a Diary," January +12, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 172.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KH" id="Footnote_KH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KH"><span class="label">[KH]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>With "Schnapps"—Democritus would cease to smile,</i></p> +<p><i>By German, post-boys driven a mile</i>.—[MS.]</p> +<p><i>With "Schnapps"—and spite of "Dam'em," "dog" and "log"</i></p> +<p><i>Launched at their heads jog-jog-jog-jog-jog-jog</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554" id="Footnote_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> <a name="Note_422" id="Note_422"></a>{422}[The French Inscription (see <i>Memorial +Inscriptions</i>, etc., by Joseph Meadows Cowper, 1897, p. 134) on the +Black Prince's monument is thus translated in the <i>History of Kent</i> +(John Weevers' <i>Funerall Monuments</i>, 1636, pp. 205, 206)— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Who so thou be that passeth by</p> +<p>Where this corps entombed lie,</p> +<p>Understand what I shall say,</p> +<p>As at this time, speake I may.</p> +<p>Such as thou art, sometime was I.</p> +<p>Such as I am, shalt thou be.</p> +<p>I little thought on th' oure of death,</p> +<p>So long as I enjoyéd breath.</p> +<p>Great riches here did I possess,</p> +<p>Whereof I made great nobleness;</p> +<p>I had gold, silver, wardrobes, and</p> +<p>Great treasure, horses, houses, land.</p> +<p>But now a caitife poore am I,</p> +<p>Deepe in the ground, lo! here I lie;</p> +<p>My beautie great is all quite gone,</p> +<p>My flesh is wasted to the bone.</p> +<p>My house is narrow now and throng,</p> +<p>Nothing but Truth comes from my tongue.</p> +<p>And if ye should see me this day,</p> +<p>I do not think but ye would say,</p> +<p>That I had never beene a man,</p> +<p>So much altered now I am."]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KI" id="Footnote_KI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KI"><span class="label">[KI]</span></a> <a name="Note_423" id="Note_423"></a>{423} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i15">—— <i>of higher stations</i>,</p> +<p><i>And for their pains get smarter puncturations</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555" id="Footnote_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> <a name="Note_424" id="Note_424"></a>{424}[See <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto I. stanza xxxii. line 2, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 93, note 16.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556" id="Footnote_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> [See <i>The Prince</i> (<i>Il Principe</i>), chap. xvii., by +Niccolò Machiavelli, translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, 1897, p. 121: +"But above all [a Prince] must abstain from the property of others. For +men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their +patrimony."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557" id="Footnote_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> [India; America.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558" id="Footnote_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> <a name="Note_425" id="Note_425"></a>{425}[Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) began her visits to +Newgate in 1813. In 1820 she corresponded with the Princess Sophie of +Russia, and at a later period she was entertained by Louis Philippe, and +by the King of Prussia at Kaiserwerth. She might have, she may have, +admonished George IV. "with regard to all good things."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559" id="Footnote_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> <a name="Note_426" id="Note_426"></a>{426}[See <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, line 768, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, v. 578, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560" id="Footnote_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["O for a blast of that dread horn,</p> +<p class="i2">On Fontarabian echoes borne,</p> +<p class="i6">That to King Charles did come,</p> +<p class="i2">When Rowland brave, and Olivier,</p> +<p class="i2">And every paladin and peer,</p> +<p class="i6">On Roncesvalles died."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Marmion</i>, Canto VI. stanza xxxiii. lines 7-12.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KJ" id="Footnote_KJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KJ"><span class="label">[KJ]</span></a> <i>Like an old Roman trumpet ere a battle</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561" id="Footnote_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> B. Genoa, Oct. 6<sup>th</sup>, 1822. End of Canto 10<sup>th</sup>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_ELEVENTH" id="CANTO_THE_ELEVENTH"></a> +CANTO THE ELEVENTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"<a name="FNanchor_562" id="FNanchor_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And proved it—'t was no matter what he said:</p> +<p>They say his system 't is in vain to batter,</p> +<p class="i2">Too subtle for the airiest human head;</p> +<p>And yet who can believe it? I would shatter</p> +<p class="i2">Gladly all matters down to stone or lead,</p> +<p>Or adamant, to find the World a spirit,</p> +<p>And wear my head, denying that I wear it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What a sublime discovery 't was to make the</p> +<p class="i2">Universe universal egotism,</p> +<p>That all's ideal—<i>all ourselves!</i>—I'll stake the</p> +<p class="i2">World (be it what you will) that <i>that's</i> no schism.</p> +<p>Oh Doubt!—if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee,</p> +<p class="i2">But which I doubt extremely—thou sole prism</p> +<p>Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit!</p> +<p>Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For ever and anon comes Indigestion</p> +<p class="i2">(Not the most "dainty Ariel"),<a name="FNanchor_563" id="FNanchor_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_563" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> and perplexes</p> +<p>Our soarings with another sort of question:</p> +<p class="i2">And that which after all my spirit vexes,</p> +<p>Is, that I find no spot where Man can rest eye on,</p> +<p class="i2">Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,</p> +<p>Of Beings, Stars, and this unriddled wonder,</p> +<p>The World, which at the worst's a <i>glorious</i> blunder—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If it be chance—or, if it be according</p> +<p class="i2">To the old text, still better:—lest it should</p> +<p>Turn out so, we 'll say nothing 'gainst the wording,</p> +<p class="i2">As several people think such hazards rude.</p> +<p>They're right; our days are too brief for affording</p> +<p class="i2">Space to dispute what <i>no one</i> ever could</p> +<p>Decide, and <i>everybody one day</i> will</p> +<p>Know very clearly—or at least lie still.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore will I leave off metaphysical</p> +<p class="i2">Discussion, which is neither here nor there:</p> +<p>If I agree that what is, is; then this I call</p> +<p class="i2">Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair;</p> +<p>The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical:<a name="FNanchor_564" id="FNanchor_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a></p> +<p class="i2">I don't know what the reason is—the air</p> +<p>Perhaps; but as I suffer from the shocks</p> +<p>Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The first attack at once proved the Divinity</p> +<p class="i2">(But that I never doubted, nor the Devil);</p> +<p>The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity;</p> +<p class="i2">The third, the usual Origin of Evil;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span></p> +<p>The fourth at once established the whole Trinity</p> +<p class="i2">On so uncontrovertible a level,</p> +<p>That I devoutly wished the three were four—</p> +<p>On purpose to believe so much the more.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To our theme.—The man who has stood on the Acropolis,</p> +<p class="i2">And looked down over Attica; or he</p> +<p>Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is,</p> +<p class="i2">Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea</p> +<p>In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis,</p> +<p class="i2">Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh,<a name="FNanchor_KK" id="FNanchor_KK"></a><a href="#Footnote_KK" class="fnanchor">[KK]</a></p> +<p>May not think much of London's first appearance—</p> +<p>But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill;</p> +<p class="i2">Sunset the time, the place the same declivity</p> +<p>Which looks along that vale of Good and Ill</p> +<p class="i2">Where London streets ferment in full activity,</p> +<p>While everything around was calm and still,</p> +<p class="i2">Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he</p> +<p>Heard,—and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum</p> +<p>Of cities, that boil over with their scum:—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I say, Don Juan, wrapped in contemplation,</p> +<p class="i2">Walked on behind his carriage, o'er the summit,</p> +<p>And lost in wonder of so great a nation,</p> +<p class="i2">Gave way to 't, since he could not overcome it.</p> +<p>"And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station;</p> +<p class="i2">Here peals the People's voice, nor can entomb it</p> +<p>Racks—prisons—inquisitions; Resurrection</p> +<p>Awaits it, each new meeting or election.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay</p> +<p class="i2">But what they please; and if that things be dear,</p> +<p>'T is only that they love to throw away</p> +<p class="i2">Their cash, to show how much they have a-year.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span></p> +<p>Here laws are all inviolate—none lay</p> +<p class="i2">Traps for the traveller—every highway's clear—</p> +<p>Here"—he was interrupted by a knife,</p> +<p>With—"Damn your eyes! your money or your life!"—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These free-born sounds proceeded from four pads</p> +<p class="i2">In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter</p> +<p>Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads,</p> +<p class="i2">Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,</p> +<p>In which the heedless gentleman who gads</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,</p> +<p>May find himself within that isle of riches</p> +<p>Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, who did not understand a word</p> +<p class="i2">Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!"<a name="FNanchor_565" id="FNanchor_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a></p> +<p>And even that he had so rarely heard,</p> +<p class="i2">He sometimes thought 't was only their "Salām,"</p> +<p>Or "God be with you!"—and 't is not absurd</p> +<p class="i2">To think so,—for half English as I am</p> +<p>(To my misfortune), never can I say</p> +<p>I heard them wish "God with you," save that way;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan yet quickly understood their gesture,</p> +<p class="i2">And being somewhat choleric and sudden,</p> +<p>Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture,</p> +<p class="i2">And fired it into one assailant's pudding—</p> +<p>Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture,</p> +<p class="i2">And roared out, as he writhed his native mud in,</p> +<p>Unto his nearest follower or henchman,</p> +<p>"Oh Jack! I'm floored by that 'ere bloody Frenchman!"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>On which Jack and his train set off at speed,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan's suite, late scattered at a distance,</p> +<p>Came up, all marvelling at such a deed,</p> +<p class="i2">And offering, as usual, late assistance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span></p> +<p>Juan, who saw the moon's late minion<a name="FNanchor_566" id="FNanchor_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> bleed</p> +<p class="i2">As if his veins would pour out his existence,</p> +<p>Stood calling out for bandages and lint,</p> +<p>And wished he had been less hasty with his flint.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Perhaps," thought he, "it is the country's wont</p> +<p class="i2">To welcome foreigners in this way: now</p> +<p>I recollect some innkeepers who don't</p> +<p class="i2">Differ, except in robbing with a bow,</p> +<p>In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front—</p> +<p class="i2">But what is to be done? I can't allow</p> +<p>The fellow to lie groaning on the road:</p> +<p>So take him up—I'll help you with the load."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But ere they could perform this pious duty,</p> +<p class="i2">The dying man cried, "Hold! I've got my gruel!</p> +<p>Oh! for a glass of <i>max</i>!<a name="FNanchor_567" id="FNanchor_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> We've missed our booty;</p> +<p class="i2">Let me die where I am!" And as the fuel</p> +<p>Of Life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty</p> +<p class="i2">The drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew ill</p> +<p>His breath,—he from his swelling throat untied</p> +<p>A kerchief, crying, "Give Sal that!"—and died.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The cravat stained with bloody drops fell down</p> +<p class="i2">Before Don Juan's feet: he could not tell</p> +<p>Exactly why it was before him thrown,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell.</p> +<p>Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town,</p> +<p class="i2">A thorough varmint, and a <i>real</i> swell,</p> +<p>Full flash,<a name="FNanchor_568" id="FNanchor_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> all fancy, until fairly diddled,</p> +<p>His pockets first and then his body riddled.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan, having done the best he could</p> +<p class="i2">In all the circumstances of the case,</p> +<p>As soon as "Crowner's quest"<a name="FNanchor_569" id="FNanchor_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_569" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> allowed, pursued</p> +<p class="i2">His travels to the capital apace;—</p> +<p>Esteeming it a little hard he should</p> +<p class="i2">In twelve hours' time, and very little space,</p> +<p>Have been obliged to slay a free-born native</p> +<p>In self-defence: this made him meditative.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He from the world had cut off a great man,</p> +<p class="i2">Who in his time had made heroic bustle.</p> +<p>Who in a row like Tom could lead the van,</p> +<p class="i2">Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle?</p> +<p>Who queer a flat?<a name="FNanchor_570" id="FNanchor_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a> Who (spite of Bow-street's ban)</p> +<p class="i2">On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle?</p> +<p>Who on a lark with black-eyed Sal (his blowing),</p> +<p>So prime—so swell—so nutty—and so knowing?<a name="FNanchor_KL" id="FNanchor_KL"></a><a href="#Footnote_KL" class="fnanchor">[KL]</a><a name="FNanchor_571" id="FNanchor_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span></p><h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Tom's no more—and so no more of Tom.</p> +<p class="i2">Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 't is</p> +<p>Not long before the most of them go home.</p> +<p class="i2">Hail! Thamis, hail! Upon thy verge it is</p> +<p>That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum</p> +<p class="i2">In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss,</p> +<p>Through Kennington and all the other "tons,"</p> +<p>Which make us wish ourselves in town at once;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Through Groves, so called as being void of trees,</p> +<p class="i2">(Like <i>lucus</i> from <i>no</i> light); through prospects named</p> +<p>Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor much to climb; through little boxes framed</p> +<p>Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease,</p> +<p class="i2">With "To be let," upon their doors proclaimed;</p> +<p>Through "Rows" most modestly called "Paradise,"<a name="FNanchor_572" id="FNanchor_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a></p> +<p>Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice;—<a name="FNanchor_KM" id="FNanchor_KM"></a><a href="#Footnote_KM" class="fnanchor">[KM]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span></p><h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl</p> +<p class="i2">Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion;</p> +<p>Here taverns wooing to a pint of "purl,"<a name="FNanchor_573" id="FNanchor_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a></p> +<p class="i2">There mails fast flying off like a delusion;</p> +<p>There barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl</p> +<p class="i2">In windows; here the lamplighter's infusion</p> +<p>Slowly distilled into the glimmering glass</p> +<p>(For in those days we had not got to gas—);<a name="FNanchor_KN" id="FNanchor_KN"></a><a href="#Footnote_KN" class="fnanchor">[KN]</a><a name="FNanchor_574" id="FNanchor_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_574" class="fnanchor">[574]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Through this, and much, and more, is the approach</p> +<p class="i2">Of travellers to mighty Babylon:</p> +<p>Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach,</p> +<p class="i2">With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one.</p> +<p>I could say more, but do not choose to encroach</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the Guide-book's privilege. The Sun</p> +<p>Had set some time, and night was on the ridge</p> +<p>Of twilight, as the party crossed the bridge.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That's rather fine, the gentle sound of Thamis—</p> +<p class="i2">Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream—</p> +<p>Though hardly heard through multifarious "damme's:"</p> +<p class="i2">The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam,</p> +<p>The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where Fame is</p> +<p class="i2">A spectral resident—whose pallid beam</p> +<p>In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile—</p> +<p>Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Druids' groves are gone—so much the better:</p> +<p class="i2">Stonehenge is not—but what the devil is it?—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter,</p> +<p class="i2">That madmen may not bite you on a visit;</p> +<p>The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor;</p> +<p class="i2">The Mansion House,<a name="FNanchor_575" id="FNanchor_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_575" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> too (though some people quiz it),</p> +<p>To me appears a stiff yet grand erection;</p> +<p>But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The line of lights,<a name="FNanchor_576" id="FNanchor_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_576" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> too, up to Charing Cross,</p> +<p class="i2">Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation</p> +<p>Like gold as in comparison to dross,</p> +<p class="i2">Matched with the Continent's illumination,</p> +<p>Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss.</p> +<p class="i2">The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation,</p> +<p>And when they grew so—on their new-found lantern,</p> +<p>Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.<a name="FNanchor_577" id="FNanchor_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A row of Gentlemen along the streets</p> +<p class="i2">Suspended may illuminate mankind,</p> +<p>As also bonfires made of country seats;</p> +<p class="i2">But the old way is best for the purblind:</p> +<p>The other looks like phosphorus on sheets,</p> +<p class="i2">A sort of <i>ignis fatuus</i> to the mind,</p> +<p>Which, though 't is certain to perplex and frighten,</p> +<p>Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But London's so well lit, that if Diogenes</p> +<p class="i2">Could recommence to hunt his <i>honest man</i>,</p> +<p>And found him not amidst the various progenies</p> +<p class="i2">Of this enormous City's spreading span,</p> +<p>'T were not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his</p> +<p class="i2">Yet undiscovered treasure. What <i>I</i> can,</p> +<p>I've done to find the same throughout Life's journey,</p> +<p>But see the World is only one attorney.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Over the stones still rattling, up Pall Mall,</p> +<p class="i2">Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner</p> +<p>As thundered knockers broke the long sealed spell</p> +<p class="i2">Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner</p> +<p>Admitted a small party as night fell,—</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner,</p> +<p>Pursued his path, and drove past some hotels,</p> +<p>St. James's Palace, and St. James's "Hells."<a name="FNanchor_578" id="FNanchor_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_578" class="fnanchor">[578]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They reached the hotel: forth streamed from the front door<a name="FNanchor_KO" id="FNanchor_KO"></a><a href="#Footnote_KO" class="fnanchor">[KO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A tide of well-clad waiters, and around</p> +<p>The mob stood, and as usual several score</p> +<p class="i2">Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound</p> +<p>In decent London when the daylight's o'er;</p> +<p class="i2">Commodious but immoral, they are found</p> +<p>Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.—</p> +<p>But Juan now is stepping from his carriage</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Into one of the sweetest of hotels,<a name="FNanchor_KP" id="FNanchor_KP"></a><a href="#Footnote_KP" class="fnanchor">[KP]</a><a name="FNanchor_579" id="FNanchor_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Especially for foreigners—and mostly</p> +<p>For those whom favour or whom Fortune swells,</p> +<p class="i2">And cannot find a bill's small items costly.</p> +<p>There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells</p> +<p class="i2">(The den of many a diplomatic lost lie),</p> +<p>Until to some conspicuous square they pass,</p> +<p>And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, whose was a delicate commission,</p> +<p class="i2">Private, though publicly important, bore</p> +<p>No title to point out with due precision</p> +<p class="i2">The exact affair on which he was sent o'er.</p> +<p>'T was merely known, that on a secret mission</p> +<p class="i2">A foreigner of rank had graced our shore,</p> +<p>Young, handsome, and accomplished, who was said</p> +<p>(In whispers) to have turned his Sovereign's head.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some rumour also of some strange adventures</p> +<p class="i2">Had gone before him, and his wars and loves;</p> +<p>And as romantic heads are pretty painters,</p> +<p class="i2">And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves<a name="FNanchor_KQ" id="FNanchor_KQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_KQ" class="fnanchor">[KQ]</a></p> +<p>Into the excursive, breaking the indentures</p> +<p class="i2">Of sober reason, wheresoe'er it moves,</p> +<p>He found himself extremely in the fashion,</p> +<p>Which serves our thinking people for a passion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite</p> +<p class="i2">The contrary; but then 't is in the head;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span></p> +<p>Yet as the consequences are as bright</p> +<p class="i2">As if they acted with the heart instead,</p> +<p>What after all can signify the site</p> +<p class="i2">Of ladies' lucubrations? So they lead</p> +<p>In safety to the place for which you start,</p> +<p>What matters if the road be head or heart?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan presented in the proper place,</p> +<p class="i2">To proper placemen, every Russ credential;</p> +<p>And was received with all the due grimace</p> +<p class="i2">By those who govern in the mood potential,</p> +<p>Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face,</p> +<p class="i2">Thought (what in state affairs is most essential),</p> +<p>That they as easily might <i>do</i> the youngster,</p> +<p>As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They erred, as agéd men will do; but by</p> +<p class="i2">And by we'll talk of that; and if we don't,</p> +<p>'T will be because our notion is not high</p> +<p class="i2">Of politicians and their double front,</p> +<p>Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie:—</p> +<p class="i2">Now what I love in women is, they won't</p> +<p>Or can't do otherwise than lie—but do it</p> +<p>So well, the very Truth seems falsehood to it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And, after all, what is a lie? 'T is but</p> +<p class="i2">The truth in masquerade; and I defy<a name="FNanchor_KR" id="FNanchor_KR"></a><a href="#Footnote_KR" class="fnanchor">[KR]</a></p> +<p>Historians—heroes—lawyers—priests, to put</p> +<p class="i2">A fact without some leaven of a lie.</p> +<p>The very shadow of true Truth would shut</p> +<p class="i2">Up annals—revelations—poesy,</p> +<p>And prophecy—except it should be dated</p> +<p>Some years before the incidents related.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Praised be all liars and all lies! Who now</p> +<p class="i2">Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span></p> +<p>She rings the World's "Te Deum," and her brow</p> +<p class="i2">Blushes for those who will not:—but to sigh</p> +<p>Is idle; let us like most others bow,</p> +<p class="i2">Kiss hands—feet—any part of Majesty,</p> +<p>After the good example of "Green Erin,"<a name="FNanchor_580" id="FNanchor_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_580" class="fnanchor">[580]</a></p> +<p>Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.<a name="FNanchor_KS" id="FNanchor_KS"></a><a href="#Footnote_KS" class="fnanchor">[KS]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan was presented, and his dress</p> +<p class="i2">And mien excited general admiration—</p> +<p>I don't know which was more admired or less:</p> +<p class="i2">One monstrous diamond drew much observation,</p> +<p>Which Catherine in a moment of <i>"ivresse"</i></p> +<p class="i2">(In Love or Brandy's fervent fermentation),</p> +<p>Bestowed upon him, as the public learned;</p> +<p>And, to say truth, it had been fairly earned.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides the ministers and underlings,</p> +<p class="i2">Who must be courteous to the accredited</p> +<p>Diplomatists of rather wavering Kings,</p> +<p class="i2">Until their royal riddle's fully read,</p> +<p>The very clerks,—those somewhat dirty springs</p> +<p class="i2">Of Office, or the House of Office, fed</p> +<p>By foul corruption into streams,—even they</p> +<p>Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And insolence no doubt is what they are</p> +<p class="i2">Employed for, since it is their daily labour,</p> +<p>In the dear offices of Peace or War;</p> +<p class="i2">And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour,</p> +<p>When for a passport, or some other bar</p> +<p class="i2">To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span></p> +<p>If he found not this spawn of tax-born riches,</p> +<p>Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of b——- s.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was received with much <i>"empressement:"</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">These phrases of refinement I must borrow</p> +<p>From our next neighbours' land, where, like a chessman,</p> +<p class="i2">There is a move set down for joy or sorrow,</p> +<p>Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man</p> +<p class="i2">In Islands is, it seems, downright and thorough,</p> +<p>More than on Continents—as if the Sea</p> +<p>(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And yet the British "Damme"'s rather Attic,</p> +<p class="i2">Your continental oaths are but incontinent,</p> +<p>And turn on things which no aristocratic</p> +<p class="i2">Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent<a name="FNanchor_581" id="FNanchor_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a></p> +<p>This subject quote; as it would be schismatic</p> +<p class="i2">In <i>politesse</i>, and have a sound affronting in't;—</p> +<p>But "Damme"'s quite ethereal, though too daring—</p> +<p>Platonic blasphemy—the soul of swearing.<a name="FNanchor_KT" id="FNanchor_KT"></a><a href="#Footnote_KT" class="fnanchor">[KT]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home;</p> +<p class="i2">For true or false politeness (and scarce <i>that</i></p> +<p><i>Now</i>) you may cross the blue deep and white foam—</p> +<p class="i2">The first the emblem (rarely though) of what</p> +<p>You leave behind, the next of much you come</p> +<p class="i2">To meet. However, 't is no time to chat</p> +<p>On general topics: poems must confine</p> +<p>Themselves to unity, like this of mine.<a name="FNanchor_KU" id="FNanchor_KU"></a><a href="#Footnote_KU" class="fnanchor">[KU]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In the great world,—which, being interpreted,</p> +<p class="i2">Meaneth the West or worst end of a city,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span></p> +<p>And about twice two thousand people bred</p> +<p class="i2">By no means to be very wise or witty,</p> +<p>But to sit up while others lie in bed,</p> +<p class="i2">And look down on the Universe with pity,—</p> +<p>Juan, as an inveterate patrician,</p> +<p>Was well received by persons of condition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a bachelor, which is a matter</p> +<p class="i2">Of import both to virgin and to bride,</p> +<p>The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter;</p> +<p class="i2">And (should she not hold fast by Love or Pride)</p> +<p>'T is also of some moment to the latter:</p> +<p class="i2">A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side,</p> +<p>Requires decorum, and is apt to double</p> +<p>The horrid sin—and what's still worse, the trouble.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was a bachelor—of arts,</p> +<p class="i2">And parts, and hearts: he danced and sung, and had</p> +<p>An air as sentimental as Mozart's</p> +<p class="i2">Softest of melodies; and could be sad</p> +<p>Or cheerful, without any "flaws or starts,"<a name="FNanchor_582" id="FNanchor_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Just at the proper time: and though a lad,</p> +<p>Had seen the world—which is a curious sight,</p> +<p>And very much unlike what people write.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fair virgins blushed upon him; wedded dames</p> +<p class="i2">Bloomed also in less transitory hues;<a name="FNanchor_KV" id="FNanchor_KV"></a><a href="#Footnote_KV" class="fnanchor">[KV]</a></p> +<p>For both commodities dwell by the Thames,</p> +<p class="i2">The painting and the painted; Youth, Ceruse,<a name="FNanchor_KW" id="FNanchor_KW"></a><a href="#Footnote_KW" class="fnanchor">[KW]</a></p> +<p>Against his heart preferred their usual claims,</p> +<p class="i2">Such as no gentleman can quite refuse:</p> +<p>Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers</p> +<p>Inquired his income, and if he had brothers.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span></p><h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The milliners who furnish "drapery Misses"<a name="FNanchor_583" id="FNanchor_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_583" class="fnanchor">[583]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Throughout the season, upon speculation</p> +<p>Of payment ere the Honeymoon's last kisses</p> +<p class="i2">Have waned into a crescent's coruscation,</p> +<p>Thought such an opportunity as this is,</p> +<p class="i2">Of a rich foreigner's initiation,</p> +<p>Not to be overlooked—and gave such credit,</p> +<p>That future bridegrooms swore, and sighed, and paid it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o'er sonnets,</p> +<p class="i2">And with the pages of the last Review</p> +<p>Line the interior of their heads or bonnets,</p> +<p class="i2">Advanced in all their azure's highest hue:</p> +<p>They talked bad French or Spanish, and upon its</p> +<p class="i2">Late authors asked him for a hint or two;</p> +<p>And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?</p> +<p>And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, who was a little superficial,</p> +<p class="i2">And not in literature a great Drawcansir,<a name="FNanchor_584" id="FNanchor_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_584" class="fnanchor">[584]</a></p> +<p>Examined by this learnéd and especial</p> +<p class="i2">Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer:</p> +<p>His duties warlike, loving or official,</p> +<p class="i2">His steady application as a dancer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span></p> +<p>Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene,</p> +<p>Which now he found was blue instead of green.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>However, he replied at hazard, with</p> +<p class="i2">A modest confidence and calm assurance,</p> +<p>Which lent his learnéd lucubrations pith,</p> +<p class="i2">And passed for arguments of good endurance.</p> +<p>That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith</p> +<p class="i2">(Who at sixteen translated "Hercules Furens"</p> +<p>Into as furious English), with her best look,</p> +<p>Set down his sayings in her common-place book.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan knew several languages—as well</p> +<p class="i2">He might—and brought them up with skill, in time</p> +<p>To save his fame with each accomplished belle,</p> +<p class="i2">Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.</p> +<p>There wanted but this requisite to swell</p> +<p class="i2">His qualities (with them) into sublime:</p> +<p>Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish,</p> +<p>Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>However, he did pretty well, and was</p> +<p class="i2">Admitted as an aspirant to all</p> +<p>The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass,</p> +<p class="i2">At great assemblies or in parties small,</p> +<p>He saw ten thousand living authors pass,</p> +<p class="i2">That being about their average numeral;</p> +<p>Also the eighty "greatest living poets,"<a name="FNanchor_585" id="FNanchor_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a></p> +<p>As every paltry magazine can show <i>it's</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In twice five years the "greatest living poet,"</p> +<p class="i2">Like to the champion in the fisty ring,</p> +<p>Is called on to support his claim, or show it,</p> +<p class="i2">Although 't is an imaginary thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span></p> +<p>Even I—albeit I'm sure I did not know it,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,—</p> +<p>Was reckoned, a considerable time,</p> +<p>The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.<a name="FNanchor_KX" id="FNanchor_KX"></a><a href="#Footnote_KX" class="fnanchor">[KX]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero</p> +<p class="i2">My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain:<a name="FNanchor_586" id="FNanchor_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a></p> +<p><i>La Belle Alliance</i> of dunces down at zero,</p> +<p class="i2">Now that the Lion's fallen, may rise again:</p> +<p>But I will fall at least as fell my Hero;</p> +<p class="i2">Nor reign at all, or as a <i>monarch</i> reign;</p> +<p>Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,</p> +<p>With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.<a name="FNanchor_KY" id="FNanchor_KY"></a><a href="#Footnote_KY" class="fnanchor">[KY]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sir Walter reigned before me; Moore and Campbell</p> +<p class="i2">Before and after; but now grown more holy,</p> +<p>The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble</p> +<p class="i2">With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;</p> +<p>And Pegasus has a psalmodic amble</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,<a name="FNanchor_KZ" id="FNanchor_KZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_KZ" class="fnanchor">[KZ]</a><a name="FNanchor_587" id="FNanchor_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a></p> +<p>Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,</p> +<p>A modern Ancient Pistol—"by these hilts!"<a name="FNanchor_588" id="FNanchor_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Still he excels that artificial hard</p> +<p class="i2">Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span></p> +<p>Yields him but vinegar for his reward.—</p> +<p class="i2">That neutralised dull Dorus of the Nine;</p> +<p>That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard;</p> +<p class="i2">That ox of verse, who <i>ploughs</i> for every line:—</p> +<p>Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least</p> +<p>The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest.—<a name="FNanchor_589" id="FNanchor_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_589" class="fnanchor">[589]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there's my gentle Euphues,—who, they say,<a name="FNanchor_LA" id="FNanchor_LA"></a><a href="#Footnote_LA" class="fnanchor">[LA]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Sets up for being a sort of <i>moral me</i>;<a name="FNanchor_590" id="FNanchor_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a></p> +<p>He'll find it rather difficult some day</p> +<p class="i2">To turn out both, or either, it may be.</p> +<p>Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway;</p> +<p class="i2">And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;</p> +<p>And that deep-mouthed Boeotian "Savage Landor"<a name="FNanchor_591" id="FNanchor_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_591" class="fnanchor">[591]</a></p> +<p>Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,</p> +<p class="i2">Just as he really promised something great,</p> +<p>If not intelligible, without Greek</p> +<p class="i2">Contrived to talk about the gods of late,</p> +<p>Much as they might have been supposed to speak.<a name="FNanchor_592" id="FNanchor_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_592" class="fnanchor">[592]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span></p> +<p>'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,<a name="FNanchor_LB" id="FNanchor_LB"></a><a href="#Footnote_LB" class="fnanchor">[LB]</a><a name="FNanchor_593" id="FNanchor_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a></p> +<p>Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The list grows long of live and dead pretenders</p> +<p class="i2">To that which none will gain—or none will know</p> +<p>The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders</p> +<p class="i2">His last award, will have the long grass grow</p> +<p>Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.</p> +<p class="i2">If I might augur, I should rate but low</p> +<p>Their chances;—they're too numerous, like the thirty<a name="FNanchor_594" id="FNanchor_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a></p> +<p>Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals waxed but dirty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This is the literary <i>lower</i> empire,</p> +<p class="i2">Where the praetorian bands take up the matter;—</p> +<p>A "dreadful trade," like his who "gathers samphire,"<a name="FNanchor_595" id="FNanchor_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_595" class="fnanchor">[595]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter,</p> +<p>With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire.</p> +<p class="i2">Now, were I once at home, and in good satire,</p> +<p>I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries,</p> +<p>And show them <i>what</i> an intellectual war is.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think I know a trick or two, would turn</p> +<p class="i2">Their flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while,</p> +<p>With such small gear to give myself concern:</p> +<p class="i2">Indeed I've not the necessary bile;</p> +<p>My natural temper's really aught but stern,</p> +<p class="i2">And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span></p> +<p>And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy,</p> +<p>And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst live poets and <i>blue</i> ladies, passed</p> +<p>With some small profit through that field so sterile,</p> +<p class="i2">Being tired in time—and, neither least nor last,</p> +<p>Left it before he had been treated very ill;</p> +<p class="i2">And henceforth found himself more gaily classed</p> +<p>Amongst the higher spirits of the day,</p> +<p>The Sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His morns he passed in business—which dissected,</p> +<p class="i2">Was, like all business, a laborious nothing</p> +<p>That leads to lassitude, the most infected</p> +<p class="i2">And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing,<a name="FNanchor_596" id="FNanchor_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_596" class="fnanchor">[596]</a></p> +<p>And on our sofas makes us lie dejected,</p> +<p class="i2">And talk in tender horrors of our loathing</p> +<p>All kinds of toil, save for our country's good—</p> +<p>Which grows no better, though 't is time it should.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His afternoons he passed in visits, luncheons,</p> +<p class="i2">Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour</p> +<p>In riding round those vegetable puncheons</p> +<p class="i2">Called "Parks," where there is neither fruit nor flower</p> +<p>Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings;</p> +<p class="i2">But after all it is the only "bower"<a name="FNanchor_597" id="FNanchor_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a></p> +<p>(In Moore's phrase) where the fashionable fair</p> +<p>Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!</p> +<p class="i2">Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span></p> +<p>Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurled</p> +<p class="i2">Like harnessed meteors; then along the floor</p> +<p>Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirled;</p> +<p class="i2">Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,</p> +<p>Which opens to the thousand happy few</p> +<p>An earthly Paradise of <i>Or Molu</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink</p> +<p class="i2">With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz,</p> +<p>The only dance which teaches girls to think,<a name="FNanchor_598" id="FNanchor_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_598" class="fnanchor">[598]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Makes one in love even with its very faults.</p> +<p>Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink,</p> +<p class="i2">And long the latest of arrivals halts,</p> +<p>'Midst royal dukes and dames condemned to climb,</p> +<p>And gain an inch of staircase at a time.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thrice happy he who, after a survey</p> +<p class="i2">Of the good company, can win a corner,</p> +<p>A door that's <i>in</i> or boudoir <i>out</i> of the way,</p> +<p class="i2">Where he may fix himself like small "Jack Horner,"</p> +<p>And let the Babel round run as it may,</p> +<p class="i2">And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,</p> +<p>Or an approver, or a mere spectator,</p> +<p>Yawning a little as the night grows later.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But this won't do, save by and by; and he</p> +<p class="i2">Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,</p> +<p>Must steer with care through all that glittering sea</p> +<p class="i2">Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where</p> +<p>He deems it is his proper place to be;</p> +<p class="i2">Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,</p> +<p>Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill,</p> +<p>Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views</p> +<p class="i2">Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span></p> +<p>Let him take care that that which he pursues</p> +<p class="i2">Is not at once too palpably descried:</p> +<p>Full many an eager gentleman oft rues</p> +<p class="i2">His haste; Impatience is a blundering guide</p> +<p>Amongst a people famous for reflection,</p> +<p>Who like to play the fool with circumspection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, if you can contrive, get next at supper;</p> +<p class="i2">Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle:—</p> +<p>Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper</p> +<p class="i2">In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,<a name="FNanchor_599" id="FNanchor_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a></p> +<p>Which sits for ever upon Memory's crupper,</p> +<p class="i2">The ghost of vanished pleasures once in vogue! Ill</p> +<p>Can tender souls relate the rise and fall</p> +<p>Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But these precautionary hints can touch</p> +<p class="i2">Only the common run, who must pursue,</p> +<p>And watch and ward; whose plans a word too much</p> +<p class="i2">Or little overturns; and not the few</p> +<p>Or many (for the number's sometimes such)</p> +<p class="i2">Whom a good mien, especially if new,</p> +<p>Or fame—or name—for Wit, War, Sense, or Nonsense,</p> +<p>Permits whate'er they please,—or <i>did</i> not long since.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our Hero—as a hero—young and handsome,</p> +<p class="i2">Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,</p> +<p>Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom,</p> +<p class="i2">Before he can escape from so much danger</p> +<p>As will environ a conspicuous man. Some</p> +<p class="i2">Talk about poetry, and "rack and manger,"</p> +<p>And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble;—</p> +<p>I wish they knew the life of a young noble.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They are young, but know not Youth—it is anticipated;</p> +<p class="i2">Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_LC" id="FNanchor_LC"></a><a href="#Footnote_LC" class="fnanchor">[LC]</a></p> +<p>Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated;</p> +<p class="i2">Their cash comes <i>from</i>, their wealth goes <i>to</i> a Jew;</p> +<p>Both senates see their nightly votes participated</p> +<p class="i2">Between the Tyrant's and the Tribunes' crew;</p> +<p>And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored,</p> +<p>The family vault receives another Lord.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Where is the World?" cries Young, at <i>eighty</i><a name="FNanchor_600" id="FNanchor_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a>—"Where</p> +<p class="i2">The World in which a man was born?" Alas!</p> +<p>Where is the world of <i>eight</i> years past? <i>'T was there</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">I look for it—'t is gone, a globe of glass!</p> +<p>Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely gazed on, ere<a name="FNanchor_LD" id="FNanchor_LD"></a><a href="#Footnote_LD" class="fnanchor">[LD]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.</p> +<p>Statesmen, Chiefs, Orators, Queens, Patriots, Kings,</p> +<p>And Dandies—all are gone on the Wind's wings.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows!</p> +<p class="i2">Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell!</p> +<p>Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan—all those</p> +<p class="i2">Who bound the Bar or Senate in their spell?</p> +<p>Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?</p> +<p class="i2">And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?</p> +<p>Where are those martyred saints the Five per Cents?<a name="FNanchor_LE" id="FNanchor_LE"></a><a href="#Footnote_LE" class="fnanchor">[LE]</a><a name="FNanchor_601" id="FNanchor_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a></p> +<p>And where—oh, where the devil are the Rents?</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span></p><h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Where's Brummell? Dished. Where's Long Pole Wellesley?<a name="FNanchor_602" id="FNanchor_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_602" class="fnanchor">[602]</a> Diddled.</p> +<p class="i2">Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George the Third?</p> +<p>Where is his will?<a name="FNanchor_603" id="FNanchor_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> (That's not so soon unriddled.)</p> +<p class="i2">And where is "Fum" the Fourth, our "royal bird?"<a name="FNanchor_604" id="FNanchor_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a></p> +<p>Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled</p> +<p class="i2">Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard:</p> +<p>"Caw me, caw thee"—for six months hath been hatching</p> +<p>This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?</p> +<p class="i2">The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?</p> +<p>Some laid aside like an old Opera hat,</p> +<p class="i2">Married, unmarried, and remarried: (this is</p> +<p>An evolution oft performed of late).</p> +<p class="i2">Where are the Dublin shouts—and London hisses?</p> +<p>Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as usual. Where</p> +<p>My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?<a name="FNanchor_605" id="FNanchor_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span></p> +<p>So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,—</p> +<p class="i2">Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels</p> +<p>Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies</p> +<p class="i2">Of fashion,—say what streams now fill those channels?</p> +<p>Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,</p> +<p>Because the times have hardly left them <i>one</i> tenant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes,<a name="FNanchor_LF" id="FNanchor_LF"></a><a href="#Footnote_LF" class="fnanchor">[LF]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Have taken up at length with younger brothers:</p> +<p>Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks:</p> +<p class="i2">Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers:</p> +<p>Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:</p> +<p class="i2">In short, the list of alterations bothers.</p> +<p>There's little strange in this, but something strange is</p> +<p>The unusual quickness of these common changes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Talk not of seventy years as age; in seven</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to</p> +<p>The humblest individuals under Heaven,</p> +<p class="i2">Than might suffice a moderate century through.</p> +<p>I knew that nought was lasting, but now even</p> +<p class="i2">Change grows too changeable, without being new:</p> +<p>Nought's permanent among the human race,</p> +<p>Except the Whigs <i>not</i> getting into place.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have seen Napoleon, who seemed quite a Jupiter,</p> +<p class="i2">Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke</p> +<p>(No matter which) turn politician stupider,</p> +<p class="i2">If that can well be, than his wooden look.</p> +<p>But it is time that I should hoist my "blue Peter,"</p> +<p class="i2">And sail for a new theme:—I have seen—and shook</p> +<p>To see it—the King hissed, and then caressed;</p> +<p>But don't pretend to settle which was best.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have seen the Landholders without a rap—</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen Joanna Southcote—I have seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span></p> +<p>The House of Commons turned to a tax-trap—</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen—</p> +<p>I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap—</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen a Congress<a name="FNanchor_606" id="FNanchor_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_606" class="fnanchor">[606]</a> doing all that's mean—</p> +<p>I have seen some nations, like o'erloaded asses,</p> +<p>Kick off their burthens—meaning the high classes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and</p> +<p class="i2">Interminable—<i>not eternal</i>—speakers—</p> +<p>I have seen the funds at war with house and land—</p> +<p class="i2">I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers—</p> +<p>I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand</p> +<p class="i2">By slaves on horseback—I have seen malt liquors</p> +<p>Exchanged for "thin potations"<a name="FNanchor_607" id="FNanchor_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> by John Bull—</p> +<p>I have seen John half detect himself a fool.—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But <i>"carpe diem,"</i> Juan, <i>"carpe, carpe!"</i><a name="FNanchor_608" id="FNanchor_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_608" class="fnanchor">[608]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To-morrow sees another race as gay</p> +<p>And transient, and devoured by the same harpy.</p> +<p class="i2">"Life's a poor player,"<a name="FNanchor_609" id="FNanchor_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a>—then "play out the play,<a name="FNanchor_610" id="FNanchor_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a></p> +<p>Ye villains!" and above all keep a sharp eye</p> +<p class="i2">Much less on what you do than what you say:</p> +<p>Be hypocritical, be cautious, be</p> +<p>Not what you <i>seem</i>, but always what you <i>see</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But how shall I relate in other cantos</p> +<p class="i2">Of what befell our hero in the land,</p> +<p>Which 't is the common cry and lie to vaunt as</p> +<p class="i2">A moral country? But I hold my hand—</p> +<p>For I disdain to write an Atalantis;<a name="FNanchor_611" id="FNanchor_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_611" class="fnanchor">[611]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But 't is as well at once to understand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span></p> +<p>You are <i>not</i> a moral people, and you know it,</p> +<p>Without the aid of too sincere a poet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What Juan saw and underwent shall be</p> +<p class="i2">My topic, with of course the due restriction</p> +<p>Which is required by proper courtesy;</p> +<p class="i2">And recollect the work is only fiction,</p> +<p>And that I sing of neither mine nor me,</p> +<p class="i2">Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,</p> +<p>Will hint allusions never <i>meant</i>. Ne'er doubt</p> +<p><i>This</i>—when I speak, I <i>don't hint</i>, but <i>speak out</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether he married with the third or fourth</p> +<p class="i2">Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess,</p> +<p>Or whether with some virgin of more worth</p> +<p class="i2">(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties),</p> +<p>He took to regularly peopling Earth,</p> +<p class="i2">Of which your lawful, awful wedlock fount is,—</p> +<p>Or whether he was taken in for damages,</p> +<p>For being too excursive in his homages,—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Is yet within the unread events of Time.</p> +<p class="i2">Thus far, go forth, thou Lay, which I will back</p> +<p>Against the same given quantity of rhyme,</p> +<p class="i2">For being as much the subject of attack</p> +<p>As ever yet was any work sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">By those who love to say that white is black.</p> +<p>So much the better!—I may stand alone,</p> +<p>But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.<a name="FNanchor_612" id="FNanchor_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562" id="Footnote_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> <a name="Note_427" id="Note_427"></a>{427}[Berkeley did not deny the reality of existence, but +the reality of matter as an abstract conception. "It is plain," he says +(<i>On the Principles of Human Knowledge</i>, sect. ix.), "that the very +notion of what is called <i>matter</i> or <i>corporeal substance</i>, involves a +contradiction in it." Again, "It were a mistake to think that what is +here said derogates in the least from the reality of things." His +contention was that this <i>reality</i> depended, not on an abstraction +<i>called</i> matter, "an inert, extended unperceiving substance," but on +"those unextended, indivisible substances or <i>spirits</i>, which act, and +think, and perceive them [unthinking beings]."—<i>Ibid.</i>, sect. xci., +<i>The Works</i> of George Berkeley, D.D., 1820, i. 27, 69, 70.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563" id="Footnote_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> <a name="Note_428" id="Note_428"></a>{428}[<i>Tempest</i>, act v. sc. i, line 95.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564" id="Footnote_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> ["I have been very unwell—four days confined to my bed +in 'the worst inn's worst room' at Lerici, with a violent rheumatic and +bilious attack, constipation, and the devil knows what."—Letter to +Murray, October 9, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 121. The same letter +contains an announcement that he had "a fifth [Canto of <i>Don Juan</i>] (the +10th) finished, but not transcribed yet; and the <i>eleventh</i> begun."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KK" id="Footnote_KK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KK"><span class="label">[KK]</span></a> <a name="Note_429" id="Note_429"></a>{429}<i>Or Rome, or Tiber—Naples or the sea</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565" id="Footnote_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> +<a name="Note_430" id="Note_430"></a>{430}[<i>Vide ante</i>, <a href="#c1sxiv">Canto I. stanza xiv</a>. lines 7, 8.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566" id="Footnote_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> <a name="Note_431" id="Note_431"></a>{431}["<i>Falstaff</i>. Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen +of the shade, minions of the moon: and let men say, we be men of good +government; being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste +mistress the moon, under whose countenance we—steal."-<i>I Henry IV.</i>, +act i. sc. 2, lines 24-28.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567" id="Footnote_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> [Gin. Hence the antithesis of <i>"All Max"</i> in the East to +Almack's in the West. (See <i>Life in London</i>, by Pierce Egan, 1823, pp. +284-290.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568" id="Footnote_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> [According to the <i>Vocabulary of the Flash Language</i>, +compiled by James Hardy Vaux, in 1812, and published at the end of his +Memoirs, 1819, ii. 149-227, a kiddy, or "flash-kiddy," is a thief of the +lower orders, who, when he is <i>breeched</i> by a course of successful +depredation dresses in the extreme of vulgar gentility, and affects a +knowingness in his air and conversation. A "swell" or "rank swell" +("<i>real</i> swell" appears in Egan's <i>Life in London</i>) is the more recent +"toff;" and "flash" is "fly," "down," or "awake," <i>i.e.</i> knowing, not +easily imposed upon.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569" id="Footnote_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> <a name="Note_432" id="Note_432"></a>{432}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act v. sc. 1, line 21.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570" id="Footnote_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> ["Ken" is a house, s.c. a thieves' lodging-house; +"spellken," a play-house; "high toby-spice" is robbery on horseback, as +distinguished from "spice," i.e. footpad robbery; to "flash the muzzle" +is to show off the face, to swagger openly; "blowing" or "blowen" is a +doxy or trull; and "nutty" is, conjointly, amorous and fascinating.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KL" id="Footnote_KL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KL"><span class="label">[KL]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Poor Tom was once a knowing one in town</i>.</p> +<p><i>Not a mere</i> kiddy, <i>but a</i> real <i>one</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571" id="Footnote_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> The advance of science and of language has rendered it +unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its +original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following +is a stanza of a song which was very popular at least in my early +days:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle,</p> +<p class="i2">In spite of each gallows old scout;</p> +<p>If you at the spellken can't hustle,</p> +<p class="i2">You'll be hobbled in making a clout.</p> +<p>Then your blowing will wax gallows haughty,</p> +<p class="i2">When she hears of your scaly mistake,</p> +<p>She'll surely turn snitch for the forty—</p> +<p class="i2">That her Jack may be regular weight."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer +him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, +Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength +and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour, and +athletic as well as mental accomplishments. +</p><p> +[Gentleman Jackson was of good renown. "Servility," says Egan (<i>Life in +London</i>, 1823, p. 217), "is not known to him. Flattery he detests. +Integrity, impartiality, good-nature, and manliness, are the +corner-stones of his understanding." Byron once said of him that "his +manners were infinitely superior to those of the Fellows of the College +whom I meet at the high table" (J.W. Clark, <i>Cambridge</i>, 1890, p. 140). +(See, too, letter to John Jackson, September 18, 1808, <i>Letters</i>, 1898, +i. 189, note 2; <i>Hints from Horace</i>, line 638, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, +i. 433, note 3.) As to the stanza quoted by Egan (<i>Anecdotes of the +Turf</i>, 1827, p. 44), but not <i>traduced</i> or interpreted, "To be hobbled +for making a clout" is to be taken into custody for stealing a +handkerchief, to "turn snitch" is to inform, and the "forty" is the £40 +offered for the detection of a capital crime, and shared by the police +or Bow Street runners. Dangerous characters were let alone and tacitly +encouraged to continue their career of crime, until the measure of their +iniquity was full, and they "weighed forty." If Jack was clumsy enough +to be detected in a trifling theft, his "blowen" would go over to the +enemy, and betray him for the sake of the Government reward (see +<i>Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue</i>, by Francis Grose, 1823, +art. "Weigh forty").]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572" id="Footnote_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> <a name="Note_433" id="Note_433"></a>{433}[Don Juan must have driven by <i>Pleasant Row</i>, and +passed within hail of <i>Paradise Row</i>, on the way from Kennington to +Westminster Bridge. (See Cary's <i>New Pocket Plan of London, Westminster, +and Southwark</i>, 1819.) But, perhaps, there is more in the names of +streets and places than meets the eye. Here, as elsewhere, there is, or +there may be, "a paltering with us in a double sense."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KM" id="Footnote_KM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KM"><span class="label">[KM]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Through rows called "Paradise," by way of showing</i></p> +<p><i>Good Christians that to which they all are going</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573" id="Footnote_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> <a name="Note_434" id="Note_434"></a>{434}[Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto 1. stanza lxix. line +8, <i>var.</i> ii., <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 66, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KN" id="Footnote_KN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KN"><span class="label">[KN]</span></a>—— <i>distilling into the re-kindling glass</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574" id="Footnote_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> [The streets of London were first regularly lighted with +gas in 1812.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575" id="Footnote_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> <a name="Note_435" id="Note_435"></a>{435}[Thomas Pennant, in <i>Some Account of London</i>, 1793, +p. 444, writes down the Mansion House (1739-1752) as "damned ... to +everlasting fame."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576" id="Footnote_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> [Fifty years ago "the lights of Piccadilly" were still +regarded as one of the "sights" of London. Byron must often have looked +at them from his house in Piccadilly Terrace.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577" id="Footnote_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> [Joseph François Foulon, army commissioner, provoked the +penalty of the "lantern" (i.e. an improvised gallows on the yard of a +lamp-post at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie) by his heartless +sneer, "Eh bien! si cette canaille n'a pas de pain, elle mangera du +foin." He was hanged, July 22, 1789. See <i>The Tale of Two Cities</i>, by +Charles Dickens, cap. xxii.; see, too, Carlyle's <i>French Revolution</i>, +1839, i. 253: "With wild yells, Sansculottism clutches him, in its +hundred hands: he is whirled ... to the <i>'Lanterne,'</i> ... pleading +bitterly for life,—to the deaf winds. Only with the third rope (for two +ropes broke, and the quavering voice still pleaded), can he be so much +as got hanged! His Body is dragged through the streets; his Head goes +aloft on a pike, the mouth filled with grass: amid sounds as of Tophet, +from a grass-eating people."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578" id="Footnote_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> <a name="Note_436" id="Note_436"></a>{436}"Hells," gaming-houses. What their number may now be +in this life, I know not. Before I was of age I knew them pretty +accurately, both "gold" and "silver." I was once nearly called out by an +acquaintance, because when he asked me where I thought that his soul +would be found hereafter, I answered, "In Silver Hell."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KO" id="Footnote_KO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KO"><span class="label">[KO]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>At length the boys drew up before a door</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>From whence poured forth a tribe of well-clad waiters</i>;</p> +<p>(<i>While on the pavement many a hungry w—re</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>With which the moralest of cities caters</i></p> +<p><i>For gentlemen whose passions may boil o'er,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Stood as the unpacking gathered more spectators,</i>)</p> +<p><i>And Juan found himself in an extensive</i></p> +<p><i>Apartment;—fashionable but expensive</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KP" id="Footnote_KP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KP"><span class="label">[KP]</span></a> <a name="Note_437" id="Note_437"></a>{437}<i>'Twas one of the delightfullest hotels</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579" id="Footnote_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> [Perhaps Grillion's Hotel (afterwards Grillion's Club) in +Albemarle Street. In 1822 diplomats patronized more than one hotel in +and near St. James's Street, but among the "Departures from Grillion's +Hotel," recorded in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> of September, 17, 1822, +appositely enough, is that of H.E. Don Juan Garcia, del Rio.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KQ" id="Footnote_KQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KQ"><span class="label">[KQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i15">—— <i>of his loves and wars</i>;</p> +<p><i>And as romantic heads are pretty painters,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And ladies like a little spice of Mars</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KR" id="Footnote_KR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KR"><span class="label">[KR]</span></a> <a name="Note_438" id="Note_438"></a>{438}<i>The false attempt at Truth</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580" id="Footnote_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> <a name="Note_439" id="Note_439"></a>{439}[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i16">"Lo! Erin, thy Lord!</p> +<p>Kiss his foot with thy blessing"——</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>The Irish Avatar</i>, stanza 14, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 558.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KS" id="Footnote_KS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KS"><span class="label">[KS]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Kiss hands—or feet—or what Man by and by</i></p> +<p>Will <i>kiss, not in sad metaphor—but earnest,</i></p> +<p><i>Unless on Tyrants' sterns—we turn the sternest</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581" id="Footnote_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> <a name="Note_440" id="Note_440"></a>{440}"Anent" was a Scotch phrase meaning +"concerning"—"with regard to: "it has been made English by the Scotch +novels; and, as the Frenchman said, "If it <i>be not, ought to be</i> +English." [See, for instance, <i>The Abbot</i>, chap. xvii. 132.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KT" id="Footnote_KT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KT"><span class="label">[KT]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But "Damme's" simple—dashing—free and daring</i></p> +<p><i>The purest blasphemy</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KU" id="Footnote_KU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KU"><span class="label">[KU]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>About such general matters—but particular</i></p> +<p><i>A poem's progress should be perpendicular</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582" id="Footnote_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> <a name="Note_441" id="Note_441"></a>{441}[<i>Macbeth</i>, act iii. sc. 4, line 63.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KV" id="Footnote_KV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KV"><span class="label">[KV]</span></a> <i>Blushed, too, but it was hidden by their rouge</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KW" id="Footnote_KW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KW"><span class="label">[KW]</span></a> <i>The natural and the prepared ceruse</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583" id="Footnote_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> <a name="Note_442" id="Note_442"></a>{442}"Drapery Misses."—This term is probably anything +now but a <i>mystery</i>. It was, however, almost so to me when I first +returned from the East in 1811-1812. It means a pretty, a high-born, a +fashionable young female, well instructed by her friends, and furnished +by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, +by the <i>husband</i>. The riddle was first read to me by a young and pretty +heiress, on my praising the "drapery" of the <i>"untochered"</i> but "pretty +virginities" (like Mrs. Anne Page) of the <i>then</i> day, which has now been +some years yesterday: she assured me that the thing was common in +London; and as her own thousands, and blooming looks, and rich +simplicity of array, put any suspicion in her own case out of the +question, I confess I gave some credit to the allegation. If necessary, +authorities might be cited; in which case I could quote both "drapery" +and the wearers. Let us hope, however, that it is now obsolete.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584" id="Footnote_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> [Compare <i>Hints from Horace</i>, line 173, <i>Poetical Works</i>, +1898, i. 401, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585" id="Footnote_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> <a name="Note_443" id="Note_443"></a>{443}[In his so-called "Dedication" of <i>Marino Faliero</i> +to Goethe, Byron makes fun of the "nineteen hundred and eighty-seven +poets," whose names were to be found in <i>A Biographical Dictionary of +Living Authors, etc.</i> (See Introduction to <i>Marino Faliero, Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 340, 341, note 1.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KX" id="Footnote_KX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KX"><span class="label">[KX]</span></a> <a name="Note_444" id="Note_444"></a>{444}<i>A paper potentate</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586" id="Footnote_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> [See "Introduction to <i>Cain</i>," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. +204.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KY" id="Footnote_KY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KY"><span class="label">[KY]</span></a> <i>With turnkey Southey for my Hudson Lowe.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_KZ" id="Footnote_KZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_KZ"><span class="label">[KZ]</span></a> <i>Beneath the reverend Cambyses Croly.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587" id="Footnote_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> [The Reverend George Croly, D.D. (1780-1860), began his +literary career as dramatic critic of the <i>Times</i>. "Croly," says H.C. +Robinson (<i>Diary</i>, 1869, i. 412), "is a fierce-looking Irishman, very +lively in conversation, and certainly has considerable talents as a +writer; his eloquence, like his person, is rather energetic than +eloquent" (hence the epithet "Cambyses," i.e. "King Cambyses' vein" in +<i>var.</i> iii.). "He wrote tragedies, comedies, and novels; and, at last, +settled down as a preacher, with the rank of doctor, but of what faculty +I do not know" (ibid., footnote, H.C.R., 1847). He wrote, <i>inter alia</i>, +<i>Paris in 1815</i>, a poem; <i>Catiline, A Tragedy</i>, 1822; and <i>Salathiel</i>, a +novel, 1827. In lines 7, 8, Byron seems to refer to <i>The Angel of the +World, An Arabian Poem</i>, published in 1820.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588" id="Footnote_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> [<i>I Henry IV.</i>, act ii. sc. 4, line 197.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589" id="Footnote_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> <a name="Note_445" id="Note_445"></a>{445}[Stanza lviii. was first published in 1837. The +reference is to Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868). Byron was under the +impression that Milman had influenced Murray against continuing the +publication of <i>Don Juan</i>. Added to this surmise, was the mistaken +belief that it was Milman who had written the article in the +<i>Quarterly</i>, which "killed John Keats." Hence the virulence of the +attack. +</p><p> +"Dull Dorus" is obscure, but compare Propertius, <i>Eleg.</i> III. vii. 44, +where Callimachus is addressed as "Dore poeta." He is the "ox of verse," +because he had been recently appointed to the Professorship of Poetry at +Oxford. The "roaring Romans" are "The soldiery" who shout "All, All," in +Croly's <i>Catiline</i>, act v. sc. 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LA" id="Footnote_LA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LA"><span class="label">[LA]</span></a> <i>Then there's my gentle Barry—who they say.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590" id="Footnote_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> [Jeffrey, in his review of <i>A Sicilian Story, etc.</i>, +Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), 1787-1874 (<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, +January, 1820, vol. 33, pp. 144-155), compares <i>Diego de Montilla</i>, a +poem in <i>ottava rima</i>, with <i>Don Juan</i>, favourably and unfavourably: +"There is no profligacy and no horror ... no mocking of virtue and +honour, and no strong mixtures of buffoonery and grandeur." But it may +fairly match with Byron and his Italian models "as to the better +qualities of elegance, delicacy, and tenderness." See, too, <i>Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine</i>, March, 1820, vol. vi. pp. 153, 647.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591" id="Footnote_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> [See Preface to the <i>Vision of Judgment, Poetical Works</i>, +1901, iv. 484, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592" id="Footnote_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> [Croker's article in the <i>Quarterly</i> (April, 1818 [pub. +September], vol. xix. pp. 204-208) did not "kill John Keats." See letter +to George and Georgiana Keats, October, 1818 (<i>Letters, etc.</i>, 1895, p. +215). Byron adopts Shelley's belief that the Reviewer, "miserable man," +"one of the meanest," had "wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens +of the workmanship of God." See Preface to <i>Adonais</i>, and stanzas +xxxvi., xxxvii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LB" id="Footnote_LB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LB"><span class="label">[LB]</span></a> <a name="Note_446" id="Note_446"></a>{446} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"><i>And weakly mind, to let that all celestial Particle</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +<p>or, <i>'T is strange the mind should let such phrases quell its</i></p> +<p class="i4"><i>Chief Impulse with a few, frail, paper pellets</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593" id="Footnote_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> "Divinæ particulam auræ" [Hor., <i>Sat.</i> ii. 2. 79]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594" id="Footnote_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> [For "the crowd of usurpers" who started up in the reign +of Gallienus, and were dignified with the honoured appellation of "the +thirty tyrants," see Gibbon's <i>Decline and Fall</i>, 1825, i. 164.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595" id="Footnote_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> [<i>King Lear</i>, act iv. sc. 6, line 15.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596" id="Footnote_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> <a name="Note_447" id="Note_447"></a>{447}["Illita Nesseo misi tibi texta veneno." +</p><p class="attrib">Ovid., <i>Heroid. Epist</i>. ix. 163.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597" id="Footnote_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> [A "bower," in Moore's phrase, signifies a solitude <i>à +deux</i>; e.g. "Here's the Bower she lov'd so much." +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Come to me, love, the twilight star</p> +<p>Shall guide thee to my bower."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Moore.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598" id="Footnote_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> <a name="Note_448" id="Note_448"></a>{448}[Compare <i>The Waltz</i>, lines 220-229, <i>et passim</i>, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 501.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599" id="Footnote_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> <a name="Note_449" id="Note_449"></a>{449}Scotch for goblin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LC" id="Footnote_LC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LC"><span class="label">[LC]</span></a> <i>Handsome but</i> blasé——— [MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600" id="Footnote_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> <a name="Note_450" id="Note_450"></a>{450}[The sentiment is reiterated in <i>The Night +Thoughts</i>, and is the theme of <i>Resignation</i>, which was written and +published when Young was more than eighty years old. ]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LD" id="Footnote_LD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LD"><span class="label">[LD]</span></a> <i>And fresher, since without a breath of air</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LE" id="Footnote_LE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LE"><span class="label">[LE]</span></a> <i>Where are the thousand lovely innocents?</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601" id="Footnote_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> ["I have ... written ... to express my willingness to +accept the, or almost any mortgage, any thing to get out of the +tremulous Funds of these oscillating times. There will be a war +somewhere, no doubt—and whatever it may be, the Funds will be affected +more or less; so pray get us out of them with all proper expedition. It +has been the burthen of my song to you three years and better, and about +as useful as better counsels."—Letter of Byron to Kinnaird, January 18, +1823, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 162, 163.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602" id="Footnote_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> <a name="Note_451" id="Note_451"></a>{451}[For William Pole Tylney Long Wellesley (1788-1857), +see <i>The Waltz</i>, line 21, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 484, note 1. He was +only on the way to being "diddled" in 1822, but the prophecy (suggested, +no doubt, by the announcement of the sale of furniture, etc., at +Wanstead House, in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, July 8, 1822) was ultimately +fulfilled. Samuel Whitbread, born 1758, committed suicide July 6, 1815. +Sir Samuel Romilly, born 1758, committed suicide November 2, 1818.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603" id="Footnote_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> [According to Charles Greville, George the Third made two +wills—the first in 1770, the second, which he never signed, in 1810. By +the first will he left "all he had to the Queen for her life, Buckingham +House to the Duke of Clarence," etc., and as Buckingham House had been +twice sold, and the other legatees were dead, a question arose between +the King and the Duke of York as to the right of inheritance of their +father's personal property. George IV. conceived that it devolved upon +him personally, and not on the Crown, and "consequently appropriated to +himself the whole of the money and the jewels." It is possible that this +difference between the brothers was noised abroad, and that old stories +of the destruction of royal wills were revived to the new king's +discredit. (See <i>The Greville Memoirs</i>, 1875, i. 64, 65.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604" id="Footnote_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> [See Moore's <i>Fum and Hum, the Two Birds of Royalty</i>, +appended to his <i>Fudge Family</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605" id="Footnote_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> [Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Frances Wedderburn +Webster.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LF" id="Footnote_LF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LF"><span class="label">[LF]</span></a> <a name="Note_452" id="Note_452"></a>{452}—— <i>their caps and curls at Dukes.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606" id="Footnote_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> <a name="Note_453" id="Note_453"></a>{453}[The Congress at Verona, in 1822. See the +Introduction to <i>The Age of Bronze, Poetical Works</i>, 1891, v. 537-540.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607" id="Footnote_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> [<i>2 Henry IV.</i>, act iv. sc. 3, line 117.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608" id="Footnote_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> [Hor., <i>Od.</i> I. xi. line 8.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609" id="Footnote_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> [<i>Macbeth</i>, act v. sc. 5, line 24.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610" id="Footnote_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> [<i>1 Henry IV.</i>, act ii. sc. 4, line 463.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611" id="Footnote_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> [See the <i>Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons +of Quality, of Both Sexes, from the New Atalantis</i>, 1709, a work in +which the authoress, Mrs. Manley, satirizes the distinguished characters +of her day. Warburton (<i>Works of Pope</i>, ed. 1751, i. 244) calls it "a +famous book.... full of court and party scandal, and in a loose +effeminacy of style and sentiment, which well suited the debauched taste +of the better vulgar." Pope also alludes to it in the <i>Rape of the +Lock</i>, iii. 165, 166— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"As long as <i>Atalantis</i> shall be read,</p> +<p>Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed."</p> +</div></div> +<p> +And Swift, in his ballad on "Corinna" (stanza 8)— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Her common-place book all gallant is,</p> +<p class="i2">Of scandal now a cornucopia,</p> +<p>She pours it out in <i>Atalantis</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Or memoirs of the New Utopia."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Works</i>, 1824, xii. 302.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612" id="Footnote_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> <a name="Note_454" id="Note_454"></a>{454}[Oct. 17, 1822.—MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_TWELFTH" id="CANTO_THE_TWELFTH"></a> +CANTO THE TWELFTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of all the barbarous middle ages, that</p> +<p class="i2">Which is most barbarous is the middle age</p> +<p>Of man! it is—I really scarce know what;</p> +<p class="i2">But when we hover between fool and sage,</p> +<p>And don't know justly what we would be at—</p> +<p class="i2">A period something like a printed page,</p> +<p>Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair</p> +<p>Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Too old for Youth,—too young, at thirty-five,</p> +<p class="i2">To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore,—</p> +<p>I wonder people should be left alive;</p> +<p class="i2">But since they are, that epoch is a bore:</p> +<p>Love lingers still, although 't were late to wive:</p> +<p class="i2">And as for other love, the illusion's o'er;</p> +<p>And Money, that most pure imagination,</p> +<p>Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.<a name="FNanchor_613" id="FNanchor_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_613" class="fnanchor">[613]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?<a name="FNanchor_614" id="FNanchor_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_614" class="fnanchor">[614]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span></p> +<p>Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable</p> +<p class="i2">Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.</p> +<p>Ye who but see the saving man at table,</p> +<p class="i2">And scorn his temperate board, as none at all,</p> +<p>And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,</p> +<p>Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love or lust makes Man sick, and wine much sicker;</p> +<p class="i2">Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss;</p> +<p>But making money, slowly first, then quicker,</p> +<p class="i2">And adding still a little through each cross</p> +<p>(Which <i>will</i> come over things), beats Love or liquor,</p> +<p class="i2">The gamester's counter, or the statesman's <i>dross</i>.</p> +<p>O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,</p> +<p>Which makes bank credit like a bank of <i>vapour</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Who hold the balance of the World? Who reign</p> +<p class="i2">O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?</p> +<p>Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?<a name="FNanchor_615" id="FNanchor_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_615" class="fnanchor">[615]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(That make old Europe's journals "squeak and gibber"<a name="FNanchor_616" id="FNanchor_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_616" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> all)</p> +<p>Who keep the World, both old and new, in pain</p> +<p class="i2">Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?</p> +<p>The shade of Buonaparte's noble daring?—</p> +<p>Jew Rothschild,<a name="FNanchor_617" id="FNanchor_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> and his fellow-Christian, Baring.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,<a name="FNanchor_618" id="FNanchor_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_618" class="fnanchor">[618]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Are the true Lords of Europe. Every loan</p> +<p>Is not a merely speculative hit,</p> +<p class="i2">But seats a Nation or upsets a Throne.</p> +<p>Republics also get involved a bit;</p> +<p class="i2">Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span></p> +<p>On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,</p> +<p>Must get itself discounted by a Jew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Why call the miser miserable? as</p> +<p class="i2">I said before: the frugal life is his,</p> +<p>Which in a saint or cynic ever was</p> +<p class="i2">The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss</p> +<p>Canonization for the self-same cause,</p> +<p class="i2">And wherefore blame gaunt Wealth's austerities?</p> +<p>Because, you 'll say, nought calls for such a trial;—</p> +<p>Then there's more merit in his self-denial.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He is your only poet;—Passion, pure</p> +<p class="i2">And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays,</p> +<p><i>Possessed</i>, the ore, of which <i>mere hopes</i> allure</p> +<p class="i2">Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays</p> +<p>Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure:</p> +<p class="i2">On him the Diamond pours its brilliant blaze,</p> +<p>While the mild Emerald's beam shades down the dies</p> +<p>Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lands on either side are his; the ship</p> +<p class="i2">From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads</p> +<p>For him the fragrant produce of each trip;</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,</p> +<p>And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip;</p> +<p class="i2">His very cellars might be Kings' abodes;</p> +<p>While he, despising every sensual call,</p> +<p>Commands—the intellectual Lord of <i>all</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,</p> +<p class="i2">To build a college, or to found a race,</p> +<p>A hospital, a church,—and leave behind</p> +<p class="i2">Some dome surmounted by his meagre face:</p> +<p>Perhaps he fain would liberate Mankind</p> +<p class="i2">Even with the very ore which makes them base;</p> +<p>Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,</p> +<p>Or revel in the joys of calculation.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But whether all, or each, or none of these</p> +<p class="i2">May be the hoarder's principle of action,</p> +<p>The fool will call such mania a disease:—</p> +<p class="i2">What is his <i>own?</i> Go—look at each transaction,</p> +<p>Wars, revels, loves—do these bring men more ease</p> +<p class="i2">Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction?"</p> +<p>Or do they benefit Mankind? Lean Miser!</p> +<p>Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours—who's wiser?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests</p> +<p class="i2">Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins</p> +<p>(Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests</p> +<p class="i2">Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines,<a name="FNanchor_LG" id="FNanchor_LG"></a><a href="#Footnote_LG" class="fnanchor">[LG]</a></p> +<p>But) of fine unclipped gold, where dully rests</p> +<p class="i2">Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines,</p> +<p>Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp!—</p> +<p>Yes! ready money <i>is</i> Aladdin's lamp.<a name="FNanchor_619" id="FNanchor_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_619" class="fnanchor">[619]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Love rules the Camp, the Court, the Grove,—for Love</p> +<p class="i2">Is Heaven, and Heaven is Love:"<a name="FNanchor_620" id="FNanchor_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_620" class="fnanchor">[620]</a>—so sings the bard;</p> +<p>Which it were rather difficult to prove</p> +<p class="i2">(A thing with poetry in general hard).</p> +<p>Perhaps there may be something in "the Grove,"</p> +<p class="i2">At least it rhymes to "Love:" but I'm prepared</p> +<p>To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental)</p> +<p>If "Courts" and "Camps" be quite so sentimental.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But if Love don't, <i>Cash</i> does, and Cash alone:</p> +<p class="i2">Cash rules the Grove, and fells it too besides;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span></p> +<p>Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none;</p> +<p class="i2">Without cash, Malthus tells you—"take no brides."<a name="FNanchor_621" id="FNanchor_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_621" class="fnanchor">[621]</a></p> +<p>So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own</p> +<p class="i2">High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides:</p> +<p>And as for "Heaven being Love," why not say honey</p> +<p>Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 't is Matrimony.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Is not all Love prohibited whatever,</p> +<p class="i2">Excepting Marriage? which is Love, no doubt,</p> +<p>After a sort; but somehow people never</p> +<p class="i2">With the same thought the two words have helped out.</p> +<p>Love may exist <i>with</i> Marriage, and <i>should</i> ever,</p> +<p class="i2">And Marriage also may exist without;</p> +<p>But Love <i>sans</i> banns is both a sin and shame,</p> +<p>And ought to go by quite another name.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now if the "Court," and "Camp," and "Grove," be not</p> +<p class="i2">Recruited all with constant married men,</p> +<p>Who never coveted their neighbour's lot,</p> +<p class="i2">I say <i>that</i> line's a lapsus of the pen;—</p> +<p>Strange too in my <i>buon camerado</i> Scott,</p> +<p class="i2">So celebrated for his morals, when</p> +<p>My Jeffrey held him up as an example<a name="FNanchor_622" id="FNanchor_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_622" class="fnanchor">[622]</a></p> +<p>To me;—of whom these morals are a sample.<a name="FNanchor_LH" id="FNanchor_LH"></a><a href="#Footnote_LH" class="fnanchor">[LH]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Well, if I don't succeed, I <i>have</i> succeeded,</p> +<p class="i2">And that's enough; succeeded in my youth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span></p> +<p>The only time when much success is needed:</p> +<p class="i2">And my success produced what I, in sooth,</p> +<p>Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded—</p> +<p class="i2">Whate'er it was, 'twas mine; I've paid, in truth,</p> +<p>Of late, the penalty of such success,</p> +<p>But have not learned to wish it any less.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That suit in Chancery,<a name="FNanchor_623" id="FNanchor_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a>—which some persons plead</p> +<p class="i2">In an appeal to the unborn, whom they,</p> +<p>In the faith of their procreative creed,</p> +<p class="i2">Baptize Posterity, or future clay,—</p> +<p>To me seems but a dubious kind of reed</p> +<p class="i2">To lean on for support in any way;</p> +<p>Since odds are that Posterity will know</p> +<p>No more of them, than they of her, I trow.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.<a name="FNanchor_LI" id="FNanchor_LI"></a><a href="#Footnote_LI" class="fnanchor">[LI]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Why, I'm Posterity—and so are you;</p> +<p class="i2">And whom do we remember? Not a hundred.</p> +<p>Were every memory written down all true,</p> +<p class="i2">The tenth or twentieth name would be but blundered;</p> +<p>Even Plutarch's Lives have but picked out a few,</p> +<p class="i2">And 'gainst those few your annalists have thundered;</p> +<p>And Mitford<a name="FNanchor_624" id="FNanchor_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a> in the nineteenth century</p> +<p>Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span></p><h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Good people all, of every degree,</p> +<p class="i2">Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers,</p> +<p>In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be</p> +<p class="i2">As serious as if I had for inditers</p> +<p>Malthus and Wilberforce:—the last set free</p> +<p class="i2">The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters;</p> +<p>While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites,</p> +<p>And Malthus<a name="FNanchor_625" id="FNanchor_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> does the thing 'gainst which he writes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'm serious—so are all men upon paper;</p> +<p class="i2">And why should I not form my speculation,</p> +<p>And hold up to the Sun my little taper?<a name="FNanchor_626" id="FNanchor_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_626" class="fnanchor">[626]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Mankind just now seem wrapped in meditation</p> +<p>On constitutions and steam-boats of vapour;</p> +<p class="i2">While sages write against all procreation,</p> +<p>Unless a man can calculate his means</p> +<p>Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That's noble! That's romantic! For my part,</p> +<p class="i2">I think that "Philo-genitiveness" is—</p> +<p>(Now here's a word quite after my own heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Though there's a shorter a good deal than this,</p> +<p>If that politeness set it not apart;</p> +<p class="i2">But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss)—</p> +<p>I say, methinks that "Philo-genitiveness"<a name="FNanchor_627" id="FNanchor_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_627" class="fnanchor">[627]</a></p> +<p>Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now to business.—O my gentle Juan!</p> +<p class="i2">Thou art in London—in that pleasant place,</p> +<p>Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing,</p> +<p class="i2">Which can await warm Youth in its wild race.</p> +<p>'T is true, that thy career is not a new one;</p> +<p class="i2">Thou art no novice in the headlong chase</p> +<p>Of early life; but this is a new land,</p> +<p>Which foreigners can never understand.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What with a small diversity of climate,</p> +<p class="i2">Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate,</p> +<p>I could send forth my mandate like a Primate</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the rest of Europe's social state;</p> +<p>But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at,</p> +<p class="i2">Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate.</p> +<p>All countries have their "Lions," but in thee</p> +<p>There is but one superb menagerie.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I am sick of politics. Begin—</p> +<p class="i2"><i>"Paulo Majora."</i> Juan, undecided</p> +<p>Amongst the paths of being "taken in,"</p> +<p class="i2">Above the ice had like a skater glided:<a name="FNanchor_LJ" id="FNanchor_LJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_LJ" class="fnanchor">[LJ]</a></p> +<p>When tired of play, he flirted without sin</p> +<p class="i2">With some of those fair creatures who have prided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span></p> +<p>Themselves on innocent tantalisation,<a name="FNanchor_LK" id="FNanchor_LK"></a><a href="#Footnote_LK" class="fnanchor">[LK]</a></p> +<p>And hate all vice except its reputation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But these are few, and in the end they make</p> +<p class="i2">Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows</p> +<p>That even the purest people may mistake</p> +<p class="i2">Their way through Virtue's primrose paths of snows;</p> +<p>And then men stare, as if a new ass spake</p> +<p class="i2">To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows</p> +<p>Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it)</p> +<p>With the kind World's Amen—"Who would have thought it?"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The little Leila, with her Orient eyes,</p> +<p class="i2">And taciturn Asiatic disposition,</p> +<p>(Which saw all Western things with small surprise,</p> +<p class="i2">To the surprise of people of condition,</p> +<p>Who think that novelties are butterflies</p> +<p class="i2">To be pursued as food for inanition,)</p> +<p>Her charming figure and romantic history</p> +<p>Became a kind of fashionable mystery.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The women much divided—as is usual</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst the sex in little things or great—</p> +<p>Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you all,</p> +<p class="i2">I have always liked you better than I state—</p> +<p>Since I've grown moral, still I must accuse you all</p> +<p class="i2">Of being apt to talk at a great rate;</p> +<p>And now there was a general sensation</p> +<p>Amongst you, about Leila's education.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In one point only were you settled—and</p> +<p class="i2">You had reason; 't was that a young child of grace,</p> +<p>As beautiful as her own native land,</p> +<p class="i2">And far away, the last bud of her race,</p> +<p>Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command</p> +<p class="i2">Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span></p> +<p>Would be much better taught beneath the eye</p> +<p>Of peeresses whose follies had run dry.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So first there was a generous emulation,</p> +<p class="i2">And then there was a general competition,</p> +<p>To undertake the orphan's education:</p> +<p class="i2">As Juan was a person of condition,</p> +<p>It had been an affront on this occasion</p> +<p class="i2">To talk of a subscription or petition;</p> +<p>But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages</p> +<p>Whose tale belongs to "Hallam's Middle Ages,"<a name="FNanchor_628" id="FNanchor_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And one or two sad, separate wives, without</p> +<p class="i2">A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough—</p> +<p>Begged to bring <i>up</i> the little girl, and <i>"out"</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">For that's the phrase that settles all things now,</p> +<p>Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout,</p> +<p class="i2">And all her points as thorough-bred to show:</p> +<p>And I assure you, that like virgin honey</p> +<p>Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How all the needy honourable misters,</p> +<p class="i2">Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy,</p> +<p>The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters,</p> +<p class="i2">(Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy</p> +<p>At making matches, where "'t is gold that glisters,"</p> +<p class="i2">Than their <i>he</i> relatives), like flies o'er candy</p> +<p>Buzz round "the Fortune" with their busy battery,</p> +<p>To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Each aunt, each cousin, hath her speculation;</p> +<p class="i2">Nay, married dames will now and then discover</p> +<p>Such pure disinterestedness of passion,</p> +<p class="i2">I've known them court an heiress for their lover.</p> +<p>"<i>Tantoene!</i>" Such the virtues of high station,</p> +<p class="i2">Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet's "Dover!"</p> +<p>While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares,</p> +<p>Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some are soon bagged, and some reject three dozen:</p> +<p class="i2">'T is fine to see them scattering refusals</p> +<p>And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin</p> +<p class="i2">(Friends of the party), who begin accusals,</p> +<p>Such as—"Unless Miss Blank meant to have chosen</p> +<p class="i2">Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals</p> +<p>To his billets? <i>Why</i> waltz with him? Why, I pray,</p> +<p>Look <i>'Yes'</i> last night, and yet say <i>'No'</i> to-day?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Why?—Why?—Besides, Fred really was <i>attached</i>;</p> +<p class="i2">'T was not her fortune—he has enough without;</p> +<p>The time will come she'll wish that she had snatched</p> +<p class="i2">So good an opportunity, no doubt:—</p> +<p>But the old Marchioness some plan had hatched,</p> +<p class="i2">As I'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout:</p> +<p>And after all poor Frederick may do better—</p> +<p>Pray did you see her answer to his letter?"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets</p> +<p class="i2">Are spurned in turn, until her turn arrives,</p> +<p>After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives;</p> +<p>And when at last the pretty creature gets</p> +<p class="i2">Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or drives,</p> +<p>It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected</p> +<p>To find how very badly she selected.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For sometimes they accept some long pursuer,</p> +<p class="i2">Worn out with importunity; or fall</p> +<p>(But here perhaps the instances are fewer)</p> +<p class="i2">To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all.</p> +<p>A hazy widower turned of forty 's sure<a name="FNanchor_LL" id="FNanchor_LL"></a><a href="#Footnote_LL" class="fnanchor">[LL]</a><a name="FNanchor_629" id="FNanchor_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_629" class="fnanchor">[629]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(If 't is not vain examples to recall)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_LM" id="FNanchor_LM"></a><a href="#Footnote_LM" class="fnanchor">[LM]</a></p> +<p>To draw a high prize: now, howe'er he got her, I</p> +<p>See nought more strange in this than t' other lottery.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I, for my part—(one "modern instance" more,</p> +<p class="i2">"True,'t is a pity—pity 't is, 't is true")—<a name="FNanchor_630" id="FNanchor_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a></p> +<p>Was chosen from out an amatory score,</p> +<p class="i2">Albeit my years were less discreet than few;</p> +<p>But though I also had reformed before</p> +<p class="i2">Those became one who soon were to be two,</p> +<p>I'll not gainsay the generous public's voice,</p> +<p>That the young lady made a monstrous choice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, pardon my digression—or at least</p> +<p class="i2">Peruse! 'T is always with a moral end</p> +<p>That I dissert, like grace before a feast:</p> +<p class="i2">For like an agéd aunt, or tiresome friend,</p> +<p>A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest,</p> +<p class="i2">My Muse by exhortation means to mend</p> +<p>All people, at all times, and in most places,</p> +<p>Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But now I'm going to be immoral; now</p> +<p class="i2">I mean to show things really as they are,</p> +<p>Not as they ought to be: for I avow,</p> +<p class="i2">That till we see what's what in fact, we're far</p> +<p>From much improvement with that virtuous plough</p> +<p class="i2">Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar</p> +<p>Upon the black loam long manured by Vice,</p> +<p>Only to keep its corn at the old price.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But first of little Leila we'll dispose,<a name="FNanchor_LN" id="FNanchor_LN"></a><a href="#Footnote_LN" class="fnanchor">[LN]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For like a day-dawn she was young and pure—</p> +<p>Or like the old comparison of snows,<a name="FNanchor_631" id="FNanchor_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(Which are more pure than pleasant, to be sure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span></p> +<p>Like many people everybody knows),—</p> +<p class="i2">Don Juan was delighted to secure</p> +<p>A goodly guardian for his infant charge,</p> +<p>Who might not profit much by being at large.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides, he had found out he was no tutor</p> +<p class="i2">(I wish that others would find out the same),<a name="FNanchor_632" id="FNanchor_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_632" class="fnanchor">[632]</a></p> +<p>And rather wished in such things to stand neuter,</p> +<p class="i2">For silly wards will bring their guardians blame:</p> +<p>So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor</p> +<p class="i2">To make his little wild Asiatic tame,</p> +<p>Consulting "the Society for Vice</p> +<p>Suppression," Lady Pinchbeck was his choice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Olden she was—but had been very young;</p> +<p class="i2">Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe;</p> +<p>Although the World has such an evil tongue</p> +<p class="i2">That—but my chaster ear will not receive</p> +<p>An echo of a syllable that's wrong:<a name="FNanchor_LO" id="FNanchor_LO"></a><a href="#Footnote_LO" class="fnanchor">[LO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve,</p> +<p>As that abominable tittle-tattle,</p> +<p>Which is the cud eschewed<a name="FNanchor_633" id="FNanchor_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> by human cattle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Moreover I've remarked (and I was once</p> +<p class="i2">A slight observer in a modest way),</p> +<p>And so may every one except a dunce,</p> +<p class="i2">That ladies in their youth a little gay,</p> +<p>Besides their knowledge of the World, and sense</p> +<p class="i2">Of the sad consequence of going astray,</p> +<p>Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe</p> +<p>Which the mere passionless can never know.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While the harsh prude indemnifies her virtue</p> +<p class="i2">By railing at the unknown and envied passion,</p> +<p>Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you,</p> +<p class="i2">Or, what's still worse, to put you out of fashion,—</p> +<p>The kinder veteran with calm words will court you,</p> +<p class="i2">Entreating you to pause before you dash on;</p> +<p>Expounding and illustrating the riddle</p> +<p>Of epic Love's beginning—end—and middle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter,</p> +<p class="i2">As better knowing why they should be so,</p> +<p>I think you'll find from many a family picture,</p> +<p class="i2">That daughters of such mothers as may know</p> +<p>The World by experience rather than by lecture,</p> +<p class="i2">Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show</p> +<p>Of vestals brought into the marriage mart,</p> +<p>Than those bred up by prudes without a heart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talked about—</p> +<p class="i2">As who has not, if female, young, and pretty?</p> +<p>But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalked about;</p> +<p class="i2">She merely was deemed amiable and witty,</p> +<p>And several of her best <i>bons-mots</i> were hawked about:</p> +<p class="i2">Then she was given to charity and pity,</p> +<p>And passed (at least the latter years of life)</p> +<p>For being a most exemplary wife.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>High in high circles, gentle in her own,</p> +<p class="i2">She was the mild reprover of the young,</p> +<p>Whenever—which means every day—they'd shown</p> +<p class="i2">An awkward inclination to go wrong.</p> +<p>The quantity of good she did 's unknown,</p> +<p class="i2">Or at the least would lengthen out my song:</p> +<p>In brief, the little orphan of the East</p> +<p>Had raised an interest in her,—which increased.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with her,</p> +<p class="i2">Because she thought him a good heart at bottom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span></p> +<p>A little spoiled, but not so altogether;</p> +<p class="i2">Which was a wonder, if you think who got him,</p> +<p>And how he had been tossed, he scarce knew whither:</p> +<p class="i2">Though this might ruin others, it did <i>not</i> him,</p> +<p>At least entirely—for he had seen too many</p> +<p>Changes in Youth, to be surprised at any.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And these vicissitudes tell best in youth;</p> +<p class="i2">For when they happen at a riper age,</p> +<p>People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,</p> +<p class="i2">And wonder Providence is not more sage.</p> +<p>Adversity is the first path to Truth:</p> +<p class="i2">He who hath proved War—Storm—or Woman's rage,</p> +<p>Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,</p> +<p>Hath won the experience which is deemed so weighty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>How far it profits is another matter.—</p> +<p class="i2">Our hero gladly saw his little charge</p> +<p>Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter</p> +<p class="i2">Being long married, and thus set at large,</p> +<p>Had left all the accomplishments she taught her</p> +<p class="i2">To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor's barge,</p> +<p>To the next comer; or—as it will tell</p> +<p>More Muse-like—like to Cytherea's shell.<a name="FNanchor_LP" id="FNanchor_LP"></a><a href="#Footnote_LP" class="fnanchor">[LP]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I call such things transmission; for there is</p> +<p class="i2">A floating balance of accomplishment,</p> +<p>Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss,</p> +<p class="i2">According as their minds or backs are bent.</p> +<p>Some waltz—some draw—some fathom the abyss</p> +<p class="i2">Of Metaphysics; others are content</p> +<p>With Music; the most moderate shine as wits;—</p> +<p>While others have a genius turned for fits.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords—</p> +<p class="i2">Theology—fine arts—or finer stays,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span></p> +<p>May be the baits for Gentlemen or Lords</p> +<p class="i2">With regular descent, in these our days,</p> +<p>The last year to the new transfers its hoards;</p> +<p class="i2">New vestals claim men's eyes with the same praise</p> +<p>Of "elegant" <i>et cætera</i>, in fresh batches—</p> +<p>All matchless creatures—and yet bent on matches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But now I will begin my poem. 'Tis</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new,</p> +<p>That from the first of Cantos up to this</p> +<p class="i2">I've not begun what we have to go through.</p> +<p>These first twelve books are merely flourishes,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Preludios</i>, trying just a string or two</p> +<p>Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure;</p> +<p>And when so, you shall have the overture.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin</p> +<p class="i2">About what's called success, or not succeeding:</p> +<p>Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;</p> +<p class="i2">'T is a "great moral lesson"<a name="FNanchor_634" id="FNanchor_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_634" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> they are reading.</p> +<p>I thought, at setting off, about two dozen</p> +<p class="i2">Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading,</p> +<p>If that my Pegasus should not be foundered,</p> +<p>I think to canter gently through a hundred.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan saw that Microcosm on stilts,</p> +<p class="i2">Yclept the Great World; for it is the least,</p> +<p>Although the highest: but as swords have hilts</p> +<p class="i2">By which their power of mischief is increased,</p> +<p>When Man in battle or in quarrel tilts,</p> +<p class="i2">Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east,</p> +<p>Must still obey the high<a name="FNanchor_635" id="FNanchor_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a>—which is their handle,</p> +<p>Their Moon, their Sun, their gas, their farthing candle.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He had many friends who had many wives, and was</p> +<p class="i2">Well looked upon by both, to that extent</p> +<p>Of friendship which you may accept or pass,</p> +<p class="i2">It does nor good nor harm; being merely meant</p> +<p>To keep the wheels going of the higher class,</p> +<p class="i2">And draw them nightly when a ticket's sent;</p> +<p>And what with masquerades, and fêtes, and balls,</p> +<p>For the first season such a life scarce palls.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A young unmarried man, with a good name</p> +<p class="i2">And fortune, has an awkward part to play;</p> +<p>For good society is but a game,</p> +<p class="i2">"The royal game of Goose,"<a name="FNanchor_636" id="FNanchor_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> as I may say,</p> +<p>Where everybody has some separate aim,</p> +<p class="i2">An end to answer, or a plan to lay—</p> +<p>The single ladies wishing to be double,</p> +<p>The married ones to save the virgins trouble.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't mean this as general, but particular</p> +<p class="i2">Examples may be found of such pursuits:</p> +<p>Though several also keep their perpendicular</p> +<p class="i2">Like poplars, with good principles for roots;</p> +<p>Yet many have a method more <i>reticular</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">"Fishers for men," like Sirens with soft lutes:</p> +<p>For talk six times with the same single lady,</p> +<p>And you may get the wedding-dresses ready.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps you'll have a letter from the mother,</p> +<p class="i2">To say her daughter's feelings are trepanned;</p> +<p>Perhaps you'll have a visit from the brother,</p> +<p class="i2">All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to demand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span></p> +<p>What "your intentions are?"—One way or other</p> +<p class="i2">It seems the virgin's heart expects your hand:</p> +<p>And between pity for her case and yours,</p> +<p>You'll add to Matrimony's list of cures.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I've known a dozen weddings made even <i>thus</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">And some of them high names: I have also known</p> +<p>Young men who—though they hated to discuss</p> +<p class="i2">Pretensions which they never dreamed to have shown—</p> +<p>Yet neither frightened by a female fuss,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone,</p> +<p>And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair,</p> +<p>In happier plight than if they formed a pair.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's also nightly, to the uninitiated,</p> +<p class="i2">A peril—not indeed like Love or Marriage,</p> +<p>But not the less for this to be depreciated:</p> +<p class="i2">It is—I meant and mean not to disparage</p> +<p>The show of Virtue even in the vitiated—</p> +<p class="i2">It adds an outward grace unto their carriage—</p> +<p>But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot,</p> +<p><i>Couleur de rose</i>, who's neither white nor scarlet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No,"</p> +<p class="i2">And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing</p> +<p>On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow—</p> +<p class="i2">Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing.</p> +<p>This works a world of sentimental woe,<a name="FNanchor_LQ" id="FNanchor_LQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_LQ" class="fnanchor">[LQ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin;</p> +<p>But yet is merely innocent flirtation,</p> +<p>Not quite adultery, but adulteration.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Ye gods, I grow a talker!"<a name="FNanchor_637" id="FNanchor_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_637" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> Let us prate.</p> +<p class="i2">The next of perils, though I place it <i>stern</i>est,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span></p> +<p>Is when, without regard to Church or State,</p> +<p class="i2">A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest.</p> +<p>Abroad, such things decide few women's fate—</p> +<p class="i2">(Such, early Traveller! is the truth thou learnest)—</p> +<p>But in old England, when a young bride errs,</p> +<p>Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to hers.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For 't is a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit</p> +<p class="i2">Country, where a young couple of the same ages<a name="FNanchor_LR" id="FNanchor_LR"></a><a href="#Footnote_LR" class="fnanchor">[LR]</a></p> +<p>Can't form a friendship, but the world o'erawes it.</p> +<p class="i2">Then there's the vulgar trick of those d——d damages!</p> +<p>A verdict—grievous foe to those who cause it!—</p> +<p class="i2">Forms a sad climax to romantic homages;</p> +<p>Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders,</p> +<p>And evidences which regale all readers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But they who blunder thus are raw beginners;</p> +<p class="i2">A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy</p> +<p>Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners,</p> +<p class="i2">The loveliest oligarchs of our Gynocracy;<a name="FNanchor_638" id="FNanchor_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a></p> +<p>You may see such at all the balls and dinners,</p> +<p class="i2">Among the proudest of our aristocracy,</p> +<p>So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste—</p> +<p>And all by having <i>tact</i> as well as taste.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan, who did not stand in the predicament</p> +<p class="i2">Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more;</p> +<p>For he was sick—no, 't was not the word <i>sick</i> I meant—</p> +<p class="i2">But he had seen so much good love before,</p> +<p>That he was not in heart so very weak;—I meant</p> +<p class="i2">But thus much, and no sneer against the shore</p> +<p>Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings—</p> +<p>Tithes, taxes, duns—and doors with double knockings.<a name="FNanchor_LS" id="FNanchor_LS"></a><a href="#Footnote_LS" class="fnanchor">[LS]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But coming young from lands and scenes romantic,</p> +<p class="i2">Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risked for Passion</p> +<p>And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic,</p> +<p class="i2">Into a country where 't is half a fashion,</p> +<p>Seemed to him half commercial, half pedantic,</p> +<p class="i2">Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation:</p> +<p>Besides (alas! his taste—forgive and pity!)</p> +<p>At <i>first</i> he did not think the women pretty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I say at <i>first</i>—for he found out at <i>last</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">But by degrees, that they were fairer far</p> +<p>Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath the influence of the Eastern Star.</p> +<p>A further proof we should not judge in haste;</p> +<p class="i2">Yet inexperience could not be his bar</p> +<p>To taste:—the truth is, if men would confess,</p> +<p>That novelties <i>please</i> less than they <i>impress</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though travelled, I have never had the luck to</p> +<p class="i2">Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger,</p> +<p>To that impracticable place Timbuctoo,</p> +<p class="i2">Where Geography finds no one to oblige her</p> +<p>With such a chart as may be safely stuck to—</p> +<p class="i2">For Europe ploughs in Afric like "<i>bos piger</i>:"<a name="FNanchor_639" id="FNanchor_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a></p> +<p>But if I <i>had been</i> at Timbuctoo, there</p> +<p>No doubt I should be told that black is fair.<a name="FNanchor_LT" id="FNanchor_LT"></a><a href="#Footnote_LT" class="fnanchor">[LT]</a><a name="FNanchor_640" id="FNanchor_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_640" class="fnanchor">[640]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span></p><h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It is. I will not swear that black is white,</p> +<p class="i2">But I suspect in fact that white is black,</p> +<p>And the whole matter rests upon eye-sight:—</p> +<p class="i2">Ask a blind man, the best judge. You'll attack</p> +<p>Perhaps this new position—but I'm right;</p> +<p class="i2">Or if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en aback:—</p> +<p>He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark</p> +<p>Within—and what seest thou? A dubious spark!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I'm relapsing into Metaphysics,</p> +<p class="i2">That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same</p> +<p>Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics,</p> +<p class="i2">Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame:</p> +<p>And this reflection brings me to plain Physics,</p> +<p class="i2">And to the beauties of a foreign dame,</p> +<p>Compared with those of our pure pearls of price,</p> +<p>Those polar summers, <i>all</i> Sun, and some ice.<a name="FNanchor_LU" id="FNanchor_LU"></a><a href="#Footnote_LU" class="fnanchor">[LU]</a><a name="FNanchor_641" id="FNanchor_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_641" class="fnanchor">[641]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose</p> +<p class="i2">Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes;—</p> +<p>Not that there's not a quantity of those</p> +<p class="i2">Who have a due respect for their own wishes.</p> +<p>Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows<a name="FNanchor_642" id="FNanchor_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_642" class="fnanchor">[642]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious:</p> +<p>They warm into a scrape, but keep of course,</p> +<p>As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But this has nought to do with their outsides.</p> +<p class="i2">I said that Juan did not think them pretty</p> +<p>At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides</p> +<p class="i2">Half her attractions—probably from pity—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span>And rather calmly into the heart glides,</p> +<p class="i2">Than storms it as a foe would take a city;</p> +<p>But once <i>there</i> (if you doubt this, prithee try)<a name="FNanchor_LV" id="FNanchor_LV"></a><a href="#Footnote_LV" class="fnanchor">[LV]</a></p> +<p>She keeps it for you like a true ally.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She cannot step as does an Arab barb,<a name="FNanchor_643" id="FNanchor_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Or Andalusian girl from mass returning,</p> +<p>Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning;</p> +<p>Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb-</p> +<p class="i2">le those <i>bravuras</i> (which I still am learning</p> +<p>To like, though I have been seven years in Italy,</p> +<p>And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily);—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She cannot do these things, nor one or two</p> +<p class="i2">Others, in that off-hand and dashing style</p> +<p>Which takes so much—to give the Devil his due;</p> +<p class="i2">Nor is she quite so ready with her smile,</p> +<p>Nor settles all things in one interview,</p> +<p class="i2">(A thing approved as saving time and toil);—</p> +<p>But though the soil may give you time and trouble,</p> +<p>Well cultivated, it will render double.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if in fact she takes to a <i>grande passion</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">It is a very serious thing indeed:</p> +<p>Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion,</p> +<p class="i2">Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead,</p> +<p>The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,</p> +<p class="i2">Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed:</p> +<p>But the <i>tenth</i> instance will be a tornado,</p> +<p>For there's no saying what they will or may do.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The reason's obvious: if there's an <i>éclat</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span></p> +<p>And when the delicacies of the Law</p> +<p class="i2">Have filled their papers with their comments various,</p> +<p>Society, that china without flaw,</p> +<p class="i2">(The Hypocrite!) will banish them like Marius,</p> +<p>To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt:<a name="FNanchor_644" id="FNanchor_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a></p> +<p>For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps this is as it should be;—it is</p> +<p class="i2">A comment on the Gospel's "Sin no more,</p> +<p>And be thy sins forgiven:"—but upon this</p> +<p class="i2">I leave the Saints to settle their own score.</p> +<p>Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss,</p> +<p class="i2">An erring woman finds an opener door</p> +<p>For her return to Virtue—as they call</p> +<p>That Lady, who should be at home to all.<a name="FNanchor_LW" id="FNanchor_LW"></a><a href="#Footnote_LW" class="fnanchor">[LW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For me, I leave the matter where I find it,</p> +<p class="i2">Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads</p> +<p>People some ten times less in fact to mind it,</p> +<p class="i2">And care but for discoveries, and not deeds.</p> +<p>And as for Chastity, you'll never bind it</p> +<p class="i2">By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads,</p> +<p>But aggravate the crime you have not prevented,</p> +<p>By rendering desperate those who had else repented.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan was no casuist, nor had pondered</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the moral lessons of mankind:</p> +<p>Besides, he had not seen of several hundred</p> +<p class="i2">A lady altogether to his mind.</p> +<p>A little <i>blasé</i>—'t is not to be wondered</p> +<p class="i2">At, that his heart had got a tougher rind:</p> +<p>And though not vainer from his past success,</p> +<p>No doubt his sensibilities were less.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He also had been busy seeing sights—</p> +<p class="i2">The Parliament and all the other houses;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span></p> +<p>Had sat beneath the Gallery at nights,</p> +<p class="i2">To hear debates whose thunder <i>roused</i> (not <i>rouses</i>)</p> +<p>The World to gaze upon those Northern Lights,</p> +<p class="i2">Which flashed as far as where the musk-bull browses;<a name="FNanchor_645" id="FNanchor_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a></p> +<p>He had also stood at times behind the Throne—</p> +<p>But Grey<a name="FNanchor_646" id="FNanchor_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> was not arrived, and Chatham gone.<a name="FNanchor_647" id="FNanchor_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_647" class="fnanchor">[647]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He saw, however, at the closing session,</p> +<p class="i2">That noble sight, when <i>really</i> free the nation,</p> +<p>A King in constitutional possession</p> +<p class="i2">Of such a Throne as is the proudest station,</p> +<p>Though Despots know it not—till the progression</p> +<p class="i2">Of Freedom shall complete their education.</p> +<p>'T is not mere Splendour makes the show august</p> +<p>To eye or heart—it is the People's trust.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now)</p> +<p class="i2">A Prince, the prince of Princes at the time,<a name="FNanchor_648" id="FNanchor_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_648" class="fnanchor">[648]</a></p> +<p>With fascination in his very bow,</p> +<p class="i2">And full of promise, as the spring of prime.</p> +<p>Though Royalty was written on his brow,</p> +<p class="i2">He had <i>then</i> the grace, too, rare in every clime,</p> +<p>Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,</p> +<p>A finished Gentleman from top to toe.<a name="FNanchor_649" id="FNanchor_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_649" class="fnanchor">[649]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span></p><h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan was received, as hath been said,</p> +<p class="i2">Into the best society; and there</p> +<p>Occurred what often happens, I'm afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">However disciplined and debonnaire:—</p> +<p>The talent and good humour he displayed,</p> +<p class="i2">Besides the marked distinction of his air,</p> +<p>Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation,</p> +<p>Even though himself avoided the occasion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why,</p> +<p class="i2">Is not to be put hastily together;</p> +<p>And as my object is Morality</p> +<p class="i2">(Whatever people say), I don't know whether</p> +<p>I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry,</p> +<p class="i2">But harrow up his feelings till they wither,</p> +<p>And hew out a huge monument of pathos,</p> +<p>As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.<a name="FNanchor_650" id="FNanchor_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a></p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here the twelfth canto of our Introduction</p> +<p class="i2">Ends. When the body of the Book's begun,</p> +<p>You'll find it of a different construction</p> +<p class="i2">From what some people say 't will be when done;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span></p> +<p>The plan at present 's simply in concoction.</p> +<p class="i2">I can't oblige you, reader, to read on;</p> +<p>That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit</p> +<p>Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And if my thunderbolt not always rattles,</p> +<p class="i2">Remember, reader! you have had before,</p> +<p>The worst of tempests and the best of battles,</p> +<p class="i2">That e'er were brewed from elements or gore,</p> +<p>Besides the most sublime of—Heaven knows what else;</p> +<p class="i2">An usurer could scarce expect much more—</p> +<p>But my best canto—save one on astronomy—</p> +<p>Will turn upon "Political Economy."<a name="FNanchor_651" id="FNanchor_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That</i> is your present theme for popularity:</p> +<p class="i2">Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake,</p> +<p>It grows an act of patriotic charity,</p> +<p class="i2">To show the people the best way to break.</p> +<p><i>My plan</i> (but I, if but for singularity,</p> +<p class="i2">Reserve it) will be very sure to take.</p> +<p>Meantime, read all the National-Debt sinkers,</p> +<p>And tell me what you think of our great thinkers.<a name="FNanchor_652" id="FNanchor_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_652" class="fnanchor">[652]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613" id="Footnote_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> <a name="Note_455" id="Note_455"></a>{455}[See letter to Douglas Kinnaird, dated Genoa, +January 18, 1823.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614" id="Footnote_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> [Johnson would not believe that "a complete miser is a +happy man." "That," he said, "is flying in the face of all the world, +who have called an avaricious man a <i>miser</i>, because he is miserable. +No, sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, +because he has both enjoyments."—Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, 1876, p. +605.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615" id="Footnote_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> <a name="Note_456" id="Note_456"></a>{456}[The <i>Descamisados</i>, or Sansculottes of the Spanish +Revolution of 1820-1823. For Spanish "Liberals," see <i>Quarterly Review</i>, +April, 1823, vol. xxix. pp. 270-276.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616" id="Footnote_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> [<i>Hamlet</i>, act i. sc. 1, line 116.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617" id="Footnote_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> [See <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, line 678, sq., <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, v. 573, note 3.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618" id="Footnote_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> [Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), as Governor of the Bank of +France, advanced sums to Parisians to meet their enforced contributions +to the allies, and, in 1817, advocated liberal measures as a Deputy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LG" id="Footnote_LG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LG"><span class="label">[LG]</span></a> <a name="Note_458" id="Note_458"></a>{458}<i>Were not worth one whereon their profile +shines</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619" id="Footnote_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> ["They say that 'Knowledge is Power';—I used to think +so; but I now know that they meant Money ... every guinea is a +philosopher's stone, or at least his <i>touch</i>-stone. You will doubt me +the less, when I pronounce my pious belief—that <i>Cash is +Virtue</i>."—Letter to Kinnaird, February 6, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. +11.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620" id="Footnote_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> [<i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, Canto III. stanza ii. lines +4-6.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621" id="Footnote_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> <a name="Note_459" id="Note_459"></a>{459}[See Godwin's Essay <i>Of Population</i>, 1820 (pp. 18, +19, <i>et passim</i>), in which he renews his attack on Malthus's <i>Essay on the +Principles of Population</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622" id="Footnote_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> ["We have no notion that Lord B[yron] had any mischievous +intention in these publications—and readily acquit him of any wish to +corrupt the morals, or impair the happiness of his readers ... but it is +our duty ... to say, that much of what he has published appears to us to +have this tendency.... How opposite to this is the system, or the +temper, of the great author of Waverley!"—<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, February, +1822, vol. 36, p. 451.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LH" id="Footnote_LH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LH"><span class="label">[LH]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i6">—— <i>for his moral pen</i></p> +<p><i>Held up to me by Jeffrey as example</i>.</p> +<p><i>Of which with profit—as you'll soon see by a sample</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623" id="Footnote_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> <a name="Note_460" id="Note_460"></a>{460}[In the case of Murray v. Benbow (February 9, 1822), +the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon) refused the motion for an injunction to +restrain the defendant from publishing a pirated edition of Lord Byron's +poem of Cain (Jacob's <i>Reports</i>, p. 474, note). Hence (see <i>var.</i> i.) +the allusion to "Law" and "Equity." The "suit" and the "appeal" (<i>vide +ibid.</i>) refer to legal proceedings taken, or intended to be taken, with +regard to certain questions arising out of the disposition of property +under Lady Noel's will. (See letters to Charles Hanson, September 21, +November 30, 1822, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 115, 146.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LI" id="Footnote_LI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LI"><span class="label">[LI]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That suit in Chancery—have a Chancery suit—</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>In right good earnest—also an appeal</i></p> +<p><i>Before the Lords, whose Chancellor's more acute</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>In Law than Equity—as I can feel</i></p> +<p><i>Because my Cases put his Lordship to 't</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And—though no doubt 't is for the Public weal,</i></p> +<p><i>His Lordship's Justice is not that of Solomon—</i></p> +<p><i>Not that I deem our Chief Judge is a hollow man</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624" id="Footnote_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> See [William] Mitford's Greece (1829, v. 314, 315), +<i>"Græcia Verax."</i> His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, +abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is +strange, after all, <i>his</i> is the best modern history of Greece in any +language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians +whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his +virtues—learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the +latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest. +</p><p> +[Byron consulted Mitford when he was at work on <i>Sardanapalus</i>. (See +Extracts from a Diary, January 5, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. 152, note +1.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625" id="Footnote_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> <a name="Note_461" id="Note_461"></a>{461}[Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) married, in 1804, +Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath. There +were three children of the marriage, of whom two survived him. Byron may +be alluding to the apocryphal story of "his eleven daughters," related +by J.L.A. Cherbuliez, in the <i>Journal des Économistes</i> (1850, vol. xxv. +p. 135): "Un soir ... il y avait cercle chez M. de Sismondi, à sa maison +de campagne près de Genève.... Enfin, on annonce le <i>révérend Malthus et +sa famille</i>. Sa famille!... Alors on voit entrer une charmante jeune +fille, puis une seconde, puis une troisième, puis une quatrième, puis +... Il n'y en avait, ma fois, pas moins de onze!" See <i>Malthus and his +Work</i>, by James Bonar, 1885, pp. 412, 413. See, too, <i>Nouveau +Dictionnaire de L'Économie Politique</i>, 1892, art. "Malthus."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626" id="Footnote_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"How commentators each dark passage shun,</p> +<p>And hold their farthing candle to the sun."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"> +<i>Love of Fame, the Universal Passion</i>, by Edward Young, <i>Sat</i>. vii. +lines 97, 98.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627" id="Footnote_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> <a name="Note_462" id="Note_462"></a>{462}[Philo-<i>pro</i>genitiveness. Spurzheim and Gall +discover the organ of this name in a bump behind the ears, and say it is +remarkably developed in the bull.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LJ" id="Footnote_LJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LJ"><span class="label">[LJ]</span></a> <i>He played and paid, made love without much sin</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LK" id="Footnote_LK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LK"><span class="label">[LK]</span></a> <a name="Note_463" id="Note_463"></a>{463}<i>Themselves on seldom yielding to temptation</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628" id="Footnote_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> <a name="Note_464" id="Note_464"></a>{464}[Henry Hallam (1778-1859) published his <i>View of the +State of Europe in the Middle Ages</i> in 1818.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LL" id="Footnote_LL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LL"><span class="label">[LL]</span></a> <a name="Note_465" id="Note_465"></a>{465}<i>A drunken Gentleman of forty's sure.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629" id="Footnote_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> This line may puzzle the commentators more than the +present generation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LM" id="Footnote_LM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LM"><span class="label">[LM]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"><i>If he can hiccup nonsense at a ball.</i></p> +<p>or, <i>If he goes after dinner to a ball</i>.-[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630" id="Footnote_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> <a name="Note_466" id="Note_466"></a>{466}[<i>As You Like It</i>, act ii. sc. 7, line 156; and +<i>Hamlet</i>, act ii. sc. 2, lines, 97, 98.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LN" id="Footnote_LN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LN"><span class="label">[LN]</span></a> <i>But first of little Leilah——.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631" id="Footnote_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> +[For the allusion to "unsunned snows," <i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_339">p. 275, note 1</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632" id="Footnote_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> <a name="Note_467" id="Note_467"></a>{467}[The reference may be to Hobhouse and the "Zoili of +Albemarle Street," who did their best to "tutor" him with regard to +"blazing indiscretions" in <i>Don Juan</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LO" id="Footnote_LO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LO"><span class="label">[LO]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That—but I will not listen, by your leave,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Unto a single syllable</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633" id="Footnote_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> [For another instance of this curious mistake, see letter +to Hodgson, December 8, 1811, <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 85; et ibid., p. 31, +note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LP" id="Footnote_LP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LP"><span class="label">[LP]</span></a> <a name="Note_469" id="Note_469"></a>{469} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Painted and gilded—or, as it will tell</i></p> +<p><i>More Muse-like—say—like Cytherea's shell</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634" id="Footnote_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> +<a name="Note_470" id="Note_470"></a>{470}[<i>Vide ante</i>, Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII., <a href="#Page_266">p. 266</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635" id="Footnote_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> ["Enfin partout la bonne société régle +tout."—Voltaire.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636" id="Footnote_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> <a name="Note_471" id="Note_471"></a>{471}["This game originated, I believe, in Germany.... It +is called the game of the <i>goose</i>, because at every fourth and fifth +compartment of the table in succession a <i>goose</i> is depicted; and if the +cast thrown by the player falls upon a <i>goose</i>, he moves forward double +the number of his throw" (<i>Sports and Pastimes, etc.</i>, by Joseph Strutt, +1801, p. 250). +</p><p> +Goldsmith, in his <i>Deserted Village</i>, among other "parlour splendours," +mentions "the twelve good rules, the royal game of goose."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LQ" id="Footnote_LQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LQ"><span class="label">[LQ]</span></a> +<a name="Note_472" id="Note_472"></a>{472}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"><i>Most young beginners may be taken so,</i></p> +<p><i>But those who have been a little used to roughing</i></p> +<p><i>Know how to end this half-and-half flirtation</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637" id="Footnote_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> ["I'll grow a talker for this gear." +</p><p class="attrib"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>, act i. sc. 1, line 110.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LR" id="Footnote_LR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LR"><span class="label">[LR]</span></a> +<a name="Note_473" id="Note_473"></a>{473}<i>Country where warm young people</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638" id="Footnote_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> +[Pope and Scott use the quasi-contracted "gynocracy" for +"gynæcocracy." (See <i>N. Engl. Dict.</i>)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LS" id="Footnote_LS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LS"><span class="label">[LS]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Of white cliffs—and white bosoms—and blue eyes—</i></p> +<p><i>And stockings—virtues, loves and Chastities</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639" id="Footnote_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> <a name="Note_474" id="Note_474"></a>{474}[Hor., <i>Epist.</i>, lib. 1, ep. xiv. line 43. The +meaning is that Europe makes but little progress in the discovery and +settlement of Africa, and, as it were, "ploughs the sands."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LT" id="Footnote_LT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LT"><span class="label">[LT]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Though many thousands both of birth and pluck too,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Have ventured past the jaws of Moor and Tiger</i>.[*]</p> +</div></div> +<p>[*]<i>Note. By particular licence, "positively for the last time, by +desire," etc., to be pronounced "tydger." Such is what Gifford calls +"the necessity of rhyming."</i>—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640" id="Footnote_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> ["Though many degrees nearer our own fair and blue-eyed +beauties in complexion ... yet no people ever lost more by comparison +than did the white ladies of Moorzuk [capital of Fezzan] with the black +ones of Bornou and Soudan."—<i>Narrative of Travels ... in Northern and +Central Africa</i>, 1822-24, by Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, 1828, ii. +133.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LU" id="Footnote_LU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LU"><span class="label">[LU]</span></a> <a name="Note_475" id="Note_475"></a>{475}<i>Above, all sunshine, and, below, all ice</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641" id="Footnote_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> [Compare <i>Prisoner of Chillon</i>, lines 82-85, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1901, iv. 17.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_642" id="Footnote_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> The Russians, as is well known, run out from their hot +baths to plunge into the Neva; a pleasant practical antithesis, which it +seems does them no harm.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LV" id="Footnote_LV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LV"><span class="label">[LV]</span></a> <a name="Note_476" id="Note_476"></a>{476}<i>But once there (few have felt this more than +I)</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_643" id="Footnote_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> [Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto II. stanza lviii. line 9, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 59, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_644" id="Footnote_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> <a name="Note_477" id="Note_477"></a>{477}[See Plutarch's <i>Caius Marius</i>, Langhorne's +translation, 1838, pp. 304, 305.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LW" id="Footnote_LW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LW"><span class="label">[LW]</span></a> <i>That Lady who is not at home to all</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_645" id="Footnote_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> <a name="Note_478" id="Note_478"></a>{478}For a description and print of this inhabitant of +the polar region and native country of the Aurorae Boreales, see Sir E. +Parry's <i>Voyage In Search of a North-West Passage</i>, [1821, p. 257. The +print of the Musk-Bull is drawn and engraved by W. Westall, A.R.A., from +a sketch by Lieut. Beechy. He is a "fearful wild-fowl!"]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_646" id="Footnote_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> [Charles, second Earl Grey, born March 13, 1764, +succeeded to the peerage in 1807, died July 17, 1847.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_647" id="Footnote_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> [William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, born November 15, +1708, died May 11, 1778.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_648" id="Footnote_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> ["His person was undoubtedly cast by Nature in an elegant +and pleasing mould, of a just height, well-proportioned, and with due +regard to symmetry.... His countenance was handsome and +prepossessing.... His manners were captivating, noble, and dignified, +yet unaffectedly condescending.... Homer, as well as Virgil, was +familiar to the Prince of Wales; and his memory, which was very +tenacious, enabled him to cite with graceful readiness the favourite +passages of either poet."—<i>The Historical ... Memoirs</i> of Sir N.W. +Wraxall, 1884, v. 353, 354.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_649" id="Footnote_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> ["Waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. +He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings +peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to +me of you and your immortalities; he preferred you to every other bard +past and present.... He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and +seemed well acquainted with both.... [All] this was conveyed in language +which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a +tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and +accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to +<i>manners</i> certainly superior to those of any living +<i>gentleman</i>."—Letter to Sir Walter Scott, July 6, 1812, <i>Letters</i>, +1898, ii. 134.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_650" id="Footnote_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> <a name="Note_479" id="Note_479"></a>{479}B. 10<sup>bre</sup> 7<sup>th</sup> 1822.—[MS.] +</p><p> +A sculptor projected to hew Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, with +a city in one hand, and, I believe, a river in his pocket, with various +other similar devices. But Alexander's gone, and Athos remains, I trust +ere long to look over a nation of freemen. +</p><p> +[It was an architect named Stasicrates who proposed to execute this +imperial monument. But Alexander bade him leave Mount Athos alone. As it +was, it might be christened "Xerxes, his Folly," and, for his part, he +preferred to regard Mount Caucasus, and the Himalayas, and the river Don +as the symbolic memorials of his acts and deeds.—Plutarch's <i>Moralia</i>. +"De Alexandri Fortuna et Virtute," Orat. II. cap. ii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_651" id="Footnote_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> <a name="Note_480" id="Note_480"></a>{480}[The "Political Economy" Club was founded in April, +1821. James Mill, Thomas Tooke, and David Ricardo were among the +original members, See <i>Political Economy Club</i>, Revised Report, 1876, p. +60.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_652" id="Footnote_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> [Stanzas lxxxviii. and lxxxix. are not in the MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_THIRTEENTH" id="CANTO_THE_THIRTEENTH"></a> +CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.<a name="FNanchor_653" id="FNanchor_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I now mean to be serious;—it is time,</p> +<p class="i2">Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious;</p> +<p>A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime,</p> +<p class="i2">And critically held as deleterious:</p> +<p>Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">Although, when long, a little apt to weary us;</p> +<p>And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,</p> +<p>As an old temple dwindled to a column.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Lady Adeline Amundeville</p> +<p class="i2">('T is an old Norman name, and to be found</p> +<p>In pedigrees, by those who wander still</p> +<p class="i2">Along the last fields of that Gothic ground)</p> +<p>Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,</p> +<p class="i2">And beauteous, even where beauties most abound,</p> +<p>In Britain—which, of course, true patriots find</p> +<p>The goodliest soil of Body and of Mind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue;</p> +<p class="i2">I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best;</p> +<p>An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue,</p> +<p class="i2">Is no great matter, so 't is in request;</p> +<p>'T is nonsense to dispute about a hue—</p> +<p class="i2">The kindest may be taken as a test.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span></p> +<p>The fair sex should be always fair; and no man,</p> +<p>Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And after that serene and somewhat dull</p> +<p class="i2">Epoch, that awkward corner turned for days</p> +<p>More quiet, when our moon's no more at full,</p> +<p class="i2">We may presume to criticise or praise;</p> +<p>Because Indifference begins to lull</p> +<p class="i2">Our passions, and we walk in Wisdom's ways;</p> +<p>Also because the figure and the face</p> +<p>Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I know that some would fain postpone this era,</p> +<p class="i2">Reluctant as all placemen to resign</p> +<p>Their post; but theirs is merely a chimera,</p> +<p class="i2">For they have passed Life's equinoctial line:</p> +<p>But then they have their claret and Madeira,</p> +<p class="i2">To irrigate the dryness of decline;</p> +<p>And County meetings, and the Parliament,</p> +<p>And debt—and what not, for their solace sent.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And is there not Religion, and Reform,</p> +<p class="i2">Peace, War, the taxes, and what's called the "Nation"?</p> +<p>The struggle to be pilots in a storm?<a name="FNanchor_654" id="FNanchor_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_654" class="fnanchor">[654]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The landed and the monied speculation?</p> +<p>The joys of mutual hate to keep them warm,</p> +<p class="i2">Instead of Love, that mere hallucination?</p> +<p>Now Hatred is by far the longest pleasure;</p> +<p>Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Rough Johnson, the great moralist, professed,</p> +<p class="i2">Right honestly, "he liked an honest hater!"<a name="FNanchor_655" id="FNanchor_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_655" class="fnanchor">[655]</a>—</p> +<p>The only truth that yet has been confessed</p> +<p class="i2">Within these latest thousand years or later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span></p> +<p>Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest:—</p> +<p class="i2">For my part, I am but a mere spectator,</p> +<p>And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is,</p> +<p>Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But neither love nor hate in much excess;</p> +<p class="i2">Though 't was not once so. If I sneer sometimes,</p> +<p>It is because I cannot well do less,</p> +<p class="i2">And now and then it also suits my rhymes.</p> +<p>I should be very willing to redress</p> +<p class="i2">Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes,</p> +<p>Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale</p> +<p>Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.<a name="FNanchor_656" id="FNanchor_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_656" class="fnanchor">[656]</a></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of all tales 't is the saddest—and more sad,</p> +<p class="i2">Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,</p> +<p>And still pursues the right;—to curb the bad</p> +<p class="i2">His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight</p> +<p>His guerdon: 't is his virtue makes him mad!</p> +<p class="i2">But his adventures form a sorry sight;—</p> +<p>A sorrier still is the great moral taught</p> +<p>By that real Epic unto all who have thought.<a name="FNanchor_LX" id="FNanchor_LX"></a><a href="#Footnote_LX" class="fnanchor">[LX]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Redressing injury, revenging wrong,</p> +<p class="i2">To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff;</p> +<p>Opposing singly the united strong,</p> +<p class="i2">From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:—</p> +<p>Alas! must noblest views, like an old song,</p> +<p class="i2">Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme creative,</p> +<p>A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought!</p> +<p>And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away;</p> +<p class="i2">A single laugh demolished the right arm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span></p> +<p>Of his own country;—seldom since that day</p> +<p class="i2">Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,</p> +<p>The World gave ground before her bright array;</p> +<p class="i2">And therefore have his volumes done such harm,</p> +<p>That all their glory, as a composition,</p> +<p>Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'm "at my old lunes"<a name="FNanchor_657" id="FNanchor_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_657" class="fnanchor">[657]</a>—digression, and forget</p> +<p class="i2">The Lady Adeline Amundeville;</p> +<p>The fair most fatal Juan ever met,</p> +<p class="i2">Although she was not evil nor meant ill;</p> +<p>But Destiny and Passion spread the net</p> +<p class="i2">(Fate is a good excuse for our own will),</p> +<p>And caught them;—what do they <i>not</i> catch, methinks?</p> +<p>But I'm not Oedipus, and Life's a Sphinx.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare</p> +<p class="i2">To venture a solution: "<i>Davus sum!</i>"<a name="FNanchor_658" id="FNanchor_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a></p> +<p>And now I will proceed upon the pair.</p> +<p class="i2">Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay World's hum,</p> +<p>Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that's fair;</p> +<p class="i2">Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb.</p> +<p>The last's a miracle, and such was reckoned,</p> +<p>And since that time there has not been a second.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Chaste was she, to Detraction's desperation,</p> +<p class="i2">And wedded unto one she had loved well—</p> +<p>A man known in the councils of the Nation,</p> +<p class="i2">Cool, and quite English, imperturbable,</p> +<p>Though apt to act with fire upon occasion,</p> +<p class="i2">Proud of himself and her: the World could tell</p> +<p>Nought against either, and both seemed secure—</p> +<p>She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It chanced some diplomatical relations,</p> +<p class="i2">Arising out of business, often brought</p> +<p>Himself and Juan in their mutual stations</p> +<p class="i2">Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught</p> +<p>By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience,</p> +<p class="i2">And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought,</p> +<p>And formed a basis of esteem, which ends</p> +<p>In making men what Courtesy calls friends.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as</p> +<p class="i2">Reserve and Pride could make him, and full slow</p> +<p>In judging men—when once his judgment was</p> +<p class="i2">Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe,</p> +<p>Had all the pertinacity Pride has,</p> +<p class="i2">Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow,</p> +<p>And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided,</p> +<p>Because its own good pleasure hath decided.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions,</p> +<p class="i2">Though oft well founded, which confirmed but more</p> +<p>His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians</p> +<p class="i2">And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before.</p> +<p>His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians,</p> +<p class="i2">Of common likings, which make some deplore</p> +<p>What they should laugh at—the mere ague still</p> +<p>Of men's regard, the fever or the chill.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'T is not in mortals to command success:"<a name="FNanchor_659" id="FNanchor_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_659" class="fnanchor">[659]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But <i>do you more</i>, Sempronius—<i>don't</i> deserve it,</p> +<p>And take my word, you won't have any less.</p> +<p class="i2">Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it;</p> +<p>Give gently way, when there's too great a press;</p> +<p class="i2">And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it;</p> +<p>For, like a racer, or a boxer training,</p> +<p>'T will make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Henry also liked to be superior,</p> +<p class="i2">As most men do, the little or the great;</p> +<p>The very lowest find out an inferior,</p> +<p class="i2">At least they think so, to exert their state</p> +<p>Upon: for there are very few things wearier</p> +<p class="i2">Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight,</p> +<p>Which mortals generously would divide,</p> +<p>By bidding others carry while they ride.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal,</p> +<p class="i2">O'er Juan he could no distinction claim;</p> +<p>In years he had the advantage of Time's sequel;</p> +<p class="i2">And, as he thought, in country much the same—</p> +<p>Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill,</p> +<p class="i2">At which all modern nations vainly aim;</p> +<p>And the Lord Henry was a great debater,</p> +<p>So that few Members kept the House up later.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These were advantages: and then he thought—</p> +<p class="i2">It was his foible, but by no means sinister—</p> +<p>That few or none more than himself had caught</p> +<p class="i2">Court mysteries, having been himself a minister:</p> +<p>He liked to teach that which he had been taught,</p> +<p class="i2">And greatly shone whenever there had been a stir;</p> +<p>And reconciled all qualities which grace man,</p> +<p>Always a patriot—and, sometimes, a placeman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity;</p> +<p class="i2">He almost honoured him for his docility;</p> +<p>Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity,</p> +<p class="i2">Or contradicted but with proud humility.</p> +<p>He knew the World, and would not see depravity</p> +<p class="i2">In faults which sometimes show the soil's fertility,</p> +<p>If that the weeds o'erlive not the first crop—</p> +<p>For then they are very difficult to stop.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then he talked with him about Madrid,</p> +<p class="i2">Constantinople, and such distant places;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span></p> +<p>Where people always did as they were bid,</p> +<p class="i2">Or did what they should not with foreign graces.</p> +<p>Of coursers also spake they: Henry rid</p> +<p class="i2">Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races;</p> +<p>And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian,</p> +<p>Could back<a name="FNanchor_660" id="FNanchor_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_660" class="fnanchor">[660]</a> a horse, as Despots ride a Russian.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs,</p> +<p class="i2">And diplomatic dinners, or at other—</p> +<p>For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs,</p> +<p class="i2">As in freemasonry a higher brother.</p> +<p>Upon his talent Henry had no doubts;</p> +<p class="i2">His manner showed him sprung from a high mother,</p> +<p>And all men like to show their hospitality</p> +<p>To him whose breeding matches with his quality.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At Blank-Blank Square;—for we will break no squares<a name="FNanchor_661" id="FNanchor_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a></p> +<p class="i2">By naming streets: since men are so censorious,</p> +<p>And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares,</p> +<p class="i2">Reaping allusions private and inglorious,</p> +<p>Where none were dreamt of, unto Love's affairs,</p> +<p class="i2">Which were, or are, or are to be notorious,</p> +<p>That therefore do I previously declare,</p> +<p>Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also there bin<a name="FNanchor_662" id="FNanchor_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> another pious reason</p> +<p class="i2">For making squares and streets anonymous;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span></p> +<p>Which is, that there is scarce a single season</p> +<p class="i2">Which doth not shake some very splendid house</p> +<p>With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason—</p> +<p class="i2">A topic Scandal doth delight to rouse:</p> +<p>Such I might stumble over unawares,</p> +<p>Unless I knew the very chastest squares.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is true, I might have chosen Piccadilly,<a name="FNanchor_663" id="FNanchor_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A place where peccadillos are unknown;</p> +<p>But I have motives, whether wise or silly,</p> +<p class="i2">For letting that pure sanctuary alone.</p> +<p>Therefore I name not square, street, place, until I</p> +<p class="i2">Find one where nothing naughty can be shown,</p> +<p>A vestal shrine of Innocence of Heart:</p> +<p>Such are—but I have lost the London Chart.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At Henry's mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square,</p> +<p class="i2">Was Juan a <i>recherché</i>, welcome guest,</p> +<p>As many other noble scions were;</p> +<p class="i2">And some who had but Talent for their crest;</p> +<p>Or Wealth, which is a passport everywhere;</p> +<p class="i2">Or even mere Fashion, which indeed's the best</p> +<p>Recommendation; and to be well dressed</p> +<p>Will very often supersede the rest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And since "there's safety in a multitude</p> +<p class="i2">Of counsellors," as Solomon has said,</p> +<p>Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood;—</p> +<p class="i2">Indeed we see the daily proof displayed</p> +<p>In Senates, at the Bar, in wordy feud,</p> +<p class="i2">Where'er collective wisdom can parade,</p> +<p>Which is the only cause that we can guess</p> +<p>Of Britain's present wealth and happiness;—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But as "there's safety" grafted in the number</p> +<p class="i2">"Of counsellors," for men,—thus for the sex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span></p> +<p>A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber;</p> +<p class="i2">Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex—</p> +<p>Variety itself will more encumber.<a name="FNanchor_LY" id="FNanchor_LY"></a><a href="#Footnote_LY" class="fnanchor">[LY]</a></p> +<p class="i2">'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks—</p> +<p>And thus with women: howsoe'er it shocks some's</p> +<p>Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of coxcombs.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline had not the least occasion</p> +<p class="i2">For such a shield, which leaves but little merit</p> +<p>To Virtue proper, or good education.</p> +<p class="i2">Her chief resource was in her own high spirit,</p> +<p>Which judged Mankind at their due estimation;</p> +<p class="i2">And for coquetry, she disdained to wear it—</p> +<p>Secure of admiration: its impression</p> +<p>Was faint—as of an every-day possession.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To all she was polite without parade;</p> +<p class="i2">To some she showed attention of that kind</p> +<p>Which flatters, but is flattery conveyed</p> +<p class="i2">In such a sort as cannot leave behind</p> +<p>A trace unworthy either wife or maid;—</p> +<p class="i2">A gentle, genial courtesy of mind,<a name="FNanchor_LZ" id="FNanchor_LZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_LZ" class="fnanchor">[LZ]</a></p> +<p>To those who were, or passed for meritorious,</p> +<p>Just to console sad Glory for being glorious;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Which is in all respects, save now and then,</p> +<p class="i2">A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze</p> +<p>Upon the shades of those distinguished men</p> +<p class="i2">Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise,</p> +<p>The praise of persecution. Gaze again</p> +<p class="i2">On the most favoured; and amidst the blaze</p> +<p>Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-browed,</p> +<p>What can ye recognise?—a gilded cloud.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There also was of course in Adeline</p> +<p class="i2">That calm patrician polish in the address,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[490]</a></span></p> +<p>Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line</p> +<p class="i2">Of anything which Nature would express;</p> +<p>Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine,—</p> +<p class="i2">At least his manner suffers not to guess,</p> +<p>That anything he views can greatly please:</p> +<p>Perhaps we have borrowed this from the Chinese—<a name="FNanchor_MA" id="FNanchor_MA"></a><a href="#Footnote_MA" class="fnanchor">[MA]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps from Horace: his <i>"Nil admirari"</i></p> +<p class="i2">Was what he called the "Art of Happiness"—</p> +<p>An art on which the artists greatly vary,</p> +<p class="i2">And have not yet attained to much success.</p> +<p>However, 't is expedient to be wary:</p> +<p class="i2">Indifference, certes, don't produce distress;</p> +<p>And rash Enthusiasm in good society</p> +<p>Were nothing but a moral inebriety.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline was not indifferent: for</p> +<p class="i2">(<i>Now</i> for a common-place!) beneath the snow,</p> +<p>As a Volcano holds the lava more</p> +<p class="i2">Within—<i>et cætera</i>. Shall I go on?—No!</p> +<p>I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor,</p> +<p class="i2">So let the often-used Volcano go.</p> +<p>Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others,</p> +<p>It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I'll have another figure in a trice:—</p> +<p class="i2">What say you to a bottle of champagne?</p> +<p>Frozen into a very vinous ice,</p> +<p class="i2">Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain,</p> +<p>Yet in the very centre, past all price,</p> +<p class="i2">About a liquid glassful will remain;</p> +<p>And this is stronger than the strongest grape</p> +<p>Could e'er express in its expanded shape:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;</p> +<p class="i2">And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[491]</a></span></p> +<p>A hidden nectar under a cold presence.<a name="FNanchor_MB" id="FNanchor_MB"></a><a href="#Footnote_MB" class="fnanchor">[MB]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And such are many—though I only meant her</p> +<p>From whom I now deduce these moral lessons,</p> +<p class="i2">On which the Muse has always sought to enter.</p> +<p>And your cold people are beyond all price,</p> +<p>When once you've broken their confounded ice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But after all they are a North-West Passage</p> +<p class="i2">Unto the glowing India of the soul;</p> +<p>And as the good ships sent upon that message</p> +<p class="i2">Have not exactly ascertained the Pole</p> +<p>(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage),<a name="FNanchor_MC" id="FNanchor_MC"></a><a href="#Footnote_MC" class="fnanchor">[MC]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal;</p> +<p>For if the Pole's not open, but all frost</p> +<p>(A chance still), 't is a voyage or vessel lost.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And young beginners may as well commence</p> +<p class="i2">With quiet cruising o'er the ocean, Woman;</p> +<p>While those who are not beginners should have sense</p> +<p class="i2">Enough to make for port, ere Time shall summon</p> +<p>With his grey signal-flag; and the past tense,</p> +<p class="i2">The dreary <i>Fuimus</i> of all things human,</p> +<p>Must be declined, while Life's thin thread's spun out</p> +<p>Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Heaven must be diverted; its diversion</p> +<p class="i2">Is sometimes truculent—but never mind:</p> +<p>The World upon the whole is worth the assertion</p> +<p class="i2">(If but for comfort) that all things are kind:</p> +<p>And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian,<a name="FNanchor_664" id="FNanchor_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_664" class="fnanchor">[664]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of the "Two Principles," but leaves behind</p> +<p>As many doubts as any other doctrine</p> +<p>Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[492]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The English winter—ending in July,</p> +<p class="i2">To recommence in August—now was done.</p> +<p>'T is the postilion's paradise: wheels fly;</p> +<p class="i2">On roads, East, South, North, West, there is a run.</p> +<p>But for post-horses who finds sympathy?</p> +<p class="i2">Man's pity's for himself, or for his son,</p> +<p>Always premising that said son at college</p> +<p>Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The London winter's ended in July—</p> +<p class="i2">Sometimes a little later. I don't err</p> +<p>In this: whatever other blunders lie</p> +<p class="i2">Upon my shoulders, here I must aver</p> +<p>My Muse a glass of <i>Weatherology</i>;</p> +<p class="i2">For Parliament is our barometer:</p> +<p>Let Radicals its other acts attack,</p> +<p>Its sessions form our only almanack.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When its quicksilver's down at zero,—lo!</p> +<p class="i2">Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage!</p> +<p>Wheels whirl from Carlton Palace to Soho,</p> +<p class="i2">And happiest they who horses can engage;</p> +<p>The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row</p> +<p class="i2">Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age;</p> +<p>And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces,</p> +<p>Sigh—as the postboys fasten on the traces.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They and their bills, "Arcadians both,"<a name="FNanchor_665" id="FNanchor_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> are left</p> +<p class="i2">To the Greek Kalends of another session.</p> +<p>Alas! to them of ready cash bereft,</p> +<p class="i2">What hope remains? Of <i>hope</i> the full possession,</p> +<p>Or generous draft, conceded as a gift,</p> +<p class="i2">At a long date—till they can get a fresh one—</p> +<p>Hawked about at a discount, small or large;</p> +<p>Also the solace of an overcharge.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[493]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But these are trifles. Downward flies my Lord,</p> +<p class="i2">Nodding beside my Lady in his carriage.</p> +<p>Away! away! "Fresh horses!" are the word,</p> +<p class="i2">And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage;</p> +<p>The obsequious landlord hath the change restored;</p> +<p class="i2">The postboys have no reason to disparage</p> +<p>Their fee; but ere the watered wheels may hiss hence,</p> +<p>The ostler pleads too for a reminiscence.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is granted; and the valet mounts the dickey—</p> +<p class="i2">That gentleman of Lords and Gentlemen;</p> +<p>Also my Lady's gentlewoman, tricky,</p> +<p class="i2">Tricked out, but modest more than poet's pen</p> +<p>Can paint,—<i>"Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!"</i><a name="FNanchor_666" id="FNanchor_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_666" class="fnanchor">[666]</a></p> +<p class="i2">(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then,</p> +<p>If but to show I've travelled: and what's Travel,</p> +<p>Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?)</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The London winter and the country summer</p> +<p class="i2">Were well nigh over. 'T is perhaps a pity,</p> +<p>When Nature wears the gown that doth become her,</p> +<p class="i2">To lose those best months in a sweaty city,</p> +<p>And wait until the nightingale grows dumber,</p> +<p class="i2">Listening debates not very wise or witty,</p> +<p>Ere patriots their true <i>country</i> can remember;—</p> +<p>But there's no shooting (save grouse) till September.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I've done with my tirade. The World was gone;</p> +<p class="i2">The twice two thousand, for whom Earth was made,</p> +<p>Were vanished to be what they call alone—</p> +<p class="i2">That is, with thirty servants for parade,</p> +<p>As many guests, or more; before whom groan</p> +<p class="i2">As many covers, duly, daily laid.</p> +<p>Let none accuse old England's hospitality—</p> +<p>Its quantity is but condensed to quality.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[494]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline</p> +<p class="i2">Departed like the rest of their compeers,</p> +<p>The peerage, to a mansion very fine;</p> +<p class="i2">The Gothic Babel of a thousand years.</p> +<p>None than themselves could boast a longer line,</p> +<p class="i2">Where Time through heroes and through beauties steers;</p> +<p>And oaks as olden as their pedigree</p> +<p>Told of their Sires—a tomb in every tree.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A paragraph in every paper told</p> +<p class="i2">Of their departure—such is modern fame:</p> +<p>'T is pity that it takes no further hold</p> +<p class="i2">Than an advertisement, or much the same;</p> +<p>When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.</p> +<p class="i2">The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim—</p> +<p>"Departure, for his country seat, to-day,</p> +<p>Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"We understand the splendid host intends<a name="FNanchor_MD" id="FNanchor_MD"></a><a href="#Footnote_MD" class="fnanchor">[MD]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To entertain, this autumn, a select</p> +<p>And numerous party of his noble friends;</p> +<p class="i2">'Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct,</p> +<p>The Duke of D—— the shooting season spends,</p> +<p class="i2">With many more by rank and fashion decked;</p> +<p>Also a foreigner of high condition,</p> +<p>The envoy of the secret Russian mission."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And thus we see—who doubts the Morning Post?</p> +<p class="i2">(Whose articles are like the "Thirty-nine,"</p> +<p>Which those most swear to who believe them most)—</p> +<p class="i2">Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordained to shine,</p> +<p>Decked by the rays reflected from his host,</p> +<p class="i2">With those who, Pope says, "greatly daring dine."—<a name="FNanchor_667" id="FNanchor_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a></p> +<p>'T is odd, but true,—last war the News abounded</p> +<p>More with these dinners than the killed or wounded;—</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[495]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As thus: "On Thursday there was a grand dinner;</p> +<p class="i2">Present, Lords A.B.C."—- Earls, dukes, by name</p> +<p>Announced with no less pomp than Victory's winner:</p> +<p class="i2">Then underneath, and in the very same</p> +<p>Column: date, "Falmouth. There has lately been here</p> +<p class="i2">The Slap-dash regiment, so well known to Fame,</p> +<p>Whose loss in the late action we regret:</p> +<p>The vacancies are filled up—see Gazette."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To Norman Abbey<a name="FNanchor_668" id="FNanchor_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> whirled the noble pair,—</p> +<p class="i2">An old, old Monastery once, and now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[496]</a></span></p> +<p>Still older mansion—of a rich and rare</p> +<p class="i2">Mixed Gothic, such as artists all allow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[497]</a></span></p> +<p>Few specimens yet left us can compare</p> +<p class="i2">Withal: it lies, perhaps, a little low,</p> +<p>Because the monks preferred a hill behind,</p> +<p>To shelter their devotion from the wind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It stood embosomed in a happy valley,</p> +<p class="i2">Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid oak<a name="FNanchor_669" id="FNanchor_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_669" class="fnanchor">[669]</a></p> +<p>Stood like Caractacus, in act to rally</p> +<p class="i2">His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[498]</a></span></p> +<p>And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally</p> +<p class="i2">The dappled foresters; as Day awoke,</p> +<p>The branching stag swept down with all his herd,</p> +<p>To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Before the mansion lay a lucid Lake,<a name="FNanchor_670" id="FNanchor_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_670" class="fnanchor">[670]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed</p> +<p>By a river, which its softened way did take</p> +<p class="i2">In currents through the calmer water spread</p> +<p>Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake</p> +<p class="i2">And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:</p> +<p>The woods<a name="FNanchor_671" id="FNanchor_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> sloped downwards to its brink, and stood</p> +<p>With their green faces fixed upon the flood.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Its outlet dashed into a deep cascade,</p> +<p class="i2">Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding,</p> +<p>Its shriller echoes—like an infant made<a name="FNanchor_ME" id="FNanchor_ME"></a><a href="#Footnote_ME" class="fnanchor">[ME]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Quiet—sank into softer ripples, gliding</p> +<p>Into a rivulet; and thus allayed,</p> +<p class="i2">Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding</p> +<p>Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,</p> +<p>According as the skies their shadows threw.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile</p> +<p class="i2">(While yet the Church was Rome's) stood half apart</p> +<p>In a grand Arch, which once screened many an aisle.</p> +<p class="i2">These last had disappeared—a loss to Art:</p> +<p>The first yet frowned superbly o'er the soil,</p> +<p class="i2">And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,</p> +<p>Which mourned the power of Time's or Tempest's march,</p> +<p>In gazing on that venerable Arch.<a name="FNanchor_MF" id="FNanchor_MF"></a><a href="#Footnote_MF" class="fnanchor">[MF]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[499]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,</p> +<p class="i2">Twelve Saints had once stood sanctified in stone;</p> +<p>But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,</p> +<p class="i2">But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,</p> +<p>When each house was a fortalice—as tell</p> +<p class="i2">The annals of full many a line undone,—</p> +<p>The gallant Cavaliers,<a name="FNanchor_672" id="FNanchor_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> who fought in vain</p> +<p>For those who knew not to resign or reign.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned,</p> +<p class="i2">The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child,</p> +<p>With her Son in her blesséd arms, looked round,</p> +<p class="i2">Spared by some chance when all beside was spoiled:</p> +<p>She made the earth below seem holy ground.</p> +<p class="i2">This may be superstition, weak or wild;</p> +<p>But even the faintest relics of a shrine</p> +<p>Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A mighty window, hollow in the centre,</p> +<p class="i2">Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,</p> +<p>Through which the deepened glories once could enter,</p> +<p class="i2">Streaming from off the Sun like Seraph's wings,</p> +<p>Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,</p> +<p class="i2">The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings</p> +<p>The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire</p> +<p>Lie with their Hallelujahs quenched like fire.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But in the noontide of the moon, and when<a name="FNanchor_MG" id="FNanchor_MG"></a><a href="#Footnote_MG" class="fnanchor">[MG]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The wind is wingéd from one point of heaven,</p> +<p>There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then</p> +<p class="i2">Is musical—a dying accent driven</p> +<p>Through the huge Arch, which soars and sinks again.</p> +<p class="i2">Some deem it but the distant echo given</p> +<p>Back to the night wind by the waterfall,</p> +<p>And harmonised by the old choral wall:</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[500]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Others, that some original shape, or form</p> +<p class="i2">Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power</p> +<p>(Though less than that of Memnon's statue,<a name="FNanchor_673" id="FNanchor_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a> warm</p> +<p class="i2">In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fixed hour)</p> +<p>To this grey ruin: with a voice to charm,</p> +<p class="i2">Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower;</p> +<p>The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such</p> +<p>The fact:—I've heard it,—once perhaps too much.<a name="FNanchor_674" id="FNanchor_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Amidst the court a Gothic fountain played,</p> +<p class="i2">Symmetrical, but decked with carvings quaint—</p> +<p>Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,</p> +<p class="i2">And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:</p> +<p>The spring gushed through grim mouths of granite made,</p> +<p class="i2">And sparkled into basins, where it spent</p> +<p>Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,</p> +<p>Like man's vain Glory, and his vainer troubles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Mansion's self was vast and venerable,</p> +<p class="i2">With more of the monastic than has been</p> +<p>Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,</p> +<p class="i2">The cells, too, and Refectory, I ween:</p> +<p>An exquisite small chapel had been able,</p> +<p class="i2">Still unimpaired, to decorate the scene;</p> +<p>The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,</p> +<p>And spoke more of the baron than the monk.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined</p> +<p class="i2">By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[501]</a></span></p> +<p>Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined,</p> +<p class="i2">Formed a whole which, irregular in parts,</p> +<p>Yet left a grand impression on the mind,</p> +<p class="i2">At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts:</p> +<p>We gaze upon a giant for his stature,</p> +<p>Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Steel Barons, molten the next generation</p> +<p class="i2">To silken rows of gay and gartered Earls,</p> +<p>Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation:</p> +<p class="i2">And Lady Marys blooming into girls,</p> +<p>With fair long locks, had also kept their station:</p> +<p class="i2">And Countesses mature in robes and pearls:</p> +<p>Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely,</p> +<p>Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Judges in very formidable ermine</p> +<p class="i2">Were there, with brows that did not much invite</p> +<p>The accused to think their lordships would determine</p> +<p class="i2">His cause by leaning much from might to right:</p> +<p>Bishops, who had not left a single sermon;</p> +<p class="i2">Attorneys-general, awful to the sight,</p> +<p>As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us)</p> +<p>Of the "Star Chamber" than of "Habeas Corpus."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Generals, some all in armour, of the old</p> +<p class="i2">And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the lead;</p> +<p>Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold,</p> +<p class="i2">Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed:<a name="FNanchor_MH" id="FNanchor_MH"></a><a href="#Footnote_MH" class="fnanchor">[MH]</a></p> +<p>Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold:</p> +<p class="i2">Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contained the steed;</p> +<p>And, here and there, some stern high patriot stood,</p> +<p>Who could not get the place for which he sued.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But ever and anon, to soothe your vision,</p> +<p class="i2">Fatigued with these hereditary glories,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[502]</a></span></p> +<p>There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian,</p> +<p class="i2">Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's:<a name="FNanchor_675" id="FNanchor_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a></p> +<p>Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone</p> +<p class="i2">In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories</p> +<p>Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted</p> +<p>His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine;</p> +<p class="i2">There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,</p> +<p>Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain</p> +<p class="i2">Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic anchorite:—</p> +<p>But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain,</p> +<p class="i2">Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:</p> +<p>His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish<a name="FNanchor_676" id="FNanchor_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a></p> +<p>Or Dutch with thirst—What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.<a name="FNanchor_MI" id="FNanchor_MI"></a><a href="#Footnote_MI" class="fnanchor">[MI]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh, reader! if that thou canst read,—and know,</p> +<p class="i2">'T is not enough to spell, or even to read,</p> +<p>To constitute a reader—there must go</p> +<p class="i2">Virtues of which both you and I have need;—</p> +<p>Firstly, begin with the beginning—(though</p> +<p class="i2">That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed:</p> +<p>Thirdly, commence not with the end—or, sinning</p> +<p>In this sort, end at last with the beginning.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, reader, thou hast patient been of late,</p> +<p class="i2">While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[503]</a></span></p> +<p>Have built and laid out ground at such a rate,</p> +<p class="i2">Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer.</p> +<p>That Poets were so from their earliest date,</p> +<p class="i2">By Homer's "Catalogue of ships" is clear;</p> +<p>But a mere modern must be moderate—</p> +<p>I spare you then the furniture and plate.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The mellow Autumn came, and with it came</p> +<p class="i2">The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.</p> +<p>The corn is cut, the manor full of game;</p> +<p class="i2">The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats</p> +<p>In russet jacket:—lynx-like in his aim;</p> +<p class="i2">Full grows his bag, and wonder<i>ful</i> his feats.</p> +<p>Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!</p> +<p>And ah, ye poachers!—'T is no sport for peasants.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An English Autumn, though it hath no vines,</p> +<p class="i2">Blushing with Bacchant coronals along</p> +<p>The paths o'er which the far festoon entwines</p> +<p class="i2">The red grape in the sunny lands of song,</p> +<p>Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines;<a name="FNanchor_MJ" id="FNanchor_MJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_MJ" class="fnanchor">[MJ]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The Claret light, and the Madeira strong.</p> +<p>If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her,</p> +<p>The very best of vineyards is the cellar.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, if she hath not that serene decline</p> +<p class="i2">Which makes the southern Autumn's day appear</p> +<p>As if 't would to a second Spring resign</p> +<p class="i2">The season, rather than to Winter drear,—</p> +<p>Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,—</p> +<p class="i2">The sea-coal fires,<a name="FNanchor_677" id="FNanchor_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> the "earliest of the year;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[504]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_678" id="FNanchor_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a></p> +<p>Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow,</p> +<p>As what is lost in green is gained in yellow.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And for the effeminate <i>villeggialura</i>—</p> +<p class="i2">Rife with more horns than hounds—she hath the chase,</p> +<p>So animated that it might allure a</p> +<p class="i2">Saint from his beads to join the jocund race:</p> +<p>Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura,<a name="FNanchor_679" id="FNanchor_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_679" class="fnanchor">[679]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And wear the Melton jacket for a space:</p> +<p>If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame</p> +<p>Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game.<a name="FNanchor_MK" id="FNanchor_MK"></a><a href="#Footnote_MK" class="fnanchor">[MK]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The noble guests,<a name="FNanchor_680" id="FNanchor_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> assembled at the Abbey,</p> +<p class="i2">Consisted of—we give the sex the <i>pas</i>—</p> +<p>The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabby;<a name="FNanchor_ML" id="FNanchor_ML"></a><a href="#Footnote_ML" class="fnanchor">[ML]</a><a name="FNanchor_681" id="FNanchor_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The Ladies Scilly, Busey;—Miss Eclat,</p> +<p>Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby,</p> +<p class="i2">And Mrs. Rabbi,<a name="FNanchor_682" id="FNanchor_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> the rich banker's squaw;</p> +<p>Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep,</p> +<p>Who looked a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[505]</a></span></p><h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With other Countesses of Blank—but rank;</p> +<p class="i2">At once the "lie"<a name="FNanchor_683" id="FNanchor_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> and the <i>élite</i> of crowds;</p> +<p>Who pass like water filtered in a tank,</p> +<p class="i2">All purged and pious from their native clouds;</p> +<p>Or paper turned to money by the Bank:</p> +<p class="i2">No matter how or why, the passport shrouds</p> +<p>The <i>passée</i> and the past; for good society</p> +<p>Is no less famed for tolerance than piety,—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That is, up to a certain point; which point</p> +<p class="i2">Forms the most difficult in punctuation.</p> +<p>Appearances appear to form the joint</p> +<p class="i2">On which it hinges in a higher station;</p> +<p>And so that no explosion cry "Aroint</p> +<p class="i2">Thee, witch!"<a name="FNanchor_684" id="FNanchor_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> or each Medea has her Jason;</p> +<p>Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)<a name="FNanchor_MM" id="FNanchor_MM"></a><a href="#Footnote_MM" class="fnanchor">[MM]</a></p> +<p><i>"Omne tulit punctum,</i> quæ <i>miscuit utile dulci."</i><a name="FNanchor_685" id="FNanchor_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_685" class="fnanchor">[685]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I can't exactly trace their rule of right,</p> +<p class="i2">Which hath a little leaning to a lottery.</p> +<p>I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite</p> +<p class="i2">By the mere combination of a coterie;</p> +<p>Also a so-so matron boldly fight</p> +<p class="i2">Her way back to the world by dint of plottery,<a name="FNanchor_MN" id="FNanchor_MN"></a><a href="#Footnote_MN" class="fnanchor">[MN]</a></p> +<p>And shine the very <i>Siria</i>,<a name="FNanchor_686" id="FNanchor_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a> of the spheres,</p> +<p>Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have seen more than I'll say:—but we will see<a name="FNanchor_MO" id="FNanchor_MO"></a><a href="#Footnote_MO" class="fnanchor">[MO]</a></p> +<p class="i2">How <i>our "villeggiatura"</i> will get on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[506]</a></span></p> +<p>The party might consist of thirty-three</p> +<p class="i2">Of highest caste—the Brahmins of the <i>ton</i>.</p> +<p>I have named a few, not foremost in degree,</p> +<p class="i2">But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.</p> +<p>By way of sprinkling, scattered amongst these,</p> +<p>There also were some Irish absentees.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3><a id="c13slxxxiv" name="c13slxxxiv"></a>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was Parolles,<a name="FNanchor_687" id="FNanchor_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_687" class="fnanchor">[687]</a> too, the legal bully,<a name="FNanchor_MP" id="FNanchor_MP"></a><a href="#Footnote_MP" class="fnanchor">[MP]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Who limits all his battles to the Bar</p> +<p>And Senate: when invited elsewhere, truly,</p> +<p class="i2">He shows more appetite for words than war.</p> +<p>There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly</p> +<p class="i2">Come out and glimmered as a six weeks' star.</p> +<p>There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker;</p> +<p>And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was the Duke of Dash,<a name="FNanchor_688" id="FNanchor_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a> who was a—duke,</p> +<p class="i2">"Aye, every inch a" duke; there were twelve peers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[507]</a></span></p> +<p>Like Charlemagne's—and all such peers in <i>look</i></p> +<p class="i2">And <i>intellect</i>, that neither eyes nor ears</p> +<p>For commoners had ever them mistook.</p> +<p class="i2">There were the six Miss Rawbolds—pretty dears!</p> +<p>All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set</p> +<p>Less on a convent than a coronet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were four Honourable Misters, whose</p> +<p class="i2">Honour was more before their names than after;</p> +<p>There was the <i>preux Chevalier de la Ruse</i>,<a name="FNanchor_689" id="FNanchor_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_689" class="fnanchor">[689]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Whom France and Fortune lately deigned to waft here,</p> +<p>Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse;</p> +<p class="i2">But the clubs found it rather serious laughter,</p> +<p>Because—such was his magic power to please—</p> +<p>The dice seemed charmed, too, with his repartees.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was Dick Dubious,<a name="FNanchor_690" id="FNanchor_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> the metaphysician,</p> +<p class="i2">Who loved philosophy and a good dinner;</p> +<p>Angle, the <i>soi-disant</i> mathematician;</p> +<p class="i2">Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[508]</a></span></p> +<p>There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian,</p> +<p class="i2">Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner:</p> +<p>And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,</p> +<p>Good at all things, but better at a bet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;<a name="FNanchor_691" id="FNanchor_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And General Fireface,<a name="FNanchor_692" id="FNanchor_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a> famous in the field,</p> +<p>A great tactician, and no less a swordsman,</p> +<p class="i2">Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he killed.</p> +<p>There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman,</p> +<p class="i2">In his grave office so completely skilled,</p> +<p>That when a culprit came for condemnation,</p> +<p>He had his Judge's joke for consolation.<a name="FNanchor_693" id="FNanchor_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Good company's a chess-board—there are kings,</p> +<p class="i2">Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the World's a game;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[509]</a></span></p> +<p>Save that the puppets pull at their own strings,</p> +<p class="i2">Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same.</p> +<p>My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings,</p> +<p class="i2">Not stings, and flits through ether without aim,</p> +<p>Alighting rarely:—were she but a hornet,</p> +<p>Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I had forgotten—but must not forget—</p> +<p class="i2">An orator, the latest of the session,</p> +<p>Who had delivered well a very set</p> +<p class="i2">Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression</p> +<p>Upon debate: the papers echoed yet</p> +<p class="i2">With his <i>début</i>, which made a strong impression,</p> +<p>And ranked with what is every day displayed—</p> +<p>"The best first speech that ever yet was made."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Proud of his "Hear hims!" proud, too, of his vote,</p> +<p class="i2">And lost virginity of oratory,</p> +<p>Proud of his learning (just enough to quote),</p> +<p class="i2">He revelled in his Ciceronian glory:</p> +<p>With memory excellent to get by rote,</p> +<p class="i2">With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story,</p> +<p>Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery,<a name="FNanchor_MQ" id="FNanchor_MQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_MQ" class="fnanchor">[MQ]</a></p> +<p>"His country's pride," he came down to the country.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There also were two wits by acclamation,</p> +<p class="i2">Longbow from Ireland,<a name="FNanchor_694" id="FNanchor_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> +Strongbow from the Tweed<a name="FNanchor_695" id="FNanchor_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a>—Both +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[510]</a></span></p> +<p>lawyers and both men of education—</p> +<p class="i2">But Strongbow's wit was of more polished breed;</p> +<p>Longbow was rich in an imagination</p> +<p class="i2">As beautiful and bounding as a steed,</p> +<p>But sometimes stumbling over a potato,—</p> +<p>While Strongbow's best things might have come from Cato.</p> +</div></div> + + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord;</p> +<p class="i2">But Longbow wild as an Æolian harp,</p> +<p>With which the Winds of heaven can claim accord,</p> +<p class="i2">And make a music, whether flat or sharp.</p> +<p>Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word:</p> +<p class="i2">At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp:</p> +<p>Both wits—one born so, and the other bred—</p> +<p>This by his heart—his rival by his head.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If all these seem an heterogeneous mass</p> +<p class="i2">To be assembled at a country seat,</p> +<p>Yet think, a specimen of every class</p> +<p class="i2">Is better than a humdrum tête-à-tête.</p> +<p>The days of Comedy are gone, alas!</p> +<p class="i2">When Congreve's fool could vie with Molière's <i>bête</i>:</p> +<p>Society is smoothed to that excess,</p> +<p>That manners hardly differ more than dress.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our ridicules are kept in the back-ground—</p> +<p class="i2">Ridiculous enough, but also dull;</p> +<p>Professions, too, are no more to be found</p> +<p class="i2">Professional; and there is nought to cull<a name="FNanchor_MR" id="FNanchor_MR"></a><a href="#Footnote_MR" class="fnanchor">[MR]</a></p> +<p>Of Folly's fruit; for though your fools abound,</p> +<p class="i2">They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull.</p> +<p>Society is now one polished horde,</p> +<p>Formed of two mighty tribes, the <i>Bores</i> and <i>Bored</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning</p> +<p class="i2">The scanty but right-well threshed ears of Truth;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[511]</a></span></p> +<p>And, gentle reader! when you gather meaning,</p> +<p class="i2">You may be Boaz, and I—modest Ruth.</p> +<p>Further I'd quote, but Scripture intervening</p> +<p class="i2">Forbids. A great impression in my youth</p> +<p>Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries,</p> +<p>"That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies."<a name="FNanchor_696" id="FNanchor_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what we can we glean in this vile age<a name="FNanchor_MS" id="FNanchor_MS"></a><a href="#Footnote_MS" class="fnanchor">[MS]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist.</p> +<p>I must not quite omit the talking sage,</p> +<p class="i2">Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist,<a name="FNanchor_697" id="FNanchor_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_697" class="fnanchor">[697]</a></p> +<p>Who, in his common-place book, had a page</p> +<p class="i2">Prepared each morn for evenings. "List, oh list!"</p> +<p>"Alas, poor ghost!"<a name="FNanchor_698" id="FNanchor_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a>—What unexpected woes</p> +<p>Await those who have studied their <i>bons-mots!</i></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Firstly, they must allure the conversation,</p> +<p class="i2">By many windings to their clever clinch;</p> +<p>And secondly, must let slip no occasion,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor <i>bate</i> (abate) their hearers of an <i>inch</i>,<a name="FNanchor_MT" id="FNanchor_MT"></a><a href="#Footnote_MT" class="fnanchor">[MT]</a></p> +<p>But take an ell—and make a great sensation,</p> +<p class="i2">If possible; and thirdly, never flinch</p> +<p>When some smart talker puts them to the test,</p> +<p>But seize the last word, which no doubt's the best.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts;</p> +<p class="i2">The party we have touched on were the guests.</p> +<p>Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts</p> +<p class="i2">To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[512]</a></span></p> +<p>I will not dwell upon <i>ragoûts</i> or roasts,</p> +<p class="i2">Albeit all human history attests</p> +<p>That happiness for Man—the hungry sinner!—</p> +<p>Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Witness the lands which "flowed with milk and honey,"</p> +<p class="i2">Held out unto the hungry Israelites:</p> +<p>To this we have added since, the love of money,</p> +<p class="i2">The only sort of pleasure which requites.</p> +<p>Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny;</p> +<p class="i2">We tire of mistresses and parasites;</p> +<p>But oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who would lose thee?</p> +<p>When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot,</p> +<p class="i2">Or hunt: the young, because they liked the sport—</p> +<p>The first thing boys like after play and fruit;</p> +<p class="i2">The middle-aged, to make the day more short;</p> +<p>For <i>ennui</i><a name="FNanchor_699" id="FNanchor_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_699" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> is a growth of English root,</p> +<p class="i2">Though nameless in our language:—we retort</p> +<p>The fact for words, and let the French translate</p> +<p>That awful yawn which sleep can not abate.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The elderly walked through the library,</p> +<p class="i2">And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures,</p> +<p>Or sauntered through the gardens piteously,</p> +<p class="i2">And made upon the hot-house several strictures,</p> +<p>Or rode a nag which trotted not too high,</p> +<p class="i2">Or on the morning papers read their lectures,</p> +<p>Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix,</p> +<p>Longing at sixty for the hour of six.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But none were <i>gêné</i>: the great hour of union</p> +<p class="i2">Was rung by dinner's knell; till then all were</p> +<p>Masters of their own time—or in communion,</p> +<p class="i2">Or solitary, as they chose to bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[513]</a></span></p> +<p>The hours, which how to pass is but to few known.</p> +<p class="i2">Each rose up at his own, and had to spare</p> +<p>What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast</p> +<p>When, where, and how he chose for that repast.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The ladies—some rouged, some a little pale—</p> +<p class="i2">Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode,</p> +<p>Or walked; if foul, they read, or told a tale,</p> +<p class="i2">Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad;</p> +<p>Discussed the fashion which might next prevail,</p> +<p class="i2">And settled bonnets by the newest code,</p> +<p>Or crammed twelve sheets into one little letter,</p> +<p>To make each correspondent a new debtor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For some had absent lovers, all had friends;</p> +<p class="i2">The earth has nothing like a she epistle,</p> +<p>And hardly Heaven—because it never ends—</p> +<p class="i2">I love the mystery of a female missal,</p> +<p>Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends,</p> +<p class="i2">But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle,<a name="FNanchor_MU" id="FNanchor_MU"></a><a href="#Footnote_MU" class="fnanchor">[MU]</a></p> +<p>When he allured poor Dolon:<a name="FNanchor_700" id="FNanchor_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_700" class="fnanchor">[700]</a>—you had better</p> +<p>Take care what you reply to such a letter.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there were billiards; cards, too, but <i>no</i> dice;—</p> +<p class="i2">Save in the clubs no man of honour plays;—</p> +<p>Boats when 't was water, skating when 't was ice,</p> +<p class="i2">And the hard frost destroyed the scenting days:</p> +<p>And angling, too, that solitary vice,</p> +<p class="i2">Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says:</p> +<p>The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet</p> +<p>Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.<a name="FNanchor_701" id="FNanchor_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_701" class="fnanchor">[701]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[514]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With evening came the banquet and the wine;</p> +<p class="i2">The conversazione—the duet</p> +<p>Attuned by voices more or less divine</p> +<p class="i2">(My heart or head aches with the memory yet).</p> +<p>The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine;</p> +<p class="i2">But the two youngest loved more to be set</p> +<p>Down to the harp—because to Music's charms</p> +<p>They added graceful necks, white hands and arms.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days,</p> +<p class="i2">For then the gentlemen were rather tired)</p> +<p>Displayed some sylph-like figures in its maze;</p> +<p class="i2">Then there was small-talk ready when required;</p> +<p>Flirtation—but decorous; the mere praise</p> +<p class="i2">Of charms that should or should not be admired.</p> +<p>The hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er again,</p> +<p>And then retreated soberly—at ten.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The politicians, in a nook apart,</p> +<p class="i2">Discussed the World, and settled all the spheres:</p> +<p>The wits watched every loophole for their art,</p> +<p class="i2">To introduce a <i>bon-mot</i> head and ears;</p> +<p>Small is the rest of those who would be smart,</p> +<p class="i2">A moment's good thing may have cost them years</p> +<p>Before they find an hour to introduce it;</p> +<p>And then, even <i>then</i>, some bore may make them lose it.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[515]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But all was gentle and aristocratic</p> +<p class="i2">In this our party; polished, smooth, and cold,</p> +<p>As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic.</p> +<p class="i2">There now are no Squire Westerns, as of old;</p> +<p>And our Sophias are not so emphatic,</p> +<p class="i2">But fair as then, or fairer to behold:</p> +<p>We have no accomplished blackguards, like Tom Jones,</p> +<p>But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They separated at an early hour;</p> +<p class="i2">That is, ere midnight—which is London's noon:</p> +<p>But in the country ladies seek their bower</p> +<p class="i2">A little earlier than the waning moon.</p> +<p>Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower—</p> +<p class="i2">May the rose call back its true colour soon!</p> +<p>Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters,</p> +<p>And lower the price of rouge—at least some winters.<a name="FNanchor_702" id="FNanchor_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_653" id="Footnote_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> Fy. 12<sup>th</sup> 1823.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_654" id="Footnote_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> <a name="Note_482" id="Note_482"></a>{482}[The allusion is to the refrain of Canning's verses +on Pitt, "The Pilot that weathered the storm." Compare, too, "The daring +pilot in extremity" (i.e. the Earl of Shaftesbury), who "sought the +storms" (Dryden's <i>Absalom and Achitophel</i>, lines 159-161).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_655" id="Footnote_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> [Johnson loved "dear, dear Bathurst," because he was "a +very good hater."—See Boswell's <i>Johnson</i>, 1876, p. 78 (Croker's +<i>footnote</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_656" id="Footnote_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> <a name="Note_483" id="Note_483"></a>{483}[So, too, Charles Kingsley, in <i>Westward Ho!</i> ii. +299, 300, calls <i>Don Quixote</i> "the saddest of books in spite of all its +wit."—<i>Notes and Queries</i>, Second Series, iii. 124.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LX" id="Footnote_LX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LX"><span class="label">[LX]</span></a> <i>By that great Epic</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_657" id="Footnote_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> <a name="Note_484" id="Note_484"></a>{484}["Your husband is in his old lunes again." <i>Merry +Wives of Windsor</i>, act iv. sc. 2, lines 16, 17.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_658" id="Footnote_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> ["Davus sum, non Oedipus." Terence, <i>Andria,</i> act i. sc. +2, line 23.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_659" id="Footnote_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> +<a name="Note_485" id="Note_485"></a>{485}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["'T is not in mortals to command success,</p> +<p>But we'll do more, Sempronius—we'll deserve it."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Addison's <i>Cato</i>, act i. sc. 2, ed. 1777, ii. 77.]</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_660" id="Footnote_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> <a name="Note_487" id="Note_487"></a>{487}[Compare—"The colt that's backed and burthened +being young." <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, lxx. line 5.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_661" id="Footnote_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661"><span class="label">[661]</span></a> [To "break square," or "squares," is to interrupt the +regular order, as in the proverbial phrase, "It breaks no squares," i.e. +does no harm—does not matter. Compare Sterne, <i>Tristram Shandy</i> (1802), +ii. v. 152, "This fault in Trim <i>broke no squares</i> with them" (<i>N. Engl. +Dict.</i>, art. "Break," No. 46). The origin of the phrase is uncertain, +but it may, perhaps, refer to military tactics. Shakespeare (<i>Henry V.</i>, +act iv. sc. 2, line 28) speaks of "squares of battle."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_662" id="Footnote_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"With every thing that pretty <i>bin</i>,</p> +<p>My lady sweet, arise."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Cymbeline</i>, act ii. sc. 3, lines, 25, 26. +</p><p> +[So Warburton and Hanmer. The folio reads "that pretty is." See Knight's +<i>Shakespeare</i>, Pictorial Edition, <i>Tragedies</i>, i. 203.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_663" id="Footnote_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663"><span class="label">[663]</span></a> <a name="Note_488" id="Note_488"></a>{488}[The house which Byron occupied, 1815-1816, No. 13, +Piccadilly Terrace, was the property of Elizabeth, Duchess of +Devonshire.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LY" id="Footnote_LY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LY"><span class="label">[LY]</span></a> +<a name="Note_489" id="Note_489"></a>{489}</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>The slightest obstacle which may encumber</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>The path downhill is something grand</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_LZ" id="Footnote_LZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_LZ"><span class="label">[LZ]</span></a> <i>Not even in fools who howsoever blind</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MA" id="Footnote_MA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MA"><span class="label">[MA]</span></a> <a name="Note_490" id="Note_490"></a>{490} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>That anything is new to a Chinese</i>;</p> +<p><i>And such is Europe's fashionable ease</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MB" id="Footnote_MB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MB"><span class="label">[MB]</span></a> <a name="Note_491" id="Note_491"></a>{491}<i>A hidden wine beneath an icy presence</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MC" id="Footnote_MC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MC"><span class="label">[MC]</span></a> <i>Though this we hope has been reserved for this +age</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_664" id="Footnote_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> ["For the creed of Zoroaster," see Sir Walter Scott, +<i>Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft</i>, 1830, pp. 87, 88. (See, too, +<i>Cain</i>, act ii. sc. 2, line 404, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 254, note +2.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_665" id="Footnote_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> <a name="Note_492" id="Note_492"></a>{492}"Arcades ambo." [Virgil, <i>Bucol.</i>, Ecl. vii. 4.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_666" id="Footnote_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> <a name="Note_493" id="Note_493"></a>{493}[So travel the rich.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MD" id="Footnote_MD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MD"><span class="label">[MD]</span></a> <a name="Note_494" id="Note_494"></a>{494}<i>—the noble host intends</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_667" id="Footnote_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> ["Judicious drank, and greatly-daring dined." Pope, +<i>Dunciad</i>, iv. 318.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_668" id="Footnote_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> <a name="Note_495" id="Note_495"></a>{495}[Byron's description of the place of his +inheritance, which was to know him no more, is sketched from memory, but +it unites the charm of a picture with the accuracy of a ground-plan. +Eight years had gone by since he had looked his last on "venerable arch" +and "lucid lake" (see "Epistle to Augusta," stanza viii. lines 7, 8), +but he had not forgotten, he could not forget, that enchanted and +enchanting scene. +</p><p> +Newstead Abbey or Priory was founded by Henry II., by way of deodand or +expiation for the murder of Thomas Becket. Lands which bordered the +valley of the Leen, and which had formed part of Sherwood Forest, were +assigned for the use and endowment of a chapter of "black canons regular +of the order of St. Augustine," and on a site, by the river-side to the +south of the forest uplands (stanza lv. lines 5-8) the new stede, or +place, or station, arose. It was a "Norman Abbey" (stanza lv. line 1) +which the Black Canons dedicated to Our Lady, and, here and there, in +the cloisters, traces of Norman architecture remain, but the enlargement +and completion of the monastery was carried out in successive stages and +"transition periods," in a style or styles which, perhaps, more by hap +than by cunning, Byron rightly named "mixed Gothic" (stanza lv. line 4). +To work their mills, and perhaps to drain the marshy valley, the monks +dammed the Leen and excavated a chain of lakes—the largest to the +north-west, Byron's "lucid lake;" a second to the south of the Abbey; +and a third, now surrounded with woods, and overlooked by the "wicked +lord's" "ragged rock" below the Abbey, half a mile to the south-east. +The "cascade," which flows over and through a stone-work sluice, and +forms a rocky water-fall, issues from the upper lake, and is in full +view of the west front of the Abbey. Almost at right angles to these +lakes are three ponds: the Forest Pond to the north of the stone wall, +which divides the garden from the forest; the square "Eagle" Pond in the +Monks' Garden; and the narrow stew-pond, bordered on either side with +overhanging yews, which drains into the second or Garden Lake. Byron +does not enlarge on this double chain of lakes and ponds, and, perhaps +for the sake of pictorial unity, converts the second (if a second then +existed) and third lakes into a river. +</p><p> +The Abbey, which, at the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, was handed +over by Henry VIII. to Sir John Byron, "steward and warden of the forest +of Shirewood," was converted, here and there, more or less, into a +baronial "mansion" (stanza lxvi.). It is, roughly speaking, a square +block of buildings, flanking the sides of a grassy quadrangle. +Surrounding the quadrangle are two-storied cloisters, and in the centre +a "Gothic fountain" (stanza lxv. line 1) of composite workmanship. The +upper portion of the stonework is hexagonal, and is ornamented with a +double row of gargoyles (all "monsters" and no "saints," recalling, +perhaps identical with, the "seven deadly sins" gargoyles, still <i>in +situ</i> in the quadrangle of Magdalen College, Oxford); the lower half, +which belongs to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, is hollowed into +niches of a Roman or classical design. (In Byron's time the fountain +stood in a courtyard in front of the Abbey, but before he composed this +canto it had been restored by Colonel Wildman to its original place +within the quadrangle. Byron was acquainted with the change, and writes +accordingly.) When the Byrons took possession of the Abbey the upper +stories of the cloisters were converted, on three sides of the +quadrangle, into galleries, and on the fourth, the north side, into a +library. Abutting on the cloisters are the monastic buildings proper, in +part transformed, but with "much of the monastic" preserved. On the +west, the front of the Abbey, the ground floor consists of the entrance +hall and Monks' Parlour, and, above, the Guests' Refectory or +Banqueting-hall, and the Prior's Parlour. On the south, the Xenodochium +or Guesten Hall, and, above, the Monks' Refectory, or Grand +Drawing-room; on the south and east, on the ground floor, the Prior's +Lodgings, the Chapter House ("the exquisite small chapel," stanza lxvi. +line 5), the "slype" or passage between church and Chapter House; and in +the upper story, the state bedrooms, named after the kings, Edward III., +Henry VII., etc., who, by the terms of the grant of land to the Prior +and Canons, were entitled to free quarters in the Abbey. During Byron's +brief tenure of Newstead, and for long years before, these "huge halls, +long galleries, and spacious chambers" (stanza lxxvii. line 1) were half +dismantled, and in a more or less ruinous condition. A few pictures +remained on the walls of the Great Drawing-room, of the Prior's Parlour, +and in the apartments of the south-east wing or annexe, which dates from +the seventeenth century (see the account of a visit to Newstead in 1812, +in <i>Beauties of England and Wales</i>, 1813, xii. 401-405). There are and +were portraits, by Lely (stanza lxviii. line 7), of a Lady Byron, of +Fanny Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel, "loveliness personified," of Mrs. +Hughes, and of Nell Gwynne; by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of William and Mary; +by unnamed artists, of George I. and George II.; and by Ramsay, of +George III. There are portraits of a fat Prior, William Sandall, with a +jewelled reliquary; of "Sir John the Little with the Great Beard," who +ruled in the Prior's stead; and there is the portrait, a votive tablet +of penitence and remorse, "of that Lord Arundel Who struck in heat the +child he loved so well" (see "A Picture at Newstead," by Matthew Arnold, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1890, p. 177); but of portraits of judges or bishops, +or of pictures by old masters, there is neither trace nor record. +</p><p> +But the characteristic feature of Newstead Abbey, so familiar that +description seems unnecessary, and, yet, never quite accurately +described, is the west front of the Priory Church, which is in line with +the west front of the Abbey. "Half apart," the southern portion of this +front, which abuts on the windows of the Prior's Parlour, and the room +above, where Byron slept, flanks and conceals the west end of the north +cloisters and library; but, with this exception, it is a screen, and +nothing more. In the centre is the "mighty window" (stanza lxii. line +1), shorn of glass and tracery; above are six lancet windows (which +Byron seems to have regarded as niches), and, above again, in a "higher +niche" (stanza lxi. line 1), is the crowned Virgin with the Babe in her +arms, which escaped, as by a miracle, the "fiery darts"—the shot and +cannon-balls of the Cromwellian troopers. On either side of the central +window are "two blank windows containing tracery ['geometrical +decorated'] ... carved [in relief] on the solid ashlar;" on either side +of the window, and at the northern and southern extremities of the +front, are buttresses with canopied niches, in each of which a saint or +apostle must once have stood. Over the west door there is the mutilated +figure of (?) the Saviour, but of twelve saints or twelve niches there +is no trace. The "grand arch" is an ivy-clad screen, and nothing more. +Behind and beyond, in place of vanished nave, of aisle and transept, is +the smooth green turf; and at the east end, on the site of the high +altar, stands the urn-crowned masonry of Boatswain's tomb. +</p><p> +Newstead Abbey was sold by Lord Byron to his old schoolfellow, Colonel +Thomas Wildman, in November, 1817. The house and property were resold in +1861, by his widow, to William Frederick Webb, Esq., a traveller in many +lands, the friend and host of David Livingstone. At his death the estate +was inherited by his daughter, Miss Geraldine Webb, who was married to +General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside, G.C.M.G., etc., Governor of +Queensland, in 1899. +</p><p> +For Newstead Abbey, see <i>Beauties of England and Wales</i>, 1813, xii. Part +I. 401-405 (often reprinted without acknowledgment); <i>Abbotsford and +Newstead Abbey</i>, by Washington Irving, 1835; <i>Journal of the +Archaeological Association</i> (papers by T.J. Pettigrew, F.R.S., and +Arthur Ashpitel, F.S.A.), 1854, vol. ix. pp. 14-39; and <i>A Souvenir of +Newstead Abbey</i> (illustrated by a series of admirable photographs), by +Richard Allen, Nottingham, 1874, etc., etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_669" id="Footnote_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> <a name="Note_497" id="Note_497"></a>{497}[The woodlands were sacrificed to the needs or +fancies of Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked Lord." One splendid oak, +known as the "Pilgrim's Oak," which stood and stands near the north +lodge of the park, near the "Hut," was bought in by the neighbouring +gentry, and made over to the estate. Perhaps by the Druid oak Byron +meant to celebrate this "last of the clan," which, in his day, before +the woods were replanted, must have stood out in solitary grandeur.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_670" id="Footnote_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> <a name="Note_498" id="Note_498"></a>{498}[Compare "Epistle to Augusta," stanza x. line 1, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, iv. 68.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_671" id="Footnote_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> [The little wood which Byron planted at the south-east +corner of the upper or "Stable" Lake, known as "Poet's Corner," still +slopes to the water's brink. Nor have the wild-fowl diminished. The +lower of the three lakes is specially reserved as a breeding-place.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ME" id="Footnote_ME"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ME"><span class="label">[ME]</span></a> <i>Its shriller echo</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MF" id="Footnote_MF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MF"><span class="label">[MF]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Which sympathized with Time's and Tempest's march,</i></p> +<p><i>In gazing on that high and haughty Arch</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_672" id="Footnote_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> <a name="Note_499" id="Note_499"></a>{499}[See lines "On Leaving Newstead Abbey," stanza 5, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 3, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MG" id="Footnote_MG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MG"><span class="label">[MG]</span></a> <i>But in the stillness of the moon</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_673" id="Footnote_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> +<a name="Note_500" id="Note_500"></a>{500}[<i>Vide ante</i>, <i>The Deformed Transformed</i>, Part I. line +532, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 497.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_674" id="Footnote_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> This is not a frolic invention: it is useless to specify +the spot, or in what county, but I have heard it both alone and in +company with those who will never hear it more. It can, of course, be +accounted for by some natural or accidental cause, but it was a strange +sound, and unlike any other I have ever heard (and I have heard many +above and below the surface of the earth produced in ruins, etc., etc., +or caverns).—[MS.] +</p><p> +["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at rare intervals, but it is +difficult to believe that the "huge arch" can act as an Æolian harp. +Perhaps the smaller lancet windows may vocalize the wind.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MH" id="Footnote_MH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MH"><span class="label">[MH]</span></a> <a name="Note_501" id="Note_501"></a>{501}<i>Prouder of such a toy than of their breed</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_675" id="Footnote_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> <a name="Note_502" id="Note_502"></a>{502}Salvator Rosa. The wicked necessity of rhyming +obliges me to adapt the name to the verse.—[MS.] +</p><p> +[Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue,</p> +<p>Or <i>savage</i> Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Thomson's <i>Castle of Indolence</i>, Canto I. stanza xxxviii. lines 8, 9.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_676" id="Footnote_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> If I err not, "your Dane" is one of Iago's catalogue of +nations "exquisite in their drinking." +</p><p> +["Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander—drink hoa! +are nothing to your English." "Is your Englishman so exquisite in his +drinking?" (So Collier and Knight. The Quarto reads +"expert").—<i>Othello</i>, act ii. sc. 3, lines 71-74.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MI" id="Footnote_MI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MI"><span class="label">[MI]</span></a></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>His bell-mouthed goblet—and his laughing group</i></p> +<p><i>Provoke my thirst—what ho! a flask of Rhenish</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MJ" id="Footnote_MJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MJ"><span class="label">[MJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_503" id="Note_503"></a>{503}<i>Hath yet at night the very best of wines.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_677" id="Footnote_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> ["Sea-coal" (i.e. Newcastle coal), as distinguished from +"charcoal" and "earth-coal." But the qualification must have been +unusual and old-fashioned in 1822. "Earth-coal" is found in large +quantities on the Newstead estate, and the Abbey, far below its +foundations, is tunnelled by a coal-drift.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_678" id="Footnote_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> [See Gray's <i>omitted</i> stanza— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"'Here scatter'd oft, <i>the earliest</i> of the year,</p> +<p class="i2">By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;</p> +<p class="i2">The red-breast loves to build and warble here,</p> +<p class="i2">And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'</p> +</div></div> +<p> +As fine ... as any in his Elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart +to omit it."—"Extracts from a Diary," February 27, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, +1901, v. 210. The stanza originally preceded the Epitaph.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_679" id="Footnote_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> <a name="Note_504" id="Note_504"></a>{504}In Assyria. [See <i>Daniel</i> iii. 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MK" id="Footnote_MK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MK"><span class="label">[MK]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i15">—— <i>she hath the tame</i></p> +<p><i>Preserved within doors—why not make them Game?</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_680" id="Footnote_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> [It is difficult, if not impossible, to furnish a clue to +the names of all the guests at Norman Abbey. Some who are included in +this ghostly "house-party" seem to be, and, perhaps, were meant to be, +<i>nomina umbrarum</i>; and others are, undoubtedly, contemporary +celebrities, under a more or less transparent disguise. A few of these +shadows have been substantiated (<i>vide infra, et post</i>), but the greater +part decline to be materialized or verified.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ML" id="Footnote_ML"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ML"><span class="label">[ML]</span></a>—— <i>the Countess Squabby.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_681" id="Footnote_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> [Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of Cork and +Orrery: "Dowager Cork," "Old Corky," of Joseph Jekyll's +<i>Correspondence</i>, 1894, pp. 83, 275.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_682" id="Footnote_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> [Mrs. Rabbi may be Mrs. Coutts, the Mrs. Million of +<i>Vivian Grey</i> (1826, i. 183), who arrived at "Château Desir in a crimson +silk pelisse, hat and feathers, with diamond ear-rings, and a rope of +gold round her neck."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_683" id="Footnote_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> <a name="Note_505" id="Note_505"></a>{505}[Lie, lye, or ley, is a solution of potassium salts +obtained by bleaching wood-ashes. Byron seems to have confused "lie" +with "lee," i.e. dregs, sediment.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_684" id="Footnote_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> [<i>"Aroint thee, witch!</i> the rump-fed ronyon cries." +<i>Macbeth</i>, act ii. sc. 3, line 6.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MM" id="Footnote_MM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MM"><span class="label">[MM]</span></a> <i>Or (to come to the point, like my friend Pulci)</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_685" id="Footnote_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> [Hor., <i>Epist. Ad Pisones</i>, line 343.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MN" id="Footnote_MN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MN"><span class="label">[MN]</span></a>—— <i>by fear or flattery</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_686" id="Footnote_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> Siria, i.e. bitch-star.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MO" id="Footnote_MO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MO"><span class="label">[MO]</span></a> <i>I have seen—no matter what—we now shall see</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_687" id="Footnote_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> +<a name="Note_506" id="Note_506"></a>{506}[Parolles [see <i>All's Well that Ends Well</i>, <i>passim</i>] +is Brougham (<i>vide ante</i>, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I. <a href="#Footnote_83">pp. 67-69</a>). It +is possible that this stanza was written after the Canto as a whole was +finished. But, if not, an incident which took place in the House of +Commons, April 17, 1823, during a debate on Catholic Emancipation, may +be quoted in corroboration of Brougham's unreadiness with regard to the +point of honour. In the course of his speech he accused Canning of +"monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office," and Canning, +without waiting for Brougham to finish, gave him the lie: "I rise to say +that that is false" (<i>Parl. Deb.</i>, N.S. vol. 8, p. 1091). +</p><p> +There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and +quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were +given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware +that the "old order" had passed or was passing. Compare Hazlitt, in <i>The +Spirit of the Age</i>, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous, +but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to +the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of +harm's way and escape from the danger;" and Mr. Parthenopex Puff (W. +Stewart Rose), in <i>Vivian Grey</i> (1826, i. 186, 187), "Oh! he's a +prodigious fellow! What do you think Booby says? he says, that Foaming +Fudge [Brougham] can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had +one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the +House, and fight a duel—and that he found time for everything but the +<i>last</i>."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MP" id="Footnote_MP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MP"><span class="label">[MP]</span></a> <i>There was, too, Henry B</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_688" id="Footnote_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> [In his Journal for December 5, 1813, Byron writes: "The +Duke of —— called.... His Grace is a good, noble, ducal person" +(<i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 361). Possibly the earlier "Duke of Dash" was +William Spencer, sixth Duke of Devonshire, an old schoolfellow of +Byron's, who was eager to renew the acquaintance (<i>Letters</i>, 1899, iii. +98, note 2); and, if so, he may be reckoned as one of the guests of +"Norman Abbey."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_689" id="Footnote_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> <a name="Note_507" id="Note_507"></a>{507}[Gronow (<i>Reminiscences</i>, 1889, i. 234-240) +identifies the <i>Chevalier de la Ruse</i> with Casimir Comte de Montrond +(1768-1843), back-stairs diplomatist, wit, gambler, and man of fashion. +He was the lifelong companion, if not friend, of Talleyrand, who pleaded +for him: "Qui est-ce qui ne l'aimerait pas, il est si vicieux!" At one +time in the pay of Napoleon, he fell under his displeasure, and, to +avoid arrest, spent two years of exile (1812-14) in England. "He was +not," says Gronow, "a great talker, nor did he swagger ... or laugh at +his own <i>bons-mots</i>. He was demure, sleek, sly, and dangerous.... In the +London clubs he went by the name of Old French." He was a constant guest +of the Duke of York's at Oatlands, "and won much at his whist-table" +(<i>English Whist</i>, by W.P. Courtney, 1894, p. 181). For his second +residence in England, and for a sketch by D'Orsay, see <i>A Portion of the +Journal, etc.</i>, by Thomas Raikes, 1857, frontispiece to vol. iv., <i>et</i> +vols. i.-iv. <i>passim</i>. See, for biographical notice, <i>L'Ami de M. de +Talleyrand</i>, par Henri Welschinger, <i>La Revue de Paris</i>, 1895, Fev., +tom. i. pp. 640-654.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_690" id="Footnote_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> [Perhaps Sir James Mackintosh—a frequent guest at +Holland House.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_691" id="Footnote_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> <a name="Note_508" id="Note_508"></a>{508}[Possibly Colonel (afterwards Sir James) Macdonell +[d. 1857], "a man of colossal stature," who occupied and defended the +Château of Hougoumont on the night before the battle of Waterloo. (See +Gronow, <i>Reminiscences</i>, 1889, i. 76, 77.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_692" id="Footnote_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> [Sir George Prevost (1767-1816), the Governor-General of +British North America, and nominally Commander-in-chief of the Army in +the second American War, contributed, by his excess of caution, +supineness, and delay, to the humiliation of the British forces. The +particular allusion is to his alleged inaction at a critical moment in +the engagement of September 11, 1814, between Commodore Macdonough and +Captain Downie in Plattsburg Bay. "A letter was sent to Capt. Downie, +strongly urging him to come on, as the army had long been waiting for +his co-operation.... The brave Downie replied that he required no urging +to do his duty.... He was as good as his word. The guns were scaled when +he got under way, upon hearing which Sir George issued an <i>order</i> for +the troops to <i>cook</i>, instead of <i>that of instant co-operation</i>."—To +Editor of the <i>Montreal Herald</i>, May 23, 1815, <i>Letters of Veritas</i>, +1815, pp. 116, 117. See, too, <i>The Quarterly Review</i>, July, 1822, vol. +xxvii. p. 446.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_693" id="Footnote_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> [George Hardinge (1744-1816), who was returned M.P. for +Old Sarum in 1784, was appointed, in 1787, Senior Justice of the +Counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. According to the <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>, 1816 (vol. lxxxvi. p. 563), "In conversation he had few +equals.... He delighted in pleasantries, and always afforded to his +auditors abundance of mirth and entertainment as well as information." +Byron seems to have supposed that these "pleasantries" found their way +into his addresses to condemned prisoners, but if the charges printed in +his <i>Miscellaneous Works</i>, edited by John Nichols in 1818, are reported +in full, he was entirely mistaken. They are tedious, but the "waggery" +is conspicuous by its absence.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MQ" id="Footnote_MQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MQ"><span class="label">[MQ]</span></a> <a name="Note_509" id="Note_509"></a>{509}<i>With all his laurels growing upon one tree</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_694" id="Footnote_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> [John Philpot Curran (1750-1817). "Did you know Curran?" +asked Byron of Lady Blessington (<i>Conversations</i>, 1834, p. 176); "he was +the most wonderful person I ever saw. In him was combined an imagination +the most brilliant and profound, with a flexibility and wit that would +have justified the observation applied to——that his heart was in his +head." (See, too, <i>Detached Thoughts</i>, No. 24, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. +421.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_695" id="Footnote_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> [For Thomas Lord Erskine (1750-1823), see <i>Letters</i>, +1898, ii. 390, note 5. See, too, <i>Detached Thoughts</i>, No. 93, <i>Letters</i>, +1901, v. 455, 456. In his <i>Spirit of the Age</i>, 1825, pp. 297, 298, +Hazlitt contrasts "the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit of a +Curran ... the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy of a Burke," +with the "dashing and graceful manner" which concealed the poverty and +"deadness" of the matter of Erskine's speeches.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MR" id="Footnote_MR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MR"><span class="label">[MR]</span></a> <a name="Note_510" id="Note_510"></a>{510} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">—— <i>all classes mostly pull</i></p> +<p><i>At the same oar</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_696" id="Footnote_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> <a name="Note_511" id="Note_511"></a>{511}["Mrs. Adams answered Mr. Adams, that it was +blasphemous to talk of Scripture out of church." This dogma was broached +to her husband—the best Christian in any book.—See <i>The History of the +Adventures of Joseph Andrews</i>, Bk. IV. chap. xi. ed. 1876, p. 324.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MS" id="Footnote_MS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MS"><span class="label">[MS]</span></a> <i>—— in the ripe age.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_697" id="Footnote_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> [Probably Richard Sharp (1759-1835), known as +"Conversation Sharp." Byron frequently met him in society in 1813-14, +and in "Extracts from a Diary," January 9, 1821, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, v. +161, describes him as "the Conversationist." He visited Byron at the +Villa Diodati in the autumn of 1816 (<i>Life</i>, p. 323).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_698" id="Footnote_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> [<i>Hamlet</i>, act i. sc. 5, line 22.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MT" id="Footnote_MT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MT"><span class="label">[MT]</span></a> <i>Nor bate (read bait)</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_699" id="Footnote_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> <a name="Note_512" id="Note_512"></a>{512}[See letters to the Earl of Blessington, April 5, +1823, <i>Letters</i>, 1891, vi. 187.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MU" id="Footnote_MU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MU"><span class="label">[MU]</span></a> <a name="Note_513" id="Note_513"></a>{513} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>But full of wisdom</i>——.—[MS.]</p> +<p><i>A sort of rose entwining with a thistle</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_700" id="Footnote_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> [<i>Iliad</i>, x. 341, sq.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_701" id="Footnote_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> It would have taught him humanity at least. This +sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) +to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to +sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to +the art of angling,—the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of +pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the +angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his +eyes from off the streams, and a single <i>bite</i> is worth to him more than +all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The +whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and +perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, etc., are more humane and +useful. But angling!—no angler can be a good man. +</p><p> +"One of the best men I ever knew,—as humane, delicate-minded, generous, +and excellent a creature as any in the world,—was an angler: true, he +angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the +extravagancies of I. Walton." +</p><p> +The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.—"Audi +alteram partem."—I leave it to counter-balance my own observation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_702" id="Footnote_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> <a name="Note_515" id="Note_515"></a>{515}B. Fy. 19<sup>th</sup> 1823.—[MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[516]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_FOURTEENTH" id="CANTO_THE_FOURTEENTH"></a> +CANTO THE FOURTEENTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> from great Nature's or our own abyss<a name="FNanchor_703" id="FNanchor_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_703" class="fnanchor">[703]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Of Thought we could but snatch a certainty,</p> +<p>Perhaps Mankind might find the path they miss—</p> +<p class="i2">But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.</p> +<p>One system eats another up, and this<a name="FNanchor_704" id="FNanchor_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;</p> +<p>For when his pious consort gave him stones</p> +<p>In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,</p> +<p class="i2">And eats her parents, albeit the digestion</p> +<p>Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,</p> +<p class="i2">After due search, your faith to any question?</p> +<p>Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast</p> +<p class="i2">You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.</p> +<p>Nothing more true than <i>not</i> to trust your senses;</p> +<p>And yet what are your other evidences?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>For me, I know nought; nothing I deny,</p> +<p class="i2">Admit—reject—contemn: and what know <i>you</i>,</p> +<p>Except perhaps that you were born to die?</p> +<p class="i2">And both may after all turn out untrue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[517]</a></span></p> +<p>An age may come, Font of Eternity,</p> +<p class="i2">When nothing shall be either old or new.</p> +<p>Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep,</p> +<p>And yet a third of Life is passed in sleep.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A sleep without dreams, after a rough day</p> +<p class="i2">Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet</p> +<p>How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!</p> +<p class="i2">The very Suicide that pays his debt</p> +<p>At once without instalments (an old way</p> +<p class="i2">Of paying debts, which creditors regret),</p> +<p>Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,</p> +<p>Less from disgust of Life than dread of Death.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is round him—near him—here—there—everywhere—</p> +<p class="i2">And there's a courage which grows out of fear,</p> +<p>Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare</p> +<p class="i2">The worst to <i>know</i> it:—when the mountains rear</p> +<p>Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there</p> +<p class="i2">You look down o'er the precipice, and drear</p> +<p>The gulf of rock yawns,—you can't gaze a minute,</p> +<p>Without an awful wish to plunge within it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is true, you don't—but, pale and struck with terror,</p> +<p class="i2">Retire: but look into your past impression!</p> +<p>And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror</p> +<p class="i2">Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,</p> +<p>The lurking bias,<a name="FNanchor_705" id="FNanchor_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_705" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> be it truth or error,</p> +<p class="i2">To the <i>unknown</i>; a secret prepossession,</p> +<p>To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,</p> +<p>And that's the reason why you do—or do not.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what's this to the purpose? you will say.</p> +<p class="i2">Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[518]</a></span></p> +<p>For which my sole excuse is—'t is my way;</p> +<p class="i2">Sometimes <i>with</i> and sometimes without occasion,</p> +<p>I write what's uppermost, without delay;</p> +<p class="i2">This narrative is not meant for narration,</p> +<p>But a mere airy and fantastic basis,</p> +<p>To build up common things with common places.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,</p> +<p class="i2">"Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"<a name="FNanchor_706" id="FNanchor_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a></p> +<p>And such a straw, borne on by human breath,</p> +<p class="i2">Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows;</p> +<p>A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and Death,</p> +<p class="i2">A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws:</p> +<p>And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise,</p> +<p>But just to play with, as an infant plays.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The World is all before me<a name="FNanchor_707" id="FNanchor_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_707" class="fnanchor">[707]</a>—or behind;</p> +<p class="i2">For I have seen a portion of that same,</p> +<p>And quite enough for me to keep in mind;—</p> +<p class="i2">Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame,</p> +<p>To the great pleasure of our friends, Mankind,</p> +<p class="i2">Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame;</p> +<p>For I was rather famous in my time,</p> +<p>Until I fairly knocked it up with rhyme.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have brought this world about my ears, and eke</p> +<p class="i2">The other; that's to say, the Clergy—who</p> +<p>Upon my head have bid their thunders break</p> +<p class="i2">In pious libels by no means a few.</p> +<p>And yet I can't help scribbling once a week,</p> +<p class="i2">Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.</p> +<p>In Youth I wrote because my mind was full,</p> +<p>And <i>now</i> because I feel it growing dull.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[519]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But "why then publish?"<a name="FNanchor_708" id="FNanchor_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a>—There are no rewards</p> +<p class="i2">Of fame or profit when the World grows weary.</p> +<p>I ask in turn,—Why do you play at cards?</p> +<p class="i2">Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary.</p> +<p>It occupies me to turn back regards</p> +<p class="i2">On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery;</p> +<p>And what I write I cast upon the stream,</p> +<p>To swim or sink—I have had at least my dream.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think that were I <i>certain</i> of success,</p> +<p class="i2">I hardly could compose another line:</p> +<p>So long I've battled either more or less,</p> +<p class="i2">That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.</p> +<p>This feeling 't is not easy to express,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet 't is not affected, I opine.</p> +<p>In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing—</p> +<p>The one is winning, and the other losing.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction:</p> +<p class="i2">She gathers a repertory of facts,</p> +<p>Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,</p> +<p class="i2">But mostly sings of human things and acts—</p> +<p>And that's one cause she meets with contradiction;</p> +<p class="i2">For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts;</p> +<p>And were her object only what's called Glory,</p> +<p>With more ease too she'd tell a different story.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love—War—a tempest—surely there's variety;</p> +<p class="i2">Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;</p> +<p>A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society;</p> +<p class="i2">A slight glance thrown on men of every station.</p> +<p>If you have nought else, here's at least satiety,</p> +<p class="i2">Both in performance and in preparation;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[520]</a></span></p> +<p>And though these lines should only line portmanteaus,</p> +<p>Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The portion of this World which I at present</p> +<p class="i2">Have taken up to fill the following sermon,</p> +<p>Is one of which there's no description recent:</p> +<p class="i2">The reason why is easy to determine:</p> +<p>Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,</p> +<p class="i2">There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,</p> +<p>A dull and family likeness through all ages,</p> +<p>Of no great promise for poetic pages.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With much to excite, there's little to exalt;</p> +<p class="i2">Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;</p> +<p>A sort of varnish over every fault;</p> +<p class="i2">A kind of common-place, even in their crimes;</p> +<p>Factitious passions—Wit without much salt—</p> +<p class="i2">A want of that true nature which sublimes</p> +<p>Whate'er it shows with Truth; a smooth monotony</p> +<p>Of character, in those at least who have got any.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,</p> +<p class="i2">They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;</p> +<p>But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,</p> +<p class="i2">And they must be or seem what they <i>were</i>: still</p> +<p>Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade:</p> +<p class="i2">But when of the first sight you have had your fill,</p> +<p>It palls—at least it did so upon me,</p> +<p>This paradise of Pleasure and <i>Ennui</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,</p> +<p class="i2">Dressed, voted, shone, and, may be, something more—</p> +<p>With dandies dined—heard senators declaiming—</p> +<p class="i2">Seen beauties brought to market by the score,</p> +<p>Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming—</p> +<p class="i2">There's little left but to be bored or bore.</p> +<p>Witness those <i>ci-devant jeunes hommes</i> who stem</p> +<p>The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[521]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is said—indeed a general complaint—</p> +<p class="i2">That no one has succeeded in describing</p> +<p>The <i>monde</i>, exactly as they ought to paint:</p> +<p class="i2">Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing</p> +<p>The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint,</p> +<p class="i2">To furnish matter for their moral gibing;</p> +<p>And that their books have but one style in common—</p> +<p>My Lady's prattle, filtered through her woman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But this can't well be true, just now; for writers</p> +<p class="i2">Are grown of the <i>beau monde</i> a part potential:</p> +<p>I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially when young, for that's essential.</p> +<p>Why do their sketches fail them as inditers</p> +<p class="i2">Of what they deem themselves most consequential,</p> +<p>The <i>real</i> portrait of the highest tribe?</p> +<p>'T is that—in fact—there's little to describe.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>"Haud ignara loquor;"</i><a name="FNanchor_709" id="FNanchor_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_709" class="fnanchor">[709]</a> these are <i>Nugae</i>, "<i>quarum</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Pars</i> parva <i>fui</i>," but still art and part.</p> +<p>Now I could much more easily sketch a harem,</p> +<p class="i2">A battle, wreck, or history of the heart,</p> +<p>Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em,</p> +<p class="i2">For reasons which I choose to keep apart.</p> +<p><i>"Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit"</i>—<a name="FNanchor_710" id="FNanchor_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a></p> +<p>Which means, that vulgar people must not share it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore what I throw off is ideal—</p> +<p class="i2">Lowered, leavened, like a history of Freemasons,</p> +<p>Which bears the same relation to the real,</p> +<p class="i2">As Captain Parry's Voyage may do to Jason's.</p> +<p>The grand <i>Arcanum</i>'s not for men to see all;</p> +<p class="i2">My music has some mystic diapasons;</p> +<p>And there is much which could not be appreciated</p> +<p>In any manner by the uninitiated.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[522]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! worlds fall—and Woman, since she felled</p> +<p class="i2">The World (as, since that history, less polite</p> +<p>Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held),</p> +<p class="i2">Has not yet given up the practice quite.</p> +<p>Poor Thing of Usages! coerced, compelled,</p> +<p class="i2">Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,</p> +<p>Condemned to child-bed, as men for their sins</p> +<p>Have shaving too entailed upon their chins,—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A daily plague, which in the aggregate</p> +<p class="i2">May average on the whole with parturition.—</p> +<p>But as to women—who can penetrate</p> +<p class="i2">The real sufferings of their she condition?</p> +<p>Man's very sympathy with their estate</p> +<p class="i2">Has much of selfishness, and more suspicion.</p> +<p>Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,</p> +<p>But form good housekeepers—to breed a nation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All this were very well, and can't be better;</p> +<p class="i2">But even this is difficult, Heaven knows,</p> +<p>So many troubles from her birth beset her,</p> +<p class="i2">Such small distinction between friends and foes;</p> +<p>The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter,</p> +<p class="i2">That—but ask any woman if she'd choose</p> +<p>(Take her at thirty, that is) to have been</p> +<p>Female or male? a schoolboy or a Queen?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Petticoat Influence" is a great reproach,</p> +<p class="i2">Which even those who obey would fain be thought</p> +<p>To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;</p> +<p class="i2">But since beneath it upon earth we are brought,</p> +<p>By various joltings of Life's hackney coach,</p> +<p class="i2">I for one venerate a petticoat—</p> +<p>A garment of a mystical sublimity,</p> +<p>No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.<a name="FNanchor_MV" id="FNanchor_MV"></a><a href="#Footnote_MV" class="fnanchor">[MV]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[523]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Much I respect, and much I have adored,</p> +<p class="i2">In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil,</p> +<p>Which holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard,</p> +<p class="i2">And more attracts by all it doth conceal—</p> +<p>A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword,</p> +<p class="i2">A loving letter with a mystic seal,</p> +<p>A cure for grief—for what can ever rankle</p> +<p>Before a petticoat and peeping ankle?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when upon a silent, sullen day,</p> +<p class="i2">With a Sirocco, for example, blowing,</p> +<p>When even the sea looks dim with all its spray,</p> +<p class="i2">And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing,</p> +<p>And the sky shows that very ancient gray,</p> +<p class="i2">The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,—</p> +<p>'T is pleasant, if <i>then</i> anything is pleasant,</p> +<p>To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We left our heroes and our heroines</p> +<p class="i2">In that fair clime which don't depend on climate,</p> +<p>Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,</p> +<p class="i2">Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at,</p> +<p>Because the Sun, and stars, and aught that shines,</p> +<p class="i2">Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,</p> +<p>Are there oft dull and dreary as a <i>dun</i>—</p> +<p>Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>An in-door life is less poetical;</p> +<p class="i2">And out-of-door hath showers, and mists, and sleet</p> +<p>With which I could not brew a pastoral:</p> +<p class="i2">But be it as it may, a bard must meet</p> +<p>All difficulties, whether great or small,</p> +<p class="i2">To spoil his undertaking, or complete—</p> +<p>And work away—like Spirit upon Matter—</p> +<p>Embarrassed somewhat both with fire and water.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan—in this respect, at least, like saints—</p> +<p class="i2">Was all things unto people of all sorts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[524]</a></span></p> +<p>And lived contentedly, without complaints,</p> +<p class="i2">In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts—</p> +<p>Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,</p> +<p class="i2">And mingling modestly in toils or sports.</p> +<p>He likewise could be most things to all women,</p> +<p>Without the coxcombry of certain <i>she</i> men.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;</p> +<p class="i2">'T is also subject to the double danger</p> +<p>Of tumbling first, and having in exchange</p> +<p class="i2">Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:</p> +<p>But Juan had been early taught to range</p> +<p class="i2">The wilds, as doth an Arab turned avenger,</p> +<p>So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,</p> +<p>Knew that he had a rider on his back.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now in this new field, with some applause,</p> +<p class="i2">He cleared hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail,</p> +<p>And never <i>craned</i><a name="FNanchor_711" id="FNanchor_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_711" class="fnanchor">[711]</a> and made but few <i>"faux pas,"</i></p> +<p class="i2">And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail.</p> +<p>He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws</p> +<p class="i2">Of hunting—for the sagest youth is frail;</p> +<p>Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then,</p> +<p>And once o'er several Country Gentlemen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But on the whole, to general admiration,</p> +<p class="i2">He acquitted both himself and horse: the Squires</p> +<p>Marvelled at merit of another nation;</p> +<p class="i2">The boors cried "Dang it! who'd have thought it?"—Sires,</p> +<p>The Nestors of the sporting generation,</p> +<p class="i2">Swore praises, and recalled their former fires;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[525]</a></span></p> +<p>The Huntsman's self relented to a grin,</p> +<p>And rated him almost a whipper-in.<a name="FNanchor_MW" id="FNanchor_MW"></a><a href="#Footnote_MW" class="fnanchor">[MW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Such were his trophies—not of spear and shield,</p> +<p class="i2">But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes;</p> +<p>Yet I must own,—although in this I yield</p> +<p class="i2">To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes,—</p> +<p>He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,</p> +<p class="i2">Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,</p> +<p>And what not, though he rode beyond all price.</p> +<p>Asked next day, "If men ever hunted <i>twice</i>?"<a name="FNanchor_MX" id="FNanchor_MX"></a><a href="#Footnote_MX" class="fnanchor">[MX]</a><a name="FNanchor_712" id="FNanchor_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He also had a quality uncommon</p> +<p class="i2">To early risers after a long chase,</p> +<p>Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon</p> +<p class="i2">December's drowsy day to his dull race,—</p> +<p>A quality agreeable to Woman,</p> +<p class="i2">When her soft, liquid words run on apace,</p> +<p>Who likes a listener, whether Saint or Sinner,—</p> +<p>He did not fall asleep just after dinner;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, light and airy, stood on the alert,</p> +<p class="i2">And shone in the best part of dialogue,</p> +<p>By humouring always what they might assert,</p> +<p class="i2">And listening to the topics most in vogue,</p> +<p>Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;</p> +<p class="i2">And smiling but in secret—cunning rogue!</p> +<p>He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer;—</p> +<p>In short, there never was a better hearer.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[526]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then he danced;—all foreigners excel</p> +<p class="i2">The serious Angles in the eloquence</p> +<p>Of pantomime!—he danced, I say, right well,</p> +<p class="i2">With emphasis, and also with good sense—</p> +<p>A thing in footing indispensable;</p> +<p class="i2">He danced without theatrical pretence,</p> +<p>Not like a ballet-master in the van</p> +<p>Of his drilled nymphs, but like a gentleman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,</p> +<p class="i2">And Elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;</p> +<p>Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimmed the ground,<a name="FNanchor_713" id="FNanchor_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_713" class="fnanchor">[713]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And rather held in than put forth his vigour;</p> +<p>And then he had an ear for Music's sound,</p> +<p class="i2">Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour.</p> +<p>Such classic <i>pas</i>—sans flaws—set off our hero,</p> +<p>He glanced like a personified Bolero;<a name="FNanchor_714" id="FNanchor_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Or like a flying Hour before Aurora,</p> +<p class="i2">In Guido's famous fresco<a name="FNanchor_715" id="FNanchor_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a> (which alone</p> +<p>Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a</p> +<p class="i2">Remnant were there of the old World's sole throne):</p> +<p>The "<i>tout ensemble</i>" of his movements wore a</p> +<p class="i2">Grace of the soft Ideal, seldom shown,</p> +<p>And ne'er to be described; for to the dolour</p> +<p>Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No marvel then he was a favourite;</p> +<p class="i2">A full-grown Cupid,<a name="FNanchor_716" id="FNanchor_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_716" class="fnanchor">[716]</a> very much admired;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[527]</a></span></p> +<p>A little spoilt, but by no means so quite;</p> +<p class="i2">At least he kept his vanity retired.</p> +<p>Such was his tact, he could alike delight</p> +<p class="i2">The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired.</p> +<p>The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved <i>tracasserie</i>,</p> +<p>Began to treat him with some small <i>agacerie</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,</p> +<p class="i2">Desirable, distinguished, celebrated</p> +<p>For several winters in the grand, <i>grand Monde</i>:</p> +<p class="i2">I'd rather not say what might be related</p> +<p>Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;</p> +<p class="i2">Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:</p> +<p>Her late performance had been a dead set</p> +<p>At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This noble personage began to look</p> +<p class="i2">A little black upon this new flirtation;</p> +<p>But such small licences must lovers brook,</p> +<p class="i2">Mere freedoms of the female corporation.</p> +<p>Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke!</p> +<p class="i2">'Twill but precipitate a situation</p> +<p>Extremely disagreeable, but common</p> +<p>To calculators when they count on Woman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The circle smiled, then whispered, and then sneered;</p> +<p class="i2">The misses bridled, and the matrons frowned;</p> +<p>Some hoped things might not turn out as they feared;</p> +<p class="i2">Some would not deem such women could be found;</p> +<p>Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard;</p> +<p class="i2">Some looked perplexed, and others looked profound:</p> +<p>And several pitied with sincere regret</p> +<p>Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what is odd, none ever named the Duke,</p> +<p class="i2">Who, one might think, was something in the affair:</p> +<p>True, he was absent, and, 'twas rumoured, took</p> +<p class="i2">But small concern about the when, or where,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[528]</a></span></p> +<p>Or what his consort did: if he could brook</p> +<p class="i2">Her gaieties, none had a right to stare:</p> +<p>Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt,</p> +<p>Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, oh! that I should ever pen so sad a line!</p> +<p class="i2">Fired with an abstract love of Virtue, she,</p> +<p>My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline,</p> +<p class="i2">Began to think the Duchess' conduct free;</p> +<p>Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line,</p> +<p class="i2">And waxing chiller in her courtesy,</p> +<p>Looked grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,</p> +<p>For which most friends reserve their sensibility.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's nought in this bad world like sympathy:</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis so becoming to the soul and face,</p> +<p>Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,</p> +<p class="i2">And robes sweet Friendship in a Brussels lace.</p> +<p>Without a friend, what were Humanity,</p> +<p class="i2">To hunt our errors up with a good grace?</p> +<p>Consoling us with—"Would you had thought twice!</p> +<p>Ah! if you had but followed my advice!"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially when we are ill at ease;</p> +<p>They're but bad pilots when the weather's rough,</p> +<p class="i2">Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.</p> +<p>Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,</p> +<p class="i2">As they will do like leaves at the first breeze:</p> +<p>When your affairs come round, one way or t' other,</p> +<p>Go to the coffee-house, and take another.<a name="FNanchor_717" id="FNanchor_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[529]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But this is not my maxim: had it been,</p> +<p class="i2">Some heart-aches had been spared me: yet I care not—</p> +<p>I would not be a tortoise in his screen</p> +<p class="i2">Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not:</p> +<p>'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen</p> +<p class="i2">That which Humanity may bear, or bear not:</p> +<p>'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive,</p> +<p>And not to pour their Ocean in a sieve.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,</p> +<p class="i2">Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,</p> +<p>Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so,"</p> +<p class="i2">Uttered by friends, those prophets of the <i>past</i>,</p> +<p>Who, 'stead of saying what you <i>now</i> should do,</p> +<p class="i2">Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,<a name="FNanchor_MY" id="FNanchor_MY"></a><a href="#Footnote_MY" class="fnanchor">[MY]</a></p> +<p>And solace your slight lapse 'gainst <i>bonos mores</i>,</p> +<p>With a long memorandum of old stories.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Lady Adeline's serene severity</p> +<p class="i2">Was not confined to feeling for her friend,</p> +<p>Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless her habits should begin to mend:</p> +<p>But Juan also shared in her austerity,</p> +<p class="i2">But mixed with pity, pure as e'er was penned</p> +<p>His Inexperience moved her gentle ruth,</p> +<p>And (as her junior by six weeks) his Youth.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>These forty days' advantage of her years—</p> +<p class="i2">And hers were those which can face calculation,</p> +<p>Boldly referring to the list of Peers</p> +<p class="i2">And noble births, nor dread the enumeration—</p> +<p>Gave her a right to have maternal fears</p> +<p class="i2">For a young gentleman's fit education,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[530]</a></span></p> +<p>Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap,</p> +<p>In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This may be fixed at somewhere before thirty—</p> +<p class="i2">Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew</p> +<p>The strictest in chronology and virtue</p> +<p class="i2">Advance beyond, while they could pass for new.</p> +<p>O Time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty</p> +<p class="i2">With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew:</p> +<p>Reset it—shave more smoothly, also slower,</p> +<p>If but to keep thy credit as a mower.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline was far from that ripe age,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best:</p> +<p>'Twas rather her Experience made her sage,</p> +<p class="i2">For she had seen the World and stood its test,</p> +<p>As I have said in—I forget what page;</p> +<p class="i2">My Muse despises reference, as you have guessed</p> +<p>By this time;—but strike six from seven-and-twenty,</p> +<p>And you will find her sum of years in plenty.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,</p> +<p class="i2">She put all coronets into commotion:</p> +<p>At seventeen, too, the World was still enchanted</p> +<p class="i2">With the new Venus of their brilliant Ocean:</p> +<p>At eighteen, though below her feet still panted</p> +<p class="i2">A Hecatomb of suitors with devotion,</p> +<p>She had consented to create again</p> +<p>That Adam, called "The happiest of Men."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Since then she had sparkled through three glowing winters,</p> +<p class="i2">Admired, adored; but also so correct,</p> +<p>That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters,</p> +<p class="i2">Without the apparel of being circumspect:</p> +<p>They could not even glean the slightest splinters</p> +<p class="i2">From off the marble, which had no defect.</p> +<p>She had also snatched a moment since her marriage</p> +<p>To bear a son and heir—and one miscarriage.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[531]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her,</p> +<p class="i2">Those little glitterers of the London night;</p> +<p>But none of these possessed a sting to wound her—</p> +<p class="i2">She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight.</p> +<p>Perhaps she wished an aspirant profounder;</p> +<p class="i2">But whatsoe'er she wished, she acted right;</p> +<p>And whether Coldness, Pride, or Virtue dignify</p> +<p>A Woman—so she's good—what <i>does</i> it signify?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle</p> +<p class="i2">Which with the landlord makes too long a stand,</p> +<p>Leaving all-claretless the unmoistened throttle,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially with politics on hand;</p> +<p>I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle,</p> +<p class="i2">Who whirl the dust as Simooms whirl the sand;</p> +<p>I hate it as I hate an argument,</p> +<p>A Laureate's Ode, or servile Peer's "Content."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is sad to hack into the roots of things,</p> +<p class="i2">They are so much intertwisted with the earth;</p> +<p>So that the branch a goodly verdure flings,</p> +<p class="i2">I reck not if an acorn gave it birth.</p> +<p>To trace all actions to their secret springs</p> +<p class="i2">Would make indeed some melancholy mirth:</p> +<p>But this is not at present my concern,</p> +<p>And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.<a name="FNanchor_718" id="FNanchor_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>With the kind view of saving an <i>éclat</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Both to the Duchess and Diplomatist,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[532]</a></span></p> +<p>The Lady Adeline, as soon's she saw</p> +<p class="i2">That Juan was unlikely to resist—</p> +<p>(For foreigners don't know that a <i>faux pas</i></p> +<p class="i2">In England ranks quite on a different list</p> +<p>From those of other lands unblest with juries,</p> +<p>Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is;—)<a name="FNanchor_MZ" id="FNanchor_MZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_MZ" class="fnanchor">[MZ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Lady Adeline resolved to take</p> +<p class="i2">Such measures as she thought might best impede</p> +<p>The farther progress of this sad mistake.</p> +<p class="i2">She thought with some simplicity indeed;</p> +<p>But Innocence is bold even at the stake,</p> +<p class="i2">And simple in the World, and doth not need</p> +<p>Nor use those palisades by dames erected,</p> +<p>Whose virtue lies in never being detected.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was not that she feared the very worst:</p> +<p class="i2">His Grace was an enduring, married man,</p> +<p>And was not likely all at once to burst</p> +<p class="i2">Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan</p> +<p>Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded first</p> +<p class="i2">The magic of her Grace's talisman,</p> +<p>And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret)</p> +<p>With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her Grace, too, passed for being an <i>intrigante</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">And somewhat <i>méchante</i> in her amorous sphere;</p> +<p>One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt</p> +<p class="i2">A lover with caprices soft and dear,</p> +<p>That like to <i>make</i> a quarrel, when they can't</p> +<p class="i2">Find one, each day of the delightful year:</p> +<p>Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow,</p> +<p>And—what is worst of all—won't let you go:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The sort of thing to turn a young man's head,</p> +<p class="i2">Or make a Werter of him in the end.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[533]</a></span></p> +<p>No wonder then a purer soul should dread</p> +<p class="i2">This sort of chaste <i>liaison</i> for a friend;</p> +<p>It were much better to be wed or dead,</p> +<p class="i2">Than wear a heart a Woman loves to rend.</p> +<p>'T is best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,</p> +<p>If that a <i>bonne fortune</i> be really <i>bonne</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And first, in the overflowing of her heart,</p> +<p class="i2">Which really knew or thought it knew no guile,</p> +<p>She called her husband now and then apart,</p> +<p class="i2">And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile</p> +<p>Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art</p> +<p class="i2">To wean Don Juan from the Siren's wile;</p> +<p>And answered, like a statesman or a prophet,</p> +<p>In such guise that she could make nothing of it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Firstly, he said, "he never interfered</p> +<p class="i2">In anybody's business but the King's:"</p> +<p>Next, that "he never judged from what appeared,</p> +<p class="i2">Without strong reason, of those sort of things:"</p> +<p>Thirdly, that "Juan had more brain than beard,</p> +<p class="i2">And was not to be held in leading strings;"</p> +<p>And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice,</p> +<p>"That good but rarely came from good advice."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth</p> +<p class="i2">Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse</p> +<p>To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth—</p> +<p class="i2">At least as far as <i>bienséance</i> allows:<a name="FNanchor_NA" id="FNanchor_NA"></a><a href="#Footnote_NA" class="fnanchor">[NA]</a></p> +<p>That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;</p> +<p class="i2">That young men rarely made monastic vows;</p> +<p>That Opposition only more attaches—</p> +<p>But here a messenger brought in despatches:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And being of the council called "the Privy,"</p> +<p class="i2">Lord Henry walked into his cabinet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[534]</a></span></p> +<p>To furnish matter for some future Livy</p> +<p class="i2">To tell how he reduced the Nation's debt;</p> +<p>And if their full contents I do not give ye,</p> +<p class="i2">It is because I do not know them yet;</p> +<p>But I shall add them in a brief appendix,</p> +<p>To come between mine Epic and its index.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But ere he went, he added a slight hint,</p> +<p class="i2">Another gentle common-place or two,</p> +<p>Such as are coined in Conversation's mint,</p> +<p class="i2">And pass, for want of better, though not new:</p> +<p>Then broke his packet, to see what was in 't,</p> +<p class="i2">And having casually glanced it through,</p> +<p>Retired: and, as he went out, calmly kissed her,</p> +<p>Less like a young wife than an agéd sister.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was a cold, good, honourable man,</p> +<p class="i2">Proud of his birth, and proud of everything;</p> +<p>A goodly spirit for a state Divan,</p> +<p class="i2">A figure fit to walk before a King;</p> +<p>Tall, stately, formed to lead the courtly van</p> +<p class="i2">On birthdays, glorious with a star and string;</p> +<p>The very model of a chamberlain—</p> +<p>And such I mean to make him when I reign.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But there was something wanting on the whole—</p> +<p class="i2">I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell—</p> +<p>Which pretty women—the sweet souls!—call <i>soul</i>.</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Certes</i> it was not body; he was well</p> +<p>Proportioned, as a poplar or a pole,</p> +<p class="i2">A handsome man, that human miracle;</p> +<p>And in each circumstance of Love or War</p> +<p>Had still preserved his perpendicular.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Still there was something wanting, as I've said—</p> +<p class="i2">That undefinable "<i>Je ne sçais quoi</i>"</p> +<p>Which, for what I know, may of yore have led</p> +<p class="i2">To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[535]</a></span></p> +<p>The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed;</p> +<p class="i2">Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy</p> +<p>Was much inferior to King Menelaüs:—</p> +<p>But thus it is some women will betray us.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless like wise Tiresias<a name="FNanchor_719" id="FNanchor_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a> we had proved</p> +<p>By turns the difference of the several sexes;</p> +<p class="i2">Neither can show quite <i>how</i> they would be loved.</p> +<p>The Sensual for a short time but connects us—</p> +<p class="i2">The Sentimental boasts to be unmoved;</p> +<p>But both together form a kind of Centaur,</p> +<p>Upon whose back 't is better not to venture.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A something all-sufficient for the <i>heart</i></p> +<p class="i2">Is that for which the sex are always seeking:</p> +<p>But how to fill up that same vacant part?</p> +<p class="i2">There lies the rub—and this they are but weak in.</p> +<p>Frail mariners afloat without a chart,</p> +<p class="i2">They run before the wind through high seas breaking;</p> +<p>And when they have made the shore through every shock,</p> +<p>'T is odd—or odds—it may turn out a rock.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is a flower called "Love in Idleness,"<a name="FNanchor_720" id="FNanchor_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a></p> +<p class="i2">For which see Shakespeare's ever-blooming garden;—</p> +<p>I will not make his great description less,</p> +<p class="i2">And beg his British godship's humble pardon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[536]</a></span></p> +<p>If, in my extremity of rhyme's distress,</p> +<p class="i2">I touch a single leaf where he is warden;—</p> +<p>But, though the flower is different, with the French</p> +<p>Or Swiss Rousseau—cry <i>"Voilà la Pervenche!"</i><a name="FNanchor_721" id="FNanchor_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Eureka! I have found it! What I mean</p> +<p class="i2">To say is, not that Love is Idleness,</p> +<p>But that in Love such idleness has been</p> +<p class="i2">An accessory, as I have cause to guess.</p> +<p>Hard Labour's an indifferent go-between;</p> +<p class="i2">Your men of business are not apt to express</p> +<p>Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,</p> +<p>Conveyed Medea as her supercargo.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>"Beatus ille procul!</i>" from "<i>negotiis,</i>"<a name="FNanchor_722" id="FNanchor_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_722" class="fnanchor">[722]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Saith Horace; the great little poet's wrong;</p> +<p>His other maxim, <i>"Noscitur à sociis,"</i><a name="FNanchor_723" id="FNanchor_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Is much more to the purpose of his song;</p> +<p>Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless good company be kept too long;</p> +<p>But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station,</p> +<p>Thrice happy they who <i>have</i> an occupation!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,</p> +<p class="i2">Eve made up millinery with fig leaves—</p> +<p>The earliest knowledge from the Tree so knowing,</p> +<p class="i2">As far as I know, that the Church receives:</p> +<p>And since that time it need not cost much showing,</p> +<p class="i2">That many of the ills o'er which Man grieves,</p> +<p>And still more Women, spring from not employing</p> +<p>Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And hence high life is oft a dreary void,</p> +<p class="i2">A rack of pleasures, where we must invent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[537]</a></span></p> +<p>A something wherewithal to be annoyed.</p> +<p class="i2">Bards may sing what they please about <i>Content</i>;</p> +<p><i>Contented</i>, when translated, means but cloyed;</p> +<p class="i2">And hence arise the woes of Sentiment,</p> +<p>Blue-devils—and Blue-stockings—and Romances</p> +<p>Reduced to practice, and performed like dances.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I do declare, upon an affidavit,</p> +<p class="i2">Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen;</p> +<p>Nor, if unto the World I ever gave it,</p> +<p class="i2">Would some believe that such a tale had been:</p> +<p>But such intent I never had, nor have it;</p> +<p class="i2">Some truths are better kept behind a screen,</p> +<p>Especially when they would look like lies;</p> +<p>I therefore deal in generalities.<a name="FNanchor_NB" id="FNanchor_NB"></a><a href="#Footnote_NB" class="fnanchor">[NB]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"An oyster may be crossed in love"<a name="FNanchor_724" id="FNanchor_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a>—and why?</p> +<p class="i2">Because he mopeth idly in his shell,</p> +<p>And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,</p> +<p class="i2">Much as a monk may do within his cell:</p> +<p>And <i>à-propos</i> of monks, their Piety</p> +<p class="i2">With Sloth hath found it difficult to dwell:</p> +<p>Those vegetables of the Catholic creed</p> +<p>Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose merit none enough can sing or say,</p> +<p>Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,</p> +<p class="i2">Thou moral Washington of Africa!</p> +<p>But there's another little thing, I own,</p> +<p class="i2">Which you should perpetrate some summer's day,</p> +<p>And set the other half of Earth to rights;</p> +<p>You have freed the <i>blacks</i>—now pray shut up the whites.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[538]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Shut up the bald-coot<a name="FNanchor_725" id="FNanchor_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_725" class="fnanchor">[725]</a> bully Alexander!</p> +<p class="i2">Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;</p> +<p>Teach them that "sauce for goose is sauce for gander,"</p> +<p class="i2">And ask them how <i>they</i> like to be in thrall?</p> +<p>Shut up each high heroic Salamander,</p> +<p class="i2">Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small);</p> +<p>Shut up—no, <i>not</i> the King, but the Pavilion,<a name="FNanchor_726" id="FNanchor_726"></a><a href="#Footnote_726" class="fnanchor">[726]</a></p> +<p>Or else 't will cost us all another million.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Shut up the World at large, let Bedlam out;</p> +<p class="i2">And you will be perhaps surprised to find</p> +<p>All things pursue exactly the same route,</p> +<p class="i2">As now with those of <i>soi-disant</i> sound mind.</p> +<p>This I could prove beyond a single doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">Were there a jot of sense among Mankind;</p> +<p>But till that <i>point d'appui</i> is found, alas!</p> +<p>Like Archimedes, I leave Earth as 't was.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our gentle Adeline had one defect—</p> +<p class="i2">Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;</p> +<p>Her conduct had been perfectly correct,</p> +<p class="i2">As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.</p> +<p>A wavering spirit may be easier wrecked,</p> +<p class="i2">Because 't is frailer, doubtless, than a staunch one;</p> +<p>But when the latter works its own undoing,</p> +<p>Its inner crash is like an Earthquake's ruin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She loved her Lord, or thought so; but <i>that</i> love</p> +<p class="i2">Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,</p> +<p>The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move</p> +<p class="i2">Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.</p> +<p>She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,</p> +<p class="i2">No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:</p> +<p>Their union was a model to behold,</p> +<p>Serene and noble,—conjugal, but cold.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[539]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was no great disparity of years,</p> +<p class="i2">Though much in temper; but they never clashed:</p> +<p>They moved like stars united in their spheres,</p> +<p class="i2">Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters washed,</p> +<p>Where mingled and yet separate appears</p> +<p class="i2">The River from the Lake, all bluely dashed</p> +<p>Through the serene and placid glassy deep,</p> +<p>Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.<a name="FNanchor_727" id="FNanchor_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_727" class="fnanchor">[727]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now when she once had ta'en an interest</p> +<p class="i2">In anything, however she might flatter</p> +<p>Herself that her intentions were the best,</p> +<p class="i2">Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:</p> +<p>Impressions were much stronger than she guessed,</p> +<p class="i2">And gathered as they run like growing water</p> +<p>Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast</p> +<p>Was not at first too readily impressed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But when it was, she had that lurking Demon</p> +<p class="i2">Of double nature, and thus doubly named—</p> +<p>Firmness yclept in Heroes, Kings, and seamen,</p> +<p class="i2">That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed</p> +<p>As <i>Obstinacy</i>, both in Men and Women,</p> +<p class="i2">Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:—</p> +<p>And 't will perplex the casuist in morality</p> +<p>To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo,</p> +<p class="i2">It had been firmness; now 't is pertinacity:</p> +<p>Must the event decide between the two?</p> +<p class="i2">I leave it to your people of sagacity</p> +<p>To draw the line between the false and true,</p> +<p class="i2">If such can e'er be drawn by Man's capacity:</p> +<p>My business is with Lady Adeline,</p> +<p>Who in her way too was a heroine.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[540]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She knew not her own heart; then how should I?</p> +<p class="i2">I think not she was <i>then</i> in love with Juan:</p> +<p>If so, she would have had the strength to fly</p> +<p class="i2">The wild sensation, unto her a new one:</p> +<p>She merely felt a common sympathy</p> +<p class="i2">(I will not say it was a false or true one)</p> +<p>In him, because she thought he was in danger,—</p> +<p>Her husband's friend—her own—young—and a stranger.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was, or thought she was, his friend—and this</p> +<p class="i2">Without the farce of Friendship, or romance</p> +<p>Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss</p> +<p class="i2">Ladies who have studied Friendship but in France</p> +<p>Or Germany, where people <i>purely</i> kiss.<a name="FNanchor_NC" id="FNanchor_NC"></a><a href="#Footnote_NC" class="fnanchor">[NC]</a></p> +<p class="i2">To thus much Adeline would not advance;</p> +<p>But of such friendship as Man's may to Man be</p> +<p>She was as capable as Woman can be.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>No doubt the secret influence of the Sex</p> +<p class="i2">Will there, as also in the ties of blood,</p> +<p>An innocent predominance annex,</p> +<p class="i2">And tune the concord to a finer mood.<a name="FNanchor_ND" id="FNanchor_ND"></a><a href="#Footnote_ND" class="fnanchor">[ND]</a></p> +<p>If free from Passion, which all Friendship checks,</p> +<p class="i2">And your true feelings fully understood,</p> +<p>No friend like to a woman Earth discovers,</p> +<p>So that you have not been nor will be lovers.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Love bears within its breast the very germ</p> +<p class="i2">Of Change; and how should this be otherwise?</p> +<p>That violent things more quickly find a term</p> +<p class="i2">Is shown through Nature's whole analogies;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[541]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_728" id="FNanchor_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_728" class="fnanchor">[728]</a></p> +<p>And how should the most fierce of all be firm?</p> +<p class="i2">Would you have endless lightning in the skies?</p> +<p>Methinks Love's very title says enough:</p> +<p>How should "the <i>tender</i> passion" e'er be <i>tough?</i></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! by all experience, seldom yet</p> +<p class="i2">(I merely quote what I have heard from many)</p> +<p>Had lovers not some reason to regret</p> +<p class="i2">The passion which made Solomon a zany.<a name="FNanchor_NE" id="FNanchor_NE"></a><a href="#Footnote_NE" class="fnanchor">[NE]</a></p> +<p>I've also seen some wives (not to forget</p> +<p class="i2">The marriage state, the best or worst of any)</p> +<p>Who were the very paragons of wives,</p> +<p>Yet made the misery of at least two lives.<a name="FNanchor_NF" id="FNanchor_NF"></a><a href="#Footnote_NF" class="fnanchor">[NF]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I've also seen some female <i>friends</i><a name="FNanchor_729" id="FNanchor_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_729" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> ('t is odd,<a name="FNanchor_NG" id="FNanchor_NG"></a><a href="#Footnote_NG" class="fnanchor">[NG]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But true—as, if expedient, I could prove)</p> +<p>That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,<a name="FNanchor_NH" id="FNanchor_NH"></a><a href="#Footnote_NH" class="fnanchor">[NH]</a></p> +<p class="i2">At home, far more than ever yet was Love—</p> +<p>Who did not quit me when Oppression trod</p> +<p class="i2">Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;</p> +<p>Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,</p> +<p>Despite the snake Society's loud rattles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline</p> +<p class="i2">Grew friends in this or any other sense,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[542]</a></span></p> +<p>Will be discussed hereafter, I opine:</p> +<p class="i2">At present I am glad of a pretence</p> +<p>To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,</p> +<p class="i2">And keeps the atrocious reader in <i>suspense</i>;</p> +<p>The surest way—for ladies and for books—</p> +<p>To bait their tender—or their tenter—hooks.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whether they rode, or walked, or studied Spanish,</p> +<p class="i2">To read Don Quixote in the original,</p> +<p>A pleasure before which all others vanish;</p> +<p class="i2">Whether their talk was of the kind called "small,"</p> +<p>Or serious, are the topics I must banish</p> +<p class="i2">To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall</p> +<p>Say something to the purpose, and display</p> +<p>Considerable talent in my way.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Above all, I beg all men to forbear</p> +<p class="i2">Anticipating aught about the matter:</p> +<p>They'll only make mistakes about the fair,</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan, too, especially the latter.</p> +<p>And I shall take a much more serious air</p> +<p class="i2">Than I have yet done, in this Epic Satire.</p> +<p>It is not clear that Adeline and Juan</p> +<p>Will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But great things spring from little:—Would you think,</p> +<p class="i2">That in our youth, as dangerous a passion</p> +<p>As e'er brought Man and Woman to the brink</p> +<p class="i2">Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,</p> +<p>As few would ever dream could form the link</p> +<p class="i2">Of such a sentimental situation?</p> +<p>You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards<a name="FNanchor_730" id="FNanchor_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_730" class="fnanchor">[730]</a>—</p> +<p>It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'T is strange,—but true; for Truth is always strange—</p> +<p class="i2">Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[543]</a></span></p> +<p>How much would novels gain by the exchange!</p> +<p class="i2">How differently the World would men behold!</p> +<p>How oft would Vice and Virtue places change!</p> +<p class="i2">The new world would be nothing to the old,</p> +<p>If some Columbus of the moral seas</p> +<p>Would show mankind their Souls' antipodes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What "antres vast and deserts idle,"<a name="FNanchor_731" id="FNanchor_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> then,</p> +<p class="i2">Would be discovered in the human soul!</p> +<p>What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,</p> +<p class="i2">With self-love in the centre as their Pole!</p> +<p>What Anthropophagi are nine of ten</p> +<p class="i2">Of those who hold the kingdoms in control!</p> +<p>Were things but only called by their right name,</p> +<p>Cæsar himself would be ashamed of Fame.<a name="FNanchor_732" id="FNanchor_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_732" class="fnanchor">[732]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_703" id="Footnote_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> Fry. 23, 1814 (<i>sic</i>).—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_704" id="Footnote_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> [Compare— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Our little systems have their day;</p> +<p class="i2">They have their day and cease to be."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Tennyson's <i>In Memoriam</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_705" id="Footnote_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> <a name="Note_517" id="Note_517"></a>{517}[With this open mind with regard to the future, +compare Charles Kingsley's "reverent curiosity" (<i>Letters and Memoirs, +etc.</i>, 1883, p. 349).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_706" id="Footnote_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> <a name="Note_518" id="Note_518"></a>{518}["We usually try which way the wind bloweth, by +casting up grass or chaff, or such light things into the air."—Bacon's +<i>Natural History</i>, No. 820, <i>Works</i>, 1740, iii. 168.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_707" id="Footnote_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> ["The World was all before them." <i>Paradise Lost</i>, bk. +xii. line 646.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_708" id="Footnote_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> <a name="Note_519" id="Note_519"></a>{519} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["But why then publish?—Granville, the polite,</p> +<p>And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Pope, <i>Prologue to Satires</i>, lines 135, 136.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_709" id="Footnote_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> <a name="Note_521" id="Note_521"></a>{521}[Virg., <i>Aen.</i>, ii. 91 "(Haud ignota);" et <i>ibid.</i>, +line 6.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_710" id="Footnote_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> [Hor., <i>Od.</i> iii. 2. 26.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MV" id="Footnote_MV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MV"><span class="label">[MV]</span></a> <a name="Note_522" id="Note_522"></a>{522} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And though by no means overpowered with riches</i>,</p> +<p><i>Would gladly place beneath it my last rag of breeches</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_711" id="Footnote_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> <a name="Note_524" id="Note_524"></a>{524}<i>Craning</i>.—"To <i>crane</i>" is, or was, an expression +used to denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, "to +look before he leaped;"—a pause in his "vaulting ambition," which in +the field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be +immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. "Sir, if you don't choose to +take the leap, let me!"—was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant +on again; and to good purpose: for though "the horse and rider" might +fall, they made a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the +field might follow.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MW" id="Footnote_MW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MW"><span class="label">[MW]</span></a> <a name="Note_525" id="Note_525"></a>{525} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>The sulky Huntsman grimly said "The Frenchman</i></p> +<p><i>Was almost worthy to become his henchman</i>."—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MX" id="Footnote_MX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MX"><span class="label">[MX]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>And what not—though he had ridden like a Centaur</i></p> +<p><i>When called next day declined the same adventure</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_712" id="Footnote_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> [Mr. W. Ernst, in his <i>Memoirs of the Life of Lord +Chesterfield</i>, 1893 (p. 425, note 2), quotes these lines in connection +with a comparison between French and English sport, contained in a +letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son, dated June 30, 1751: "The +French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and +boobies." Elsewhere, however (<i>The World</i>, No. 92, October 3, 1754), +commenting on a remark of Pascal's, he admits "that the jolly sportsman +... improves his health, at least, by his exercise."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_713" id="Footnote_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> +<a name="Note_526" id="Note_526"></a>{526} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8">[" ... as she skimm'd along,</p> +<p>Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Dryden's <i>Virgil</i> (<i>Aen.</i>, vii. 1101, 1102).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_714" id="Footnote_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> [See <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_715" id="Footnote_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> [Guido's fresco of the Aurora, "scattering flowers before +the chariot of the sun" is on a ceiling of the Casino in the Palazzo +Rospigliosi, in Rome.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_716" id="Footnote_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> [Byron described Count Alfred D'Orsay as having "all the +airs of a <i>Cupidon déchaîné</i>." See letters to Moore and the Earl of +Blessington, April 2, 1823, <i>Letters</i>, 1901, vi. 180, 185.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_717" id="Footnote_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717"><span class="label">[717]</span></a> <a name="Note_528" id="Note_528"></a>{528}In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think it is +mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered +by an universal Pylades: "When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's +Coffee-house, and take another." I recollect having heard an anecdote of +the same kind.—Sir W.D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the +Club of which he was a member, he was observed to look +melancholy.—"What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious +memory.—"Ah!" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D."—"Lost! +What at? Quinze or Hazard?" was the consolatory rejoinder of the +querist. +</p><p> +[The <i>dramatis personae</i> are probably Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), +author of the <i>Academical Questions, etc.</i>, and Francis Hare, the wit, +known as the "'Silent Hare,' from his extreme loquacity."—Gronow's +<i>Reminiscences</i>, 1889, ii. 98-101.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MY" id="Footnote_MY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MY"><span class="label">[MY]</span></a> <a name="Note_529" id="Note_529"></a>{529}<i>They own that you are fairly dished at last</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_718" id="Footnote_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718"><span class="label">[718]</span></a> <a name="Note_531" id="Note_531"></a>{531}The famous Chancellor [Axel Oxenstiern (1583-1654)] +said to his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great +effects arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics: +"You see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the +world are governed." +</p><p> +[The story is that his son John, who had been sent to represent him at +the Congress of Westphalia, 1648, wrote home to complain that the task +was beyond him, and that he could not cope with the difficulties which +he was encountering, and that the Chancellor replied, "Nescis, mi fili, +quantillâ prudentiâ homines regantur."—<i>Biographie Universelle</i>, art. +"Oxenstierna."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_MZ" id="Footnote_MZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_MZ"><span class="label">[MZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_532" id="Note_532"></a>{532} <i>Who are our sureties that our moral pure is</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NA" id="Footnote_NA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NA"><span class="label">[NA]</span></a> <a name="Note_533" id="Note_533"></a>{533}And not to encourage whispering in the house.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_719" id="Footnote_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719"><span class="label">[719]</span></a> <a name="Note_535" id="Note_535"></a>{535}[Once upon a time, Tiresias, who was shepherding on +Mount Cyllene, wantonly stamped with his heel on a pair of snakes, and +was straightway turned into a woman. Seven years later he was led to +treat another pair of snakes in like fashion, and, happily or otherwise, +was turned back into a man. Hence, when Jupiter and Juno fell to +wrangling on the comparative enjoyments of men and women, the question +was referred to Tiresias, as a person of unusual experience and +authority. He gave it in favour of the woman, and Juno, who was +displeased at his answer, struck him with blindness. But Jupiter, to +make amends, gave him the "liberty of prophesying" for seven, some say +nine, generations. (See Ovid, <i>Metam.</i>, iii. 320; and Thomas Muncker's +notes on the <i>Fabulae</i> of Hyginus, No. lxxv. ed. 1681, pp. 126-128.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_720" id="Footnote_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720"><span class="label">[720]</span></a> [<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, act ii. sc. i, line 168.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_721" id="Footnote_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721"><span class="label">[721]</span></a> <a name="Note_536" id="Note_536"></a>{536}See <i>La Nouvelle Héloïse</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_722" id="Footnote_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722"><span class="label">[722]</span></a> Hor., <i>Epod.</i>, II. line 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_723" id="Footnote_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723"><span class="label">[723]</span></a> [The Latin proverb, <i>Noscitur ex sociis</i>, is not an +Horatian maxim.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NB" id="Footnote_NB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NB"><span class="label">[NB]</span></a> <a name="Note_537" id="Note_537"></a>{537}<i>I, therefore, deal in generals—which is +wise</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_724" id="Footnote_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724"><span class="label">[724]</span></a> [See Sheridan's <i>Critic</i> ("Tilburina" <i>loq.</i>), act iii. +<i>s.f.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_725" id="Footnote_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725"><span class="label">[725]</span></a> <a name="Note_538" id="Note_538"></a>{538}[For "the coxcomb Czar ... the somewhat agéd youth," +see <i>The Age of Bronze</i>, lines 434-483, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 563, +note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_726" id="Footnote_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726"><span class="label">[726]</span></a> [Compare <i>Sardanapalus</i>, act i. sc. 2, line 1, <i>ibid.</i>, +p. 15, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_727" id="Footnote_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727"><span class="label">[727]</span></a> <a name="Note_539" id="Note_539"></a>{539}[Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto III. stanza lxxi. +line 3, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 261, 300, note 17.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NC" id="Footnote_NC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NC"><span class="label">[NC]</span></a> <a name="Note_540" id="Note_540"></a>{540} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Or Germany—she knew nought of all this</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Impracticable, novel-reading trance</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_ND" id="Footnote_ND"></a><a href="#FNanchor_ND"><span class="label">[ND]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Even there—as in relationship will hold,</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>And make the feeling of a finer mood</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_728" id="Footnote_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728"><span class="label">[728]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["These violent delights have violent ends,</p> +<p>And in their triumph die."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, act ii. sc. 6, lines 9, 10.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NE" id="Footnote_NE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NE"><span class="label">[NE]</span></a> +<a name="Note_541" id="Note_541"></a>{541} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Alas! I quote experience—seldom yet</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>I had a paramour—and I've had many</i>—</p> +<p><i>Whom I had not some reason to regret</i>—</p> +<p class="i2"><i>For whom I did not make myself a Zany</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NF" id="Footnote_NF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NF"><span class="label">[NF]</span></a> +</p> + +<table class="variant"> +<tr> +<td colspan="5" style="text-align:left"><i>I also had a wife—not to forget</i></td> +</tr><tr> +<td colspan="5" style="text-align:left"><i> The marriage state—the best or worst of any,</i></td> +</tr><tr> +<td colspan="5" style="text-align:left"><i>Who was the very paragon of wives</i></td> +</tr><tr> +<td><i>Yet mad the misery of</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">{</span></td> +<td><i>many<br />both our<br />several</i></td> +<td><span style="font-size:250%;font-weight:lighter;">}</span></td> +<td><i>lives</i>.—[MS. erased]</td> +</tr></table> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_729" id="Footnote_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729"><span class="label">[729]</span></a> [Lady Holland, Lady Jersey, Madame de Staël, and before +and above all, his sister, Mrs. Leigh.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NG" id="Footnote_NG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NG"><span class="label">[NG]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>I also had some female</i> friends—<i>by G—d!</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Or if the oath seem strong—I swear by Jove!</i>—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NH" id="Footnote_NH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NH"><span class="label">[NH]</span></a> <i>Who stuck to me</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_730" id="Footnote_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730"><span class="label">[730]</span></a> <a name="Note_542" id="Note_542"></a>{542}[Byron must have been among the first to naturalize +the French <i>milliard</i> (a thousand millions), which was used by +Voltaire.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_731" id="Footnote_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731"><span class="label">[731]</span></a> <a name="Note_543" id="Note_543"></a>{543}[<i>Othello</i>, act i. sc. 3, line 140.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_732" id="Footnote_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732"><span class="label">[732]</span></a> B. March 4<sup>th</sup> 1823.—[MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[544]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_FIFTEENTH" id="CANTO_THE_FIFTEENTH"></a> +CANTO THE FIFTEENTH. +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><span class="smcap">Ah</span>!—What should follow slips from my reflection;</p> +<p class="i2">Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be</p> +<p>As à-propos of Hope or Retrospection,</p> +<p class="i2">As though the lurking thought had followed free.</p> +<p>All present life is but an Interjection,</p> +<p class="i2">An "Oh!" or "Ah!" of Joy or Misery,</p> +<p>Or a "Ha! ha!" or "Bah!"—a yawn, or "Pooh!"</p> +<p>Of which perhaps the latter is most true.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But, more or less, the whole's a Syncopé</p> +<p class="i2">Or a <i>Singultus</i>—emblems of Emotion,</p> +<p>The grand Antithesis to great <i>Ennui</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Wherewith we break our bubbles on the Ocean—</p> +<p>That Watery Outline of Eternity,</p> +<p class="i2">Or miniature, at least, as is my notion—</p> +<p>Which ministers unto the Soul's delight,</p> +<p>In seeing matters which are out of sight.<a name="FNanchor_733" id="FNanchor_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But all are better than the sigh suppressed,</p> +<p class="i2">Corroding in the cavern of the heart,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[545]</a></span></p> +<p>Making the countenance a masque of rest<a name="FNanchor_NI" id="FNanchor_NI"></a><a href="#Footnote_NI" class="fnanchor">[NI]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And turning Human Nature to an art.</p> +<p>Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best;</p> +<p class="i2">Dissimulation always sets apart</p> +<p>A corner for herself; and, therefore, Fiction</p> +<p>Is that which passes with least contradiction.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah! who can tell? Or rather, who can not</p> +<p class="i2">Remember, without telling, Passion's errors?</p> +<p>The drainer of Oblivion, even the sot,</p> +<p class="i2">Hath got <i>blue devils</i> for his morning mirrors:</p> +<p>What though on Lethe's stream he seem to float,</p> +<p class="i2">He cannot sink his tremours or his terrors;</p> +<p>The ruby glass that shakes within his hand</p> +<p>Leaves a sad sediment of Time's worst sand.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And as for Love—O Love!—We will proceed:—</p> +<p class="i2">The Lady Adeline Amundeville,</p> +<p>A pretty name as one would wish to read,</p> +<p class="i2">Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.</p> +<p>There's Music in the sighing of a reed;</p> +<p class="i2">There's Music in the gushing of a rill;</p> +<p>There's Music in all things, if men had ears:</p> +<p>Their Earth is but an echo of the Spheres.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Lady Adeline, Right Honourable,</p> +<p class="i2">And honoured, ran a risk of growing less so;</p> +<p>For few of the soft sex are very stable</p> +<p class="i2">In their resolves—alas! that I should say so;</p> +<p>They differ as wine differs from its label,</p> +<p class="i2">When once decanted;—I presume to guess so,</p> +<p>But will not swear: yet both upon occasion,</p> +<p>Till old, may undergo adulteration.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline was of the purest vintage,</p> +<p class="i2">The unmingled essence of the grape; and yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[546]</a></span></p> +<p>Bright as a new napoleon from its mintage,</p> +<p class="i2">Or glorious as a diamond richly set;</p> +<p>A page where Time should hesitate to print age,</p> +<p class="i2">And for which Nature might forego her debt—<a name="FNanchor_NJ" id="FNanchor_NJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_NJ" class="fnanchor">[NJ]</a></p> +<p>Sole creditor whose process doth involve in't</p> +<p>The luck of finding everybody solvent.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>O Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily</p> +<p class="i2">Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,</p> +<p>Like a meek tradesman when approaching palely</p> +<p class="i2">Some splendid debtor he would take by sap:</p> +<p>But oft denied, as Patience 'gins to fail, he</p> +<p class="i2">Advances with exasperated rap,</p> +<p>And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome,</p> +<p>On ready money, or "a draft on Ransom."<a name="FNanchor_734" id="FNanchor_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor Beauty!</p> +<p class="i2">She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey.</p> +<p>What though she now and then may slip from duty,</p> +<p class="i2">The more's the reason why you ought to stay;</p> +<p>Gaunt Gourmand! with whole nations for your booty,—<a name="FNanchor_NK" id="FNanchor_NK"></a><a href="#Footnote_NK" class="fnanchor">[NK]</a></p> +<p class="i2">You should be civil in a modest way:</p> +<p>Suppress, then, some slight feminine diseases,</p> +<p>And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous</p> +<p class="i2">Where she was interested (as was said),</p> +<p>Because she was not apt, like some of us,</p> +<p class="i2">To like too readily, or too high bred</p> +<p>To show it—(points we need not now discuss)—</p> +<p class="i2">Would give up artlessly both Heart and Head</p> +<p>Unto such feelings as seemed innocent,</p> +<p>For objects worthy of the sentiment.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[547]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumour,</p> +<p class="i2">That live Gazette, had scattered to disfigure,</p> +<p>She had heard; but Women hear with more good humour</p> +<p class="i2">Such aberrations than we men of rigour:</p> +<p>Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more</p> +<p class="i2">Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour:</p> +<p>Because he had, like Alcibiades,</p> +<p>The art of living in all climes with ease.<a name="FNanchor_735" id="FNanchor_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_735" class="fnanchor">[735]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His manner was perhaps the more seductive,</p> +<p class="i2">Because he ne'er seemed anxious to seduce;</p> +<p>Nothing affected, studied, or constructive</p> +<p class="i2">Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse</p> +<p>Of his attractions marred the fair perspective,</p> +<p class="i2">To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,<a name="FNanchor_736" id="FNanchor_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a></p> +<p>And seem to say, "Resist us if you can"—</p> +<p>Which makes a Dandy while it spoils a Man.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They are wrong—that's not the way to set about it;</p> +<p class="i2">As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.</p> +<p>But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;</p> +<p class="i2">In fact, his manner was his own alone:</p> +<p>Sincere he was—at least you could not doubt it,</p> +<p class="i2">In listening merely to his voice's tone.</p> +<p>The Devil hath not in all his quiver's choice</p> +<p>An arrow for the Heart like a sweet voice.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By nature soft, his whole address held off</p> +<p class="i2">Suspicion: though not timid, his regard</p> +<p>Was such as rather seemed to keep aloof,</p> +<p class="i2">To shield himself than put <i>you</i> on your guard:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[548]</a></span></p> +<p>Perhaps 't was hardly quite assured enough,</p> +<p class="i2">But Modesty's at times its own reward,</p> +<p>Like Virtue; and the absence of pretension</p> +<p>Will go much farther than there's need to mention.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Serene, accomplished, cheerful but not loud;</p> +<p class="i2">Insinuating without insinuation;</p> +<p>Observant of the foibles of the crowd,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation;</p> +<p>Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud,</p> +<p class="i2">So as to make them feel he knew his station</p> +<p>And theirs:—without a struggle for priority,</p> +<p>He neither brooked nor claimed superiority—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>That is, with Men: with Women he was what</p> +<p class="i2">They pleased to make or take him for; and their</p> +<p>Imagination's quite enough for that:</p> +<p class="i2">So that the outline's tolerably fair,</p> +<p>They fill the canvas up—and <i>"verbum sat."</i><a name="FNanchor_737" id="FNanchor_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a></p> +<p class="i2">If once their phantasies be brought to bear</p> +<p>Upon an object, whether sad or playful,</p> +<p>They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.<a name="FNanchor_738" id="FNanchor_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Adeline, no deep judge of character,</p> +<p class="i2">Was apt to add a colouring from her own:</p> +<p>'T is thus the Good will amiably err,</p> +<p class="i2">And eke the Wise, as has been often shown.</p> +<p>Experience is the chief philosopher,</p> +<p class="i2">But saddest when his science is well known:</p> +<p>And persecuted Sages teach the Schools</p> +<p>Their folly in forgetting there are fools.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon?</p> +<p class="i2">Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[549]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_739" id="FNanchor_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a></p> +<p>Whose lot it is by Man to be mistaken,<a name="FNanchor_NL" id="FNanchor_NL"></a><a href="#Footnote_NL" class="fnanchor">[NL]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?</p> +<p>Redeeming Worlds to be by bigots shaken,<a name="FNanchor_NM" id="FNanchor_NM"></a><a href="#Footnote_NM" class="fnanchor">[NM]</a></p> +<p class="i2">How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill</p> +<p>Volumes with similar sad illustrations,</p> +<p>But leave them to the conscience of the nations.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I perch upon an humbler promontory,</p> +<p class="i2">Amidst Life's infinite variety:</p> +<p>With no great care for what is nicknamed Glory,</p> +<p class="i2">But speculating as I cast mine eye</p> +<p>On what may suit or may not suit my story,</p> +<p class="i2">And never straining hard to versify,</p> +<p>I rattle on exactly as I'd talk</p> +<p>With anybody in a ride or walk.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I don't know that there may be much ability</p> +<p class="i2">Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme;</p> +<p>But there's a conversational facility,</p> +<p class="i2">Which may round off an hour upon a time.</p> +<p>Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility</p> +<p class="i2">In mine irregularity of chime,</p> +<p>Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,<a name="FNanchor_NN" id="FNanchor_NN"></a><a href="#Footnote_NN" class="fnanchor">[NN]</a></p> +<p>Just as I feel the <i>Improvvisatore</i>.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[550]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Omnia vult</i> belle <i>Matho dicere</i>—<i>dic aliquando</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Et</i> bene, <i>dic</i> neutrum, <i>dic aliquando</i> male."<a name="FNanchor_740" id="FNanchor_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a></p> +<p>The first is rather more than mortal can do;</p> +<p class="i2">The second may be sadly done or gaily;</p> +<p>The third is still more difficult to stand to;</p> +<p class="i2">The fourth we hear, and see, and say too, daily:</p> +<p>The whole together is what I could wish</p> +<p>To serve in this conundrum of a dish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A modest hope—but Modesty's my forte,</p> +<p class="i2">And Pride my feeble:<a name="FNanchor_741" id="FNanchor_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a>—let us ramble on.</p> +<p>I meant to make this poem very short,</p> +<p class="i2">But now I can't tell where it may not run.<a name="FNanchor_NO" id="FNanchor_NO"></a><a href="#Footnote_NO" class="fnanchor">[NO]</a></p> +<p>No doubt, if I had wished to pay my court</p> +<p class="i2">To critics, or to hail the <i>setting</i> sun</p> +<p>Of Tyranny of all kinds, my concision<a name="FNanchor_742" id="FNanchor_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a></p> +<p>Were more;—but I was born for opposition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But then 't is mostly on the weaker side;</p> +<p class="i2">So that I verily believe if they</p> +<p>Who now are basking in their full-blown pride<a name="FNanchor_NP" id="FNanchor_NP"></a><a href="#Footnote_NP" class="fnanchor">[NP]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Were shaken down, and "dogs had had their day,"<a name="FNanchor_743" id="FNanchor_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_743" class="fnanchor">[743]</a></p> +<p>Though at the first I might perchance deride</p> +<p class="i2">Their tumble, I should turn the other way,</p> +<p>And wax an ultra-royalist in Loyalty,</p> +<p>Because I hate even democratic Royalty.<a name="FNanchor_NQ" id="FNanchor_NQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_NQ" class="fnanchor">[NQ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[551]</a></span></p><h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I think I should have made a decent spouse,</p> +<p class="i2">If I had never proved the soft condition;</p> +<p>I think I should have made monastic vows</p> +<p class="i2">But for my own peculiar superstition:</p> +<p>'Gainst rhyme I never should have knocked my brows,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian,<a name="FNanchor_744" id="FNanchor_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a></p> +<p>Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet,</p> +<p>If some one had not told me to forego it.<a name="FNanchor_745" id="FNanchor_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But <i>laissez aller</i>—Knights and Dames I sing,</p> +<p class="i2">Such as the times may furnish. 'T is a flight</p> +<p>Which seems at first to need no lofty wing,</p> +<p class="i2">Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite:<a name="FNanchor_NR" id="FNanchor_NR"></a><a href="#Footnote_NR" class="fnanchor">[NR]</a></p> +<p>The difficulty lies in colouring</p> +<p class="i2">(Keeping the due proportions still in sight)</p> +<p>With Nature manners which are artificial,</p> +<p>And rend'ring general that which is especial.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The difference is, that in the days of old</p> +<p class="i2">Men made the Manners; Manners now make men—</p> +<p>Pinned like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold,</p> +<p class="i2">At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten.</p> +<p>Now this at all events must render cold</p> +<p class="i2">Your writers, who must either draw again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[552]</a></span></p> +<p>Days better drawn before, or else assume</p> +<p>The present, with their common-place costume.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>We'll do our best to make the best on 't:—March!</p> +<p class="i2">March, my Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter;</p> +<p>And when you may not be sublime, be arch,</p> +<p class="i2">Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter.</p> +<p>We surely may find something worth research:</p> +<p class="i2">Columbus found a new world in a cutter,</p> +<p>Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage,</p> +<p>While yet America was in her non-age.<a name="FNanchor_746" id="FNanchor_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Adeline, in all her growing sense</p> +<p class="i2">Of Juan's merits and his situation,</p> +<p>Felt on the whole an interest intense,—</p> +<p class="i2">Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation,</p> +<p>Or that he had an air of innocence,</p> +<p class="i2">Which is for Innocence a sad temptation,—</p> +<p>As Women hate half measures, on the whole,<a name="FNanchor_NS" id="FNanchor_NS"></a><a href="#Footnote_NS" class="fnanchor">[NS]</a></p> +<p>She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She had a good opinion of Advice,</p> +<p class="i2">Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,</p> +<p>For which small thanks are still the market price,</p> +<p class="i2">Even where the article at highest rate is:</p> +<p>She thought upon the subject twice or thrice,</p> +<p class="i2">And morally decided—the best state is</p> +<p>For Morals—Marriage; and, this question carried,</p> +<p>She seriously advised him to get married.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[553]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan replied, with all becoming deference,</p> +<p class="i2">He had a predilection for that tie;</p> +<p>But that, at present, with immediate reference</p> +<p class="i2">To his own circumstances, there might lie</p> +<p>Some difficulties, as in his own preference,</p> +<p class="i2">Or that of her to whom he might apply:</p> +<p>That still he'd wed with such or such a lady,</p> +<p>If that they were not married all already.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Next to the making matches for herself,</p> +<p class="i2">And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,</p> +<p>Arranging them like books on the same shelf,</p> +<p class="i2">There's nothing women love to dabble in</p> +<p>More (like a stock-holder in growing pelf)</p> +<p class="i2">Than match-making in general: 't is no sin</p> +<p>Certes, but a preventative, and therefore</p> +<p>That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But never yet (except of course a miss</p> +<p class="i2">Unwed, or mistress never to be wed,</p> +<p>Or wed already, who object to this)</p> +<p class="i2">Was there chaste dame who had not in her head</p> +<p>Some drama of the marriage Unities,</p> +<p class="i2">Observed as strictly both at board and bed,</p> +<p>As those of Aristotle, though sometimes</p> +<p>They turn out Melodrames or Pantomimes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They generally have some only son,</p> +<p class="i2">Some heir to a large property, some friend</p> +<p>Of an old family, some gay Sir John,</p> +<p class="i2">Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might end</p> +<p>A line, and leave Posterity undone,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless a marriage was applied to mend</p> +<p>The prospect and their morals: and besides,</p> +<p>They have at hand a blooming glut of brides.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>From these they will be careful to select,</p> +<p class="i2">For this an heiress, and for that a beauty;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[554]</a></span></p> +<p>For one a songstress who hath no defect,</p> +<p class="i2">For t' other one who promises much duty;</p> +<p>For this a lady no one can reject,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty;</p> +<p>A second for her excellent connections;</p> +<p>A third, because there can be no objections.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When Rapp the Harmonist embargoed Marriage<a name="FNanchor_747" id="FNanchor_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_747" class="fnanchor">[747]</a></p> +<p class="i2">In his harmonious settlement—(which flourishes</p> +<p>Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage,</p> +<p class="i2">Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes,</p> +<p>Without those sad expenses which disparage</p> +<p class="i2">What Nature naturally most encourages)—</p> +<p>Why called he "Harmony" a state sans wedlock?</p> +<p>Now here I've got the preacher at a dead lock.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Because he either meant to sneer at Harmony</p> +<p class="i2">Or Marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly.</p> +<p>But whether reverend Rapp learned this in Germany</p> +<p class="i2">Or no, 't is said his sect is rich and godly,</p> +<p>Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any</p> +<p class="i2">Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.</p> +<p>My objection's to his title, not his ritual.</p> +<p>Although I wonder how it grew habitual.<a name="FNanchor_NT" id="FNanchor_NT"></a><a href="#Footnote_NT" class="fnanchor">[NT]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[555]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons,</p> +<p class="i2">Who favour, <i>malgré</i> Malthus, Generation—</p> +<p>Professors of that genial art, and patrons</p> +<p class="i2">Of all the modest part of Propagation;</p> +<p>Which after all at such a desperate rate runs,</p> +<p class="i2">That half its produce tends to Emigration,</p> +<p>That sad result of passions and potatoes—</p> +<p>Two weeds which pose our economic Catos.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't tell;</p> +<p class="i2">I wish she had: his book's the eleventh commandment,</p> +<p>Which says, "Thou shall not marry," unless <i>well</i>:</p> +<p class="i2">This he (as far as I can understand) meant.</p> +<p>'T is not my purpose on his views to dwell,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor canvass what "so eminent a hand" meant;<a name="FNanchor_748" id="FNanchor_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a></p> +<p>But, certes, it conducts to lives ascetic,</p> +<p>Or turning Marriage into Arithmetic.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline, who probably presumed</p> +<p class="i2">That Juan had enough of maintenance,</p> +<p>Or <i>separate</i> maintenance, in case 't was doomed—</p> +<p class="i2">As on the whole it is an even chance</p> +<p>That bridegrooms, after they are fairly <i>groomed</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">May retrograde a little in the Dance</p> +<p>Of Marriage—(which might form a painter's fame,</p> +<p>Like Holbein's "Dance of Death"<a name="FNanchor_749" id="FNanchor_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a>—but 't is the same)—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline determined Juan's wedding</p> +<p class="i2">In her own mind, and that's enough for Woman:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[556]</a></span></p> +<p>But then, with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading,</p> +<p class="i2">Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman,<a name="FNanchor_NU" id="FNanchor_NU"></a><a href="#Footnote_NU" class="fnanchor">[NU]</a></p> +<p>And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding.</p> +<p class="i2">She deemed his merits something more than common:</p> +<p>All these were unobjectionable matches,</p> +<p>And might go on, if well wound up, like watches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea,<a name="FNanchor_NV" id="FNanchor_NV"></a><a href="#Footnote_NV" class="fnanchor">[NV]</a></p> +<p class="i2">That usual paragon, an only daughter,</p> +<p>Who seemed the cream of Equanimity,</p> +<p class="i2">Till skimmed—and then there was some milk and water,</p> +<p>With a slight shade of blue too, it might be,</p> +<p class="i2">Beneath the surface; but what did it matter?</p> +<p>Love's riotous, but Marriage should have quiet,</p> +<p>And being consumptive, live on a milk diet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring,</p> +<p class="i2">A dashing <i>demoiselle</i> of good estate,</p> +<p>Whose heart was fixed upon a star or blue string;</p> +<p class="i2">But whether English Dukes grew rare of late,</p> +<p>Or that she had not harped upon the true string,</p> +<p class="i2">By which such Sirens can attract our great,</p> +<p>She took up with some foreign younger brother,</p> +<p>A Russ or Turk—the one's as good as t' other.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then there was—but why should I go on,</p> +<p class="i2">Unless the ladies should go off?—there was</p> +<p>Indeed a certain fair and fairy one,</p> +<p class="i2">Of the best class, and better than her class,—</p> +<p>Aurora Raby, a young star who shone</p> +<p class="i2">O'er Life, too sweet an image for such glass,</p> +<p>A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,</p> +<p>A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded;</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[557]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Rich, noble, but an orphan—left an only</p> +<p class="i2">Child to the care of guardians good and kind—</p> +<p>But still her aspect had an air so lonely;</p> +<p class="i2">Blood is not water; and where shall we find</p> +<p>Feelings of Youth like those which overthrown lie</p> +<p class="i2">By Death, when we are left, alas! behind,</p> +<p>To feel, in friendless palaces, a home</p> +<p>Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Early in years, and yet more infantine</p> +<p class="i2">In figure, she had something of Sublime</p> +<p>In eyes which sadly shone, as Seraphs' shine.</p> +<p class="i2">All Youth—but with an aspect beyond Time;</p> +<p>Radiant and grave—as pitying Man's decline;</p> +<p class="i2">Mournful—but mournful of another's crime,</p> +<p>She looked as if she sat by Eden's door,</p> +<p>And grieved for those who could return no more.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere,</p> +<p class="i2">As far as her own gentle heart allowed,</p> +<p>And deemed that fallen worship far more dear</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps because 't was fallen: her Sires were proud</p> +<p>Of deeds and days when they had filled the ear</p> +<p class="i2">Of nations, and had never bent or bowed</p> +<p>To novel power; and as she was the last,</p> +<p>She held their old faith and old feelings fast.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She gazed upon a World she scarcely knew,</p> +<p class="i2">As seeking not to know it; silent, lone,</p> +<p>As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,</p> +<p class="i2">And kept her heart serene within its zone.</p> +<p>There was awe in the homage which she drew;</p> +<p class="i2">Her Spirit seemed as seated on a throne</p> +<p>Apart from the surrounding world, and strong</p> +<p>In its own strength—most strange in one so young!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now it so happened, in the catalogue</p> +<p class="i2">Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[558]</a></span></p> +<p>Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue,</p> +<p class="i2">Beyond the charmers we have already cited;</p> +<p>Her beauty also seemed to form no clog</p> +<p class="i2">Against her being mentioned as well fitted,</p> +<p>By many virtues, to be worth the trouble</p> +<p>Of single gentlemen who would be double.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And this omission, like that of the bust</p> +<p class="i2">Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius,<a name="FNanchor_750" id="FNanchor_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_750" class="fnanchor">[750]</a></p> +<p>Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he must.</p> +<p class="i2">This he expressed half smiling and half serious;</p> +<p>When Adeline replied with some disgust,</p> +<p class="i2">And with an air, to say the least, imperious,</p> +<p>She marvelled "what he saw in such a baby</p> +<p>As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan rejoined—"She was a Catholic,</p> +<p class="i2">And therefore fittest, as of his persuasion;</p> +<p>Since he was sure his mother would fall sick,</p> +<p class="i2">And the Pope thunder excommunication,</p> +<p>If—" But here Adeline, who seemed to pique</p> +<p class="i2">Herself extremely on the inoculation</p> +<p>Of others with her own opinions, stated—</p> +<p>As usual—the same reason which she late did.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And wherefore not? A reasonable reason,</p> +<p class="i2">If good, is none the worse for repetition;</p> +<p>If bad, the best way's certainly to tease on,</p> +<p class="i2">And amplify: you lose much by concision,</p> +<p>Whereas insisting in or out of season</p> +<p class="i2">Convinces all men, even a politician;</p> +<p>Or—what is just the same—it wearies out.</p> +<p>So the end's gained, what signifies the route?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Why</i> Adeline had this slight prejudice—</p> +<p class="i2">For prejudice it was—against a creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[559]</a></span></p> +<p>As pure, as Sanctity itself, from Vice,—</p> +<p class="i2">With all the added charm of form and feature,—</p> +<p>For me appears a question far too nice,</p> +<p class="i2">Since Adeline was liberal by nature;</p> +<p>But Nature's Nature, and has more caprices</p> +<p>Than I have time, or will, to take to pieces.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Perhaps she did not like the quiet way</p> +<p class="i2">With which Aurora on those baubles looked,</p> +<p>Which charm most people in their earlier day:</p> +<p class="i2">For there are few things by Mankind less brooked,</p> +<p>And Womankind too, if we so may say,</p> +<p class="i2">Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked,</p> +<p>Like "Antony's by Cæsar,"<a name="FNanchor_751" id="FNanchor_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_751" class="fnanchor">[751]</a> by the few</p> +<p>Who look upon them as they ought to do.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was not envy—Adeline had none;</p> +<p class="i2">Her place was far beyond it, and her mind:</p> +<p>It was not scorn—which could not light on one</p> +<p class="i2">Whose greatest <i>fault</i> was leaving few to find:</p> +<p>It was not jealousy, I think—but shun</p> +<p class="i2">Following the <i>ignes fatui</i> of Mankind:</p> +<p>It was not——but 't is easier far, alas!</p> +<p>To say what it was <i>not</i> than what it was.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Little Aurora deemed she was the theme</p> +<p class="i2">Of such discussion. She was there a guest;</p> +<p>A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream</p> +<p class="i2">Of Rank and Youth, though purer than the rest,</p> +<p>Which flowed on for a moment in the beam</p> +<p class="i2">Time sheds a moment o'er each sparkling crest.</p> +<p>Had she known this, she would have calmly smiled—</p> +<p>She had so much, or little, of the child.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[560]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The dashing and proud air of Adeline</p> +<p class="i2">Imposed not upon her: she saw her blaze</p> +<p>Much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine,</p> +<p class="i2">Then turned unto the stars for loftier rays.</p> +<p>Juan was something she could not divine,</p> +<p class="i2">Being no Sibyl in the new world's ways;</p> +<p>Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor,</p> +<p>Because she did not pin her faith on feature.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His fame too,—for he had that kind of fame</p> +<p class="i2">Which sometimes plays the deuce with Womankind,</p> +<p>A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame,</p> +<p class="i2">Half virtues and whole vices being combined;</p> +<p>Faults which attract because they are not tame;</p> +<p class="i2">Follies tricked out so brightly that they blind:—</p> +<p>These seals upon her wax made no impression,</p> +<p>Such was her coldness or her self-possession.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan knew nought of such a character—</p> +<p class="i2">High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée;</p> +<p>Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere:</p> +<p class="i2">The island girl, bred up by the lone sea,</p> +<p>More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere,</p> +<p class="i2">Was Nature's all: Aurora could not be,</p> +<p>Nor would be thus:—the difference in them</p> +<p>Was such as lies between a flower and gem.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Having wound up with this sublime comparison,</p> +<p class="i2">Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative,</p> +<p>And, as my friend Scott says, "I sound my warison;"<a name="FNanchor_752" id="FNanchor_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Scott, the superlative of my comparative—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[561]</a></span></p> +<p>Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen,</p> +<p class="i2">Serf—Lord—Man, with such skill as none would share it, if</p> +<p>There had not been one Shakespeare and Voltaire,</p> +<p>Of one or both of whom he seems the heir.<a name="FNanchor_NW" id="FNanchor_NW"></a><a href="#Footnote_NW" class="fnanchor">[NW]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I say, in my slight way I may proceed</p> +<p class="i2">To play upon the surface of Humanity.</p> +<p>I write the World, nor care if the World read,</p> +<p class="i2">At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.</p> +<p>My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed</p> +<p class="i2">More foes by this same scroll: when I began it, I</p> +<p>Thought that it might turn out so—<i>now I know it</i>,<a name="FNanchor_753" id="FNanchor_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_753" class="fnanchor">[753]</a></p> +<p>But still I am, or was, a pretty poet.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The conference or congress (for it ended</p> +<p class="i2">As Congresses of late do) of the Lady</p> +<p>Adeline and Don Juan rather blended</p> +<p class="i2">Some acids with the sweets—for she was heady;</p> +<p>But, ere the matter could be marred or mended,</p> +<p class="i2">The silvery bell rang, not for "dinner ready,"</p> +<p>But for that hour, called half-hour, given to dress,</p> +<p>Though ladies' robes seem scant enough for less.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Great things were now to be achieved at table,</p> +<p class="i2">With massy plate for armour, knives and forks</p> +<p>For weapons; but what Muse since Homer's able</p> +<p class="i2">(His feasts are not the worst part of his works)</p> +<p>To draw up in array a single day-bill</p> +<p class="i2">Of modern dinners? where more mystery lurks,</p> +<p>In soups or sauces, or a sole <i>ragoút</i>,</p> +<p>Than witches, b—ches, or physicians, brew.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a goodly "soupe à la <i>bonne femme</i>"<a name="FNanchor_754" id="FNanchor_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_754" class="fnanchor">[754]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Though God knows whence it came from; there was, too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[562]</a></span></p> +<p>A turbot for relief of those who cram,</p> +<p class="i2">Relieved with "dindon à la Périgeux;"</p> +<p>There also was——the sinner that I am!</p> +<p class="i2">How shall I get this gourmand stanza through?—</p> +<p>"Soupe à la Beauveau," whose relief was dory,</p> +<p>Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I must crowd all into one grand mess</p> +<p class="i2">Or mass; for should I stretch into detail,</p> +<p>My Muse would run much more into excess,</p> +<p class="i2">Than when some squeamish people deem her frail;</p> +<p>But though a <i>bonne vivante</i>, I must confess</p> +<p class="i2">Her stomach's not her peccant part; this tale</p> +<p>However doth require some slight refection,</p> +<p>Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fowls "à la Condé," slices eke of salmon,</p> +<p class="i2">With "sauces Génevoises," and haunch of venison;</p> +<p>Wines too, which might again have slain young Ammon—<a name="FNanchor_755" id="FNanchor_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A man like whom I hope we sha'n't see many soon;</p> +<p>They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on,</p> +<p class="i2">Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison;</p> +<p>And then there was champagne with foaming whirls,</p> +<p>As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then there was God knows what "à l'Allemande,"</p> +<p class="i2">"A l'Espagnole," "timballe," and "salpicon"—</p> +<p>With things I can't withstand or understand,</p> +<p class="i2">Though swallowed with much zest upon the whole;</p> +<p>And <i>"entremets"</i> to piddle with at hand,</p> +<p class="i2">Gently to lull down the subsiding soul;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[563]</a></span></p> +<p>While great Lucullus' <i>Robe triumphal</i> muffles—</p> +<p>(<i>There's fame</i>)—young partridge fillets, decked with truffles.<a name="FNanchor_756" id="FNanchor_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_756" class="fnanchor">[756]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>What are the <i>fillets</i> on the Victor's brow</p> +<p class="i2">To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the arch</p> +<p>Which nodded to the nation's spoils below?</p> +<p class="i2">Where the triumphal chariots' haughty march?</p> +<p>Gone to where Victories must like dinners go.</p> +<p class="i2">Farther I shall not follow the research:</p> +<p>But oh! ye modern Heroes with your cartridges,</p> +<p>When will your names lend lustre e'en to partridges?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Those truffles too are no bad accessaries,</p> +<p class="i2">Followed by "petits puits d'amour"—a dish</p> +<p>Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,</p> +<p class="i2">So every one may dress it to his wish,</p> +<p>According to the best of dictionaries,</p> +<p class="i2">Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish;</p> +<p>But even, sans <i>confitures</i>, it no less true is,</p> +<p>There's pretty picking in those <i>petits puits</i>.<a name="FNanchor_757" id="FNanchor_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The mind is lost in mighty contemplation</p> +<p class="i2">Of intellect expanded on two courses;</p> +<p>And Indigestion's grand multiplication</p> +<p class="i2">Requires arithmetic beyond my forces.</p> +<p>Who would suppose, from Adam's simple ration,</p> +<p class="i2">That cookery could have called forth such resources,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[564]</a></span></p> +<p>As form a science and a nomenclature</p> +<p>From out the commonest demands of Nature?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled;</p> +<p class="i2">The diners of celebrity dined well;</p> +<p>The ladies with more moderation mingled</p> +<p class="i2">In the feast, pecking less than I can tell;</p> +<p>Also the younger men too: for a springald</p> +<p class="i2">Can't, like ripe Age, in <i>gourmandise</i> excel,</p> +<p>But thinks less of good eating than the whisper</p> +<p>(When seated next him) of some pretty lisper.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Alas! I must leave undescribed the <i>gibier</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">The <i>salmi</i>, the <i>consommé</i>, the <i>purée</i>,</p> +<p>All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber</p> +<p class="i2">Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull way:</p> +<p>I must not introduce even a spare rib here,</p> +<p class="i2">"Bubble and squeak" would spoil my liquid lay:</p> +<p>But I have dined, and must forego, alas!</p> +<p>The chaste description even of a "bécasse;"</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And fruits, and ice, and all that Art refines</p> +<p class="i2">From Nature for the service of the <i>goût</i>—</p> +<p><i>Taste</i> or the <i>gout</i>,—pronounce it as inclines</p> +<p class="i2">Your stomach! Ere you dine, the French will do;</p> +<p>But <i>after</i>, there are sometimes certain signs</p> +<p class="i2">Which prove plain English truer of the two.</p> +<p>Hast ever <i>had</i> the <i>gout</i>? I have not had it—</p> +<p>But I may have, and you too, reader, dread it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The simple olives, best allies of wine,</p> +<p class="i2">Must I pass over in my bill of fare?</p> +<p>I must, although a favourite <i>plat</i> of mine</p> +<p class="i2">In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, everywhere:</p> +<p>On them and bread 'twas oft my luck to dine—</p> +<p class="i2">The grass my table-cloth, in open air,</p> +<p>On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes,</p> +<p>Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.<a name="FNanchor_758" id="FNanchor_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_758" class="fnanchor">[758]</a></p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[565]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and fowl,</p> +<p class="i2">And vegetables, all in masquerade,</p> +<p>The guests were placed according to their roll,</p> +<p class="i2">But various as the various meats displayed:</p> +<p>Don Juan sat next an "à l'Espagnole"—</p> +<p class="i2">No damsel, but a dish, as hath been said;<a name="FNanchor_NX" id="FNanchor_NX"></a><a href="#Footnote_NX" class="fnanchor">[NX]</a></p> +<p>But so far like a lady, that 'twas drest</p> +<p>Superbly, and contained a world of zest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>By some odd chance too, he was placed between</p> +<p class="i2">Aurora and the Lady Adeline—</p> +<p>A situation difficult, I ween,</p> +<p class="i2">For man therein, with eyes and heart, to dine.</p> +<p>Also the conference which we have seen</p> +<p class="i2">Was not such as to encourage him to shine,</p> +<p>For Adeline, addressing few words to him,</p> +<p>With two transcendent eyes seemed to look through him.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears:</p> +<p class="i2">This much is sure, that, out of earshot, things</p> +<p>Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears,</p> +<p class="i2">Of which I can't tell whence their knowledge springs.</p> +<p>Like that same mystic music of the spheres,</p> +<p class="i2">Which no one hears, so loudly though it rings,</p> +<p>'Tis wonderful how oft the sex have heard</p> +<p>Long dialogues—which passed without a word!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Aurora sat with that indifference</p> +<p class="i2">Which piques a <i>preux chevalier</i>—as it ought:</p> +<p>Of all offences that's the worst offence,</p> +<p class="i2">Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought.</p> +<p>Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence,</p> +<p class="i2">Was not exactly pleased to be so caught;</p> +<p>Like a good ship entangled among ice—</p> +<p>And after so much excellent advice.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[566]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>To his gay nothings, nothing was replied,</p> +<p class="i2">Or something which was nothing, as Urbanity</p> +<p>Required. Aurora scarcely looked aside,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor even smiled enough for any vanity.</p> +<p>The Devil was in the girl! Could it be pride?</p> +<p class="i2">Or modesty, or absence, or inanity?</p> +<p>Heaven knows! But Adeline's malicious eyes</p> +<p>Sparkled with her successful prophecies,</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And looked as much as if to say, "I said it;"</p> +<p class="i2">A kind of triumph I'll not recommend,</p> +<p>Because it sometimes, as I have seen or read it,</p> +<p class="i2">Both in the case of lover and of friend,</p> +<p>Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit,</p> +<p class="i2">To bring what was a jest to a serious end:</p> +<p>For all men prophesy what <i>is</i> or <i>was</i>,</p> +<p>And hate those who won't let them come to pass.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was drawn thus into some attentions,</p> +<p class="i2">Slight but select, and just enough to express,</p> +<p>To females of perspicuous comprehensions,</p> +<p class="i2">That he would rather make them more than less.</p> +<p>Aurora at the last (so history mentions,</p> +<p class="i2">Though probably much less a fact than guess)</p> +<p>So far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison,</p> +<p>As once or twice to smile, if not to listen.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>From answering she began to question: this</p> +<p class="i2">With her was rare; and Adeline, who as yet</p> +<p>Thought her predictions went not much amiss,</p> +<p class="i2">Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette—</p> +<p>So very difficult, they say, it is</p> +<p class="i2">To keep extremes from meeting, when once set</p> +<p>In motion; but she here too much refined—</p> +<p>Aurora's spirit was not of that kind.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Juan had a sort of winning way,</p> +<p class="i2">A proud humility, if such there be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[567]</a></span></p> +<p>Which showed such deference to what females say,</p> +<p class="i2">As if each charming word were a decree.</p> +<p>His tact, too, tempered him from grave to gay,</p> +<p class="i2">And taught him when to be reserved or free:</p> +<p>He had the art of drawing people out,</p> +<p>Without their seeing what he was about.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Aurora, who in her indifference</p> +<p class="i2">Confounded him in common with the crowd</p> +<p>Of flatterers, though she deemed he had more sense</p> +<p class="i2">Than whispering foplings, or than witlings loud—</p> +<p>Commenced<a name="FNanchor_759" id="FNanchor_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_759" class="fnanchor">[759]</a> (from such slight things will great commence)</p> +<p class="i2">To feel that flattery which attracts the proud</p> +<p>Rather by deference than compliment,</p> +<p>And wins even by a delicate dissent.<a name="FNanchor_NY" id="FNanchor_NY"></a><a href="#Footnote_NY" class="fnanchor">[NY]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then he had good looks;—that point was carried</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Nem. con.</i> amongst the women, which I grieve</p> +<p>To say leads oft to <i>crim. con.</i> with the married—</p> +<p class="i2">A case which to the juries we may leave,</p> +<p>Since with digressions we too long have tarried.</p> +<p class="i2">Now though we know of old that looks deceive,</p> +<p>And always have done,—somehow these good looks</p> +<p>Make more impression than the best of books.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Aurora, who looked more on books than faces,</p> +<p class="i2">Was very young, although so very sage,</p> +<p>Admiring more Minerva than the Graces,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially upon a printed page.</p> +<p>But Virtue's self, with all her tightest laces,</p> +<p class="i2">Has not the natural stays of strict old age;</p> +<p>And Socrates, that model of all duty,</p> +<p>Owned to a <i>penchant</i>, though discreet, for beauty.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[568]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic,</p> +<p class="i2">But innocently so, as Socrates;</p> +<p>And really, if the Sage sublime and Attic</p> +<p class="i2">At seventy years had phantasies like these,</p> +<p>Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic</p> +<p class="i2">Has shown, I know not why they should displease</p> +<p>In virgins—always in a modest way,</p> +<p>Observe,—for that with me's a <i>sine quâ</i>.<a name="FNanchor_760" id="FNanchor_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Also observe, that, like the great Lord Coke</p> +<p class="i2">(See Littleton), whene'er I have expressed</p> +<p>Opinions two, which at first sight may look</p> +<p class="i2">Twin opposites, the second is the best.</p> +<p>Perhaps I have a third too, in a nook,</p> +<p class="i2">Or none at all—which seems a sorry jest:</p> +<p>But if a writer should be quite consistent,</p> +<p>How could he possibly show things existent?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If people contradict themselves, can I</p> +<p class="i2">Help contradicting them, and everybody,</p> +<p>Even my veracious self?—But that's a lie:</p> +<p class="i2">I never did so, never will—how should I?</p> +<p>He who doubts all things nothing can deny:</p> +<p class="i2">Truth's fountains may be clear—her streams are muddy,</p> +<p>And cut through such canals of contradiction,</p> +<p>That she must often navigate o'er fiction.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Apologue, Fable, Poesy, and Parable,</p> +<p class="i2">Are false, but may be rendered also true,</p> +<p>By those who sow them in a land that's arable:</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis wonderful what Fable will not do!</p> +<p>'Tis said it makes Reality more bearable:</p> +<p class="i2">But what's Reality? Who has its clue?</p> +<p>Philosophy? No; she too much rejects.</p> +<p>Religion? <i>Yes</i>; but which of all her sects?</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[569]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some millions must be wrong, that's pretty clear;</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps it may turn out that all were right.</p> +<p>God help us! Since we have need on our career</p> +<p class="i2">To keep our holy beacons always bright,</p> +<p>'Tis time that some new prophet should appear,</p> +<p class="i2">Or <i>old</i> indulge man with a second sight.</p> +<p>Opinions wear out in some thousand years,</p> +<p>Without a small refreshment from the spheres.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But here again, why will I thus entangle</p> +<p class="i2">Myself with Metaphysics? None can hate</p> +<p>So much as I do any kind of wrangle;</p> +<p class="i2">And yet, such is my folly, or my fate,</p> +<p>I always knock my head against some angle</p> +<p class="i2">About the present, past, or future state:</p> +<p>Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian,</p> +<p>For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But though I am a temperate theologian,</p> +<p class="i2">And also meek as a metaphysician,</p> +<p>Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan,</p> +<p class="i2">As Eldon<a name="FNanchor_761" id="FNanchor_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> on a lunatic commission,—</p> +<p>In politics my duty is to show John</p> +<p class="i2">Bull something of the lower world's condition.</p> +<p>It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla,<a name="FNanchor_762" id="FNanchor_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a></p> +<p>To see men let these scoundrel Sovereigns break law.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Politics, and Policy, and Piety,</p> +<p class="i2">Are topics which I sometimes introduce,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[570]</a></span></p> +<p>Not only for the sake of their variety,</p> +<p class="i2">But as subservient to a moral use;</p> +<p>Because my business is to <i>dress</i> society,</p> +<p class="i2">And stuff with <i>sage</i> that very verdant goose.</p> +<p>And now, that we may furnish with some matter all</p> +<p>Tastes, we are going to try the Supernatural.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now I will give up all argument;</p> +<p class="i2">And positively, henceforth, no temptation</p> +<p>Shall "fool me to the top up of my bent:"—<a name="FNanchor_763" id="FNanchor_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_763" class="fnanchor">[763]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Yes, I'll begin a thorough reformation.</p> +<p>Indeed, I never knew what people meant</p> +<p class="i2">By deeming that my Muse's conversation</p> +<p>Was dangerous;—I think she is as harmless</p> +<p>As some who labour more and yet may charm less.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost?</p> +<p class="i2">No; but you have heard—I understand—be dumb!</p> +<p>And don't regret the time you may have lost,</p> +<p class="i2">For you have got that pleasure still to come:</p> +<p>And do not think I mean to sneer at most</p> +<p class="i2">Of these things, or by ridicule benumb</p> +<p>That source of the Sublime and the Mysterious:—</p> +<p>For certain reasons my belief is serious.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Serious? You laugh;—you may: that will I not;</p> +<p class="i2">My smiles must be sincere or not at all.</p> +<p>I say I do believe a haunted spot</p> +<p class="i2">Exists—and where? That shall I not recall,</p> +<p>Because I'd rather it should be forgot,</p> +<p class="i2">"Shadows the soul of Richard"<a name="FNanchor_764" id="FNanchor_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a> may appal.</p> +<p>In short, upon that subject I've some qualms very</p> +<p>Like those of the philosopher of Malmsbury.<a name="FNanchor_765" id="FNanchor_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[571]</a></span></p><h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The night—(I sing by night—sometimes an owl,</p> +<p class="i2">And now and then a nightingale)—is dim,</p> +<p>And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's fowl</p> +<p class="i2">Rattles around me her discordant hymn:</p> +<p>Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl—</p> +<p class="i2">I wish to Heaven they would not look so grim;</p> +<p>The dying embers dwindle in the grate—</p> +<p>I think too that I have sat up too late:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way</p> +<p class="i2">To rhyme at noon—when I have other things</p> +<p>To think of, if I ever think—I say</p> +<p class="i2">I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,</p> +<p>And prudently postpone, until mid-day,</p> +<p class="i2">Treating a topic which, alas! but brings</p> +<p>Shadows;—but you must be in my condition,</p> +<p>Before you learn to call this superstition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Between two worlds Life hovers like a star,</p> +<p class="i2">'Twixt Night and Morn, upon the horizon's verge.</p> +<p>How little do we know that which we are!</p> +<p class="i2">How less what we may be!<a name="FNanchor_766" id="FNanchor_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_766" class="fnanchor">[766]</a> The eternal surge</p> +<p>Of Time and Tide rolls on and bears afar</p> +<p class="i2">Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,</p> +<p>Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves</p> +<p>Of Empires heave but like some passing waves.<a name="FNanchor_767" id="FNanchor_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_767" class="fnanchor">[767]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_733" id="Footnote_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733"><span class="label">[733]</span></a> <a name="Note_544" id="Note_544"></a>{544}[It is impossible to persuade the metaphor to march +"on all-fours," but, to drag it home, by a kind of "frog's march," the +unfulfilled wants of the soul, the "lurking thoughts" are as it were +bubbles, which we would fain "break on the invisible Ocean" of Passion +or Emotion the begetter of bubbles—Passion which, like the visible +Ocean, images Eternity and portrays, but not to the sensual eye, the +beatific vision of the things which are not seen, and, even so, +"ministers to the Soul's delight"! But "who can tell"?]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NI" id="Footnote_NI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NI"><span class="label">[NI]</span></a> <a name="Note_545" id="Note_545"></a>{545}<i>While all without's indicative of rest</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NJ" id="Footnote_NJ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NJ"><span class="label">[NJ]</span></a> <a name="Note_546" id="Note_546"></a>{546} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>A thing on which dull Time should never print age</i>,</p> +<p class="i2"><i>For whom stern Nature should forego her debt</i>.—[MS.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_734" id="Footnote_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734"><span class="label">[734]</span></a> [Ransom and Morland were Byron's bankers. Douglas +Kinnaird was a partner in the firm. (See <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 85, note +2.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NK" id="Footnote_NK"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NK"><span class="label">[NK]</span></a> <i>Old Skeleton with ages for your booty</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_735" id="Footnote_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735"><span class="label">[735]</span></a> <a name="Note_547" id="Note_547"></a>{547}["He turned himself into all manner of forms with +more ease than the chameleon changes his colour.... Thus at Sparta he +was all for exercise, frugal in his diet, and severe in his manners. In +Asia he was as much for mirth and pleasure, luxury and ease."—Plutarch, +<i>Alcibiades</i>, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 150.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_736" id="Footnote_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736"><span class="label">[736]</span></a> +[For the phrase "Cupidon Déchaîné," applied to Count +D'Orsay, <i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_716">p. 526, note 4</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_737" id="Footnote_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737"><span class="label">[737]</span></a> [Plautus, <i>Truculentus</i>, act ii. sc. 8, line 14.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_738" id="Footnote_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738"><span class="label">[738]</span></a> [Raphael's "Transfiguration" is in the Vatican.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_739" id="Footnote_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739"><span class="label">[739]</span></a> As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I +say that I mean, by "Diviner still," <span class="smcap">Christ</span>. If ever God was man—or man +God—he was <i>both</i>. I never arraigned his creed, but the use—or abuse +made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro +slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ +crucified, that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been +born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at +least salvation. +</p><p> +[In a debate in the House of Commons, May 15, 1823 (<i>Parl. Deb.</i>, N.S. +vol. ix. pp. 278, 279), Canning, replying to Fowell Buxton's motion for +the Abolition of Slavery, said, "God forbid that I should contend that +the Christian religion is favourable to slavery ... but if it be meant +that in the Christian religion there is a special denunciation against +slavery, that slavery and Christianity cannot exist together,—I think +that the honourable gentleman himself must admit that the proposition is +historically false."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NL" id="Footnote_NL"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NL"><span class="label">[NL]</span></a> <a name="Note_549" id="Note_549"></a>{549} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">—— <i>and One Name Greater still</i></p> +<p><i>Whose lot it was to be the most mistaken</i>.—[MS, erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NM" id="Footnote_NM"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NM"><span class="label">[NM]</span></a> <i>To leave the world by bigot fashions shaken</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NN" id="Footnote_NN"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NN"><span class="label">[NN]</span></a> <i>Which never flatters either Whig or Tory</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_740" id="Footnote_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740"><span class="label">[740]</span></a> <a name="Note_550" id="Note_550"></a>{550}[Martial, <i>Epig.</i>, x. 46.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_741" id="Footnote_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741"><span class="label">[741]</span></a> ["Feeble" for "foible" is found in the writings of Mrs. +Behn and Sir R. L'Estrange (<i>N. Engl. Dict.</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NO" id="Footnote_NO"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NO"><span class="label">[NO]</span></a> <i>But now I can't tell when it will be done</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_742" id="Footnote_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742"><span class="label">[742]</span></a> [The <i>N. Engl. Dict.</i> quotes W. Hooper's <i>Rational +Recreations</i> (1794) as an earlier authority for the use of "concision" +in the sense of conciseness.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NP" id="Footnote_NP"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NP"><span class="label">[NP]</span></a> <i>Who now are weltering</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_743" id="Footnote_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743"><span class="label">[743]</span></a> ["The cat will mew and dog will have his day." <i>Hamlet</i>, +act v. sc. 1, line 280.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NQ" id="Footnote_NQ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NQ"><span class="label">[NQ]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>I should not be the foremost to deride</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Their fault—but quickly take a sword the other way,</i></p> +<p><i>And wax an Ultra-royalist, where Royalty</i></p> +<p><i>Had nothing left it but a desperate Loyalty</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_744" id="Footnote_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744"><span class="label">[744]</span></a> <a name="Note_551" id="Note_551"></a>{551} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["And hold no sin so deeply red</p> +<p class="i2">As that of breaking Priscian's head."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Butler's <i>Hudibras</i>, Part II. Canto II. lines 223, 224.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_745" id="Footnote_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745"><span class="label">[745]</span></a> [Brougham, in the famous critique of <i>Hours of Idleness</i> +(<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, January, 1808, vol. xi. pp. 285-289), was pleased +"to counsel him that he do forthwith abandon poetry and turn his +talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, +to better account." Others, however, gave him encouragement. See, for +instance, a review by J.H. Markland, who afterwards made his name as +editor of the Roxburgh Club issue of the Chester Mysteries (whence, +perhaps, Byron derived his knowledge of "Mysteries and Moralities"), +which concludes thus: "Heartily hoping that the 'illness and depression +of spirits,' which evidently pervade the greater part of these +effusions, are entirely dispelled; confident that 'George Gordon, Lord +Byron' will have a conspicuous niche in the future editions of 'Royal +and Noble Authors,' etc."—<i>Gent. Mag.</i>, 1807, vol. lxxvii. p. 1217.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NR" id="Footnote_NR"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NR"><span class="label">[NR]</span></a> <i>To marshal onwards to the Delphian Height.</i>—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_746" id="Footnote_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746"><span class="label">[746]</span></a> <a name="Note_552" id="Note_552"></a>{552}["Three small vessels were apparently all that +Columbus had requested. Two of them were light barques, called caravels, +not superior to river and coasting craft of more modern days.... That +such long and perilous expeditions into unknown seas, should be +undertaken in vessels without decks, and that they should live through +the violent tempests by which they were frequently assailed, remain +among the singular circumstances of those daring voyages."—<i>History of +the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus</i>, by Washington Irving, +1831, i. 78.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NS" id="Footnote_NS"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NS"><span class="label">[NS]</span></a> <i>As Women seldom think by halves</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_747" id="Footnote_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747"><span class="label">[747]</span></a> <a name="Note_554" id="Note_554"></a>{554}This extraordinary and flourishing German colony in +America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the "Shakers" do; but +lays such restrictions upon it as prevents more than a certain quantum +of births within a certain number of years; which births (as Mr. Hulme +[perhaps Thomas Hulme, whose <i>Journal</i> is quoted in <i>Hints to +Emigrants</i>, 1817, pp. 5-18] observes) generally arrive "in a little +flock like those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same month +perhaps." These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) +are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. +See the various recent writers on America. +</p><p> +[The Harmonists were emigrants from Würtemburg, who settled (1803-1805) +under the auspices of George Rapp, in a township 120 miles north of +Philadelphia. This they sold, and "trekked" westwards to Indiana. One of +their customs was to keep watch by nights and to cry the hours to this +tune: "Again a day is past and a step made nearer to our end. Our time +runs away, and the joys of Heaven are our reward." (See <i>The +Philanthropist</i>, No. xx., 1815, vol. v, pp. 277-288.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NT" id="Footnote_NT"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NT"><span class="label">[NT]</span></a> <i>Which test I leave unto the Lords spiritual</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_748" id="Footnote_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748"><span class="label">[748]</span></a> <a name="Note_555" id="Note_555"></a>{555}Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed +to call his writers "able pens," "persons of honour," and, especially, +"eminent hands." <i>Vide</i> Correspondence, etc., etc. +</p><p> +["Perhaps I should myself be much better pleased, if I were told you +called me your little friend, than if you complimented me with the title +of a 'great genius,' or an eminent hand, as Jacob does all his +authors."—<i>Pope to Steele</i>, November 29, 1712, <i>Works of Alexander +Pope</i>, 1871, vi. 396.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_749" id="Footnote_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749"><span class="label">[749]</span></a> [See D'Israeli's <i>Curiosities of Literature</i>, 1841, pp. +450-452, and the Dissertation prefixed to Francis Douce's edition of +Holbein's <i>Dance of Death</i>, 1858, pp. 1-218.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NU" id="Footnote_NU"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NU"><span class="label">[NU]</span></a> <a name="Note_556" id="Note_556"></a>{556}—— <i>Miss Allman and Miss Noman</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NV" id="Footnote_NV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NV"><span class="label">[NV]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i6">—— <i>that smooth placid sea</i></p> +<p><i>Which did not show and yet concealed a storm</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_750" id="Footnote_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750"><span class="label">[750]</span></a> <a name="Note_558" id="Note_558"></a>{558}[Compare <i>Childe Harold</i>, Canto IV. stanza lix. line +3, <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1899, ii. 374, note 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_751" id="Footnote_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751"><span class="label">[751]</span></a> <a name="Note_559" id="Note_559"></a>{559} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i6">[" ... And, under him,</p> +<p>My Genius is rebuked; as it is said</p> +<p>Mark Antony's was by Cæsar."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iii, sc. 1, lines 54-56.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_752" id="Footnote_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752"><span class="label">[752]</span></a> <a name="Note_560" id="Note_560"></a>{560}[<i>Warison</i>—cri-de-guerre—note of assault:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Either receive within these towers</p> +<p>Two hundred of my master's powers,</p> +<p>Or straight they sound their <i>warrison</i>,</p> +<p>And storm and spoil this garrison."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, Canto IV. stanza xxiv, lines 17-20.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NW" id="Footnote_NW"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NW"><span class="label">[NW]</span></a> <a name="Note_561" id="Note_561"></a>{561}<i>And adds a third to what was late a pair</i>.—[MS. +erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_753" id="Footnote_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753"><span class="label">[753]</span></a> [Compare: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Life's a jest, and all things show it;</p> +<p>I thought so once, and <i>now I know it</i>."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Gay's Epitaph.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_754" id="Footnote_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754"><span class="label">[754]</span></a> [For "Potage à la bonne femme," "Dindon à la Périgueux," +"Soupe à la Beauveau," "Le dorey garni d'éperlans frits," "Le cuisseau +de pore à demi sel, garni de choux," "Le salmi de perdreaux à +l'Espagnole," "Les bécasses," see "Bill of Fare for November," <i>The +French Cook</i>, by Louis Eustache Ude, 1813, p. viii. For "Les poulardes à +la Condé," "Le jambon de Westphalie à l'Espagnole," "Les petites +timballes d'un salpicon à la Monglas" (?Montglat), "Les filets de +perdreaux sautés à la Lucullus," <i>vide ibid.</i>, p. ix., and for "Petits +puits d'amour garnis de confitures," <i>vide</i> Plate of Second Course (to +face) p. vi.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_755" id="Footnote_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755"><span class="label">[755]</span></a> <a name="Note_562" id="Note_562"></a>{562}[Alexander the Great.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_756" id="Footnote_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756"><span class="label">[756]</span></a> <a name="Note_563" id="Note_563"></a>{563}A dish "à la Lucullus." This hero, who conquered the +East, has left his more extended celebrity to the transplantation of +cherries (which he first brought into Europe), and the nomenclature of +some very good dishes;—and I am not sure that (barring indigestion) he +has not done more service to mankind by his cookery than by his +conquests. A cherry tree may weigh against a bloody laurel; besides, he +has contrived to earn celebrity from both. +</p><p> +[According to Pliny (<i>Nat, Hist.</i>, lib. xv. cap. xxv. ed. 1593, ii. +131), there were no cherry trees in Italy until L. Lucullus brought them +home with him from Pontus after the Mithridatic War (B.C. 74), and it +was not for another hundred and twenty years that the cherry tree +crossed the Channel and was introduced into Britain.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_757" id="Footnote_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757"><span class="label">[757]</span></a> +"Petits puits d'amour garnis de confitures,"—a classical +and well-known dish for part of the flank of a second course +[<i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Page_562">p. 562</a>].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_758" id="Footnote_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758"><span class="label">[758]</span></a> <a name="Note_564" id="Note_564"></a>{564}["To-day in a palace, to-morrow in a cow-house—this +day with a Pacha, the next with a shepherd."—Letter to his mother, July +30, 1810, <i>Letters</i>, 1898, i. 295.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NX" id="Footnote_NX"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NX"><span class="label">[NX]</span></a> <i>No lady but a dish</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_759" id="Footnote_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759"><span class="label">[759]</span></a> <a name="Note_567" id="Note_567"></a>{567}["This construction ('commence' with the infinitive) +has been objected to by stylists," says the <i>New English Dictionary</i> +(see art. "Commence"). Its use is sanctioned by the authority of Pope, +Landor, Helps, and Lytton; but even so, it is questionable, if not +objectionable.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NY" id="Footnote_NY"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NY"><span class="label">[NY]</span></a> <i>Sweet Lord! she was so sagely innocent</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_760" id="Footnote_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760"><span class="label">[760]</span></a> <a name="Note_568" id="Note_568"></a>{568}Subauditur "<i>non</i>;" omitted for the sake of +euphony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_761" id="Footnote_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761"><span class="label">[761]</span></a> <a name="Note_569" id="Note_569"></a>{569} [John Scott, Earl of Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 1801 +to 1827, sat as judge (November 7, 1822) to hear the petition of Henry +Wallop Fellowes, that a commission of inquiry should be issued to +ascertain whether his uncle, Lord Portsmouth (who married Mary Anne +Hanson, the daughter of Byron's solicitor), was of sound mind, "and +capable of managing his own person and property." The Chancellor gave +judgment that a commission be issued, and the jury, February, 1823, +returned a verdict that Lord Portsmouth had been a lunatic since 1809. +(See <i>Letters</i>, 1898, ii. 393, note 3, <i>et ibid.</i>, 1901, vi. 170, note +i.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_762" id="Footnote_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762"><span class="label">[762]</span></a> Hecla is a famous hot-spring in Iceland. [Byron seems to +mistake the volcano for the Geysers.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_763" id="Footnote_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763"><span class="label">[763]</span></a> <a name="Note_570" id="Note_570"></a>{570}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act iii. sc. 2, line 367.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_764" id="Footnote_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764"><span class="label">[764]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night</p> +<p class="i2">Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard</p> +<p class="i2">Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers," etc.</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Richard III.</i>, act v. sc. 3, lines 216-218.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_765" id="Footnote_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765"><span class="label">[765]</span></a> Hobbes: who, doubting of his own soul, paid that +compliment to the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of +which he had some apprehension. +</p><p> +[Bayle (see art. "Hobbes" [<i>Dict. Crit. and Hist.</i>, 1736, iii. 471, note +N.]) quotes from <i>Vita Hobb.</i>, p. 106: "He was as falsely accused by +some of being unwilling to be alone, because he was afraid of spectres +and apparitions, vain bugbears of fools, which he had chased away by the +light of his Philosophy," and proceeds to argue that, perhaps, after +all, Hobbes was afraid of the dark. "He was timorous to the last degree, +and consequently he had reason to distrust his imagination when he was +alone in a chamber in the night; for in spite of him the memory of what +he had read and heard concerning apparitions would revive, though he was +not persuaded of the reality of these things." See, however, for his own +testimony that he was "not afrayd of sprights," <i>Letters and Lives of +Eminent Persons</i>, by John Aubrey, 1813, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 624.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_766" id="Footnote_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766"><span class="label">[766]</span></a> <a name="Note_571" id="Note_571"></a>{571}[<i>Hamlet</i>, act iv. sc. 5, lines 41, 42.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_767" id="Footnote_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767"><span class="label">[767]</span></a> End of Canto 15<sup>th</sup>. M<sup>ch</sup>. 25, 1823. B.—[MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[572]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_SIXTEENTH" id="CANTO_THE_SIXTEENTH"></a> +CANTO THE SIXTEENTH.<a name="FNanchor_768" id="FNanchor_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_768" class="fnanchor">[768]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The antique Persians taught three useful things,</p> +<p class="i2">To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth,<a name="FNanchor_769" id="FNanchor_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_769" class="fnanchor">[769]</a></p> +<p>This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings—</p> +<p class="i2">A mode adopted since by modern youth.</p> +<p>Bows have they, generally with two strings;</p> +<p class="i2">Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;</p> +<p>At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,</p> +<p>But draw the long bow better now than ever.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The cause of this effect, or this defect,—</p> +<p class="i2">"For this effect defective comes by cause,"—<a name="FNanchor_770" id="FNanchor_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_770" class="fnanchor">[770]</a></p> +<p>Is what I have not leisure to inspect;</p> +<p class="i2">But this I must say in my own applause,</p> +<p>Of all the Muses that I recollect,</p> +<p class="i2">Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws</p> +<p>In some things, mine's beyond all contradiction</p> +<p>The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats</p> +<p class="i2">From anything, this Epic will contain</p> +<p>A wilderness of the most rare conceits,</p> +<p class="i2">Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.</p> +<p>'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet mixed so slightly, that you can't complain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[573]</a></span></p> +<p>But wonder they so few are, since my tale is</p> +<p>"<i>De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_771" id="FNanchor_771"></a><a href="#Footnote_771" class="fnanchor">[771]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But of all truths which she has told, the most</p> +<p class="i2">True is that which she is about to tell.</p> +<p>I said it was a story of a ghost—</p> +<p class="i2">What then? I only know it so befell.</p> +<p>Have you explored the limits of the coast,</p> +<p class="i2">Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?</p> +<p>'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as</p> +<p>The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some people would impose now with authority,</p> +<p class="i2">Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;</p> +<p>Men whose historical superiority</p> +<p class="i2">Is always greatest at a miracle.</p> +<p>But Saint Augustine has the great priority,</p> +<p class="i2">Who bids all men believe the impossible,</p> +<p><i>Because 'tis so.</i> Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he</p> +<p>Quiets at once with "<i>quia impossibile.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_772" id="FNanchor_772"></a><a href="#Footnote_772" class="fnanchor">[772]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;</p> +<p class="i2">Believe:—if 'tis improbable, you <i>must</i>,</p> +<p>And if it is impossible, you <i>shall</i>:</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis always best to take things upon trust.</p> +<p>I do not speak profanely to recall</p> +<p class="i2">Those holier Mysteries which the wise and just</p> +<p>Receive as Gospel, and which grow more rooted,</p> +<p>As all truths must, the more they are disputed:</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I merely mean to say what Johnson said,</p> +<p class="i2">That in the course of some six thousand years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[574]</a></span></p> +<p>All nations have believed that from the dead</p> +<p class="i2">A visitant at intervals appears:<a name="FNanchor_773" id="FNanchor_773"></a><a href="#Footnote_773" class="fnanchor">[773]</a></p> +<p>And what is strangest upon this strange head,</p> +<p class="i2">Is, that whatever bar the reason rears</p> +<p>'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still</p> +<p>In its behalf—let those deny who will.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The dinner and the <i>soirée</i> too were done,</p> +<p class="i2">The supper too discussed, the dames admired,</p> +<p>The banqueteers had dropped off one by one—</p> +<p class="i2">The song was silent, and the dance expired:</p> +<p>The last thin petticoats were vanished, gone</p> +<p class="i2">Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired,</p> +<p>And nothing brighter gleamed through the saloon</p> +<p>Than dying tapers—and the peeping moon.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The evaporation of a joyous day</p> +<p class="i2">Is like the last glass of champagne, without</p> +<p>The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;</p> +<p class="i2">Or like a system coupled with a doubt;</p> +<p>Or like a soda bottle when its spray</p> +<p class="i2">Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;</p> +<p>Or like a billow left by storms behind,</p> +<p>Without the animation of the wind;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Or like an opiate, which brings troubled rest,</p> +<p class="i2">Or none; or like—like nothing that I know</p> +<p>Except itself;—such is the human breast;</p> +<p class="i2">A thing, of which similitudes can show</p> +<p>No real likeness,—like the old Tyrian vest</p> +<p class="i2">Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[575]</a></span></p> +<p>If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.<a name="FNanchor_774" id="FNanchor_774"></a><a href="#Footnote_774" class="fnanchor">[774]</a></p> +<p>So perish every Tyrant's robe piece-meal!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But next to dressing for a rout or ball,</p> +<p class="i2">Undressing is a woe; our <i>robe de chambre</i></p> +<p>May sit like that of Nessus,<a name="FNanchor_775" id="FNanchor_775"></a><a href="#Footnote_775" class="fnanchor">[775]</a> and recall</p> +<p class="i2">Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.</p> +<p>Titus exclaimed, "I've lost a day!"<a name="FNanchor_776" id="FNanchor_776"></a><a href="#Footnote_776" class="fnanchor">[776]</a> Of all</p> +<p class="i2">The nights and days most people can remember,</p> +<p>(I have had of both, some not to be disdained,)</p> +<p>I wish they'd state how many they have gained.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan, on retiring for the night,</p> +<p class="i2">Felt restless, and perplexed, and compromised:</p> +<p>He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright</p> +<p class="i2">Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;</p> +<p>If he had known exactly his own plight,</p> +<p class="i2">He probably would have philosophised:</p> +<p>A great resource to all, and ne'er denied</p> +<p>Till wanted; therefore Juan only sighed.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He sighed;—the next resource is the full moon,</p> +<p class="i2">Where all sighs are deposited; and now</p> +<p>It happened luckily, the chaste orb shone</p> +<p class="i2">As clear as such a climate will allow;</p> +<p>And Juan's mind was in the proper tone</p> +<p class="i2">To hail her with the apostrophe—"O thou!"</p> +<p>Of amatory egotism the <i>Tuism</i>,<a name="FNanchor_777" id="FNanchor_777"></a><a href="#Footnote_777" class="fnanchor">[777]</a></p> +<p>Which further to explain would be a truism.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[576]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Lover, Poet, or Astronomer—</p> +<p class="i2">Shepherd, or swain—whoever may behold,</p> +<p>Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her;</p> +<p class="i2">Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold</p> +<p>Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);</p> +<p class="i2">Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;</p> +<p>The Ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways,</p> +<p>And also hearts—if there be truth in lays.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed</p> +<p class="i2">For contemplation rather than his pillow:</p> +<p>The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,</p> +<p class="i2">Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow,</p> +<p>With all the mystery by midnight caused:</p> +<p class="i2">Below his window waved (of course) willow;</p> +<p>And he stood gazing out on the cascade</p> +<p>That flashed and after darkened in the shade.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Upon his table or his toilet,<a name="FNanchor_778" id="FNanchor_778"></a><a href="#Footnote_778" class="fnanchor">[778]</a>—<i>which</i></p> +<p class="i2">Of these is not exactly ascertained,—</p> +<p>(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch</p> +<p class="i2">Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained,)</p> +<p>A lamp burned high, while he leant from a niche,</p> +<p class="i2">Where many a Gothic ornament remained,</p> +<p>In chiselled stone and painted glass, and all</p> +<p>That Time has left our fathers of their Hall.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw</p> +<p class="i2">His chamber door wide open<a name="FNanchor_779" id="FNanchor_779"></a><a href="#Footnote_779" class="fnanchor">[779]</a>—and went forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[577]</a></span></p> +<p>Into a gallery of a sombre hue,</p> +<p class="i2">Long, furnished with old pictures of great worth,</p> +<p>Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,</p> +<p class="i2">As doubtless should be people of high birth;</p> +<p>But by dim lights the portraits of the dead</p> +<p>Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The forms of the grim Knight and pictured Saint</p> +<p class="i2">Look living in the moon; and as you turn</p> +<p>Backward and forward to the echoes faint</p> +<p class="i2">Of your own footsteps—voices from the Urn</p> +<p>Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint</p> +<p class="i2">Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,</p> +<p>As if to ask how you can dare to keep</p> +<p>A vigil there, where all but Death should sleep.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And the pale smile of Beauties in the grave,</p> +<p class="i2">The charms of other days, in starlight gleams,</p> +<p>Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave</p> +<p class="i2">Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams</p> +<p>On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,<a name="FNanchor_780" id="FNanchor_780"></a><a href="#Footnote_780" class="fnanchor">[780]</a></p> +<p class="i2">But Death is imaged in their shadowy beams.</p> +<p>A picture is the past; even ere its frame</p> +<p>Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>As Juan mused on Mutability,</p> +<p class="i2">Or on his Mistress—terms synonymous—</p> +<p>No sound except the echo of his sigh</p> +<p class="i2">Or step ran sadly through that antique house;</p> +<p>When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,</p> +<p class="i2">A supernatural agent—or a mouse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[578]</a></span></p> +<p>Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass</p> +<p>Most people as it plays along the arras.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It was no mouse—but lo! a monk, arrayed<a name="FNanchor_781" id="FNanchor_781"></a><a href="#Footnote_781" class="fnanchor">[781]</a></p> +<p class="i2">In cowl and beads, and dusky garb, appeared,</p> +<p>Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,</p> +<p class="i2">With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;</p> +<p>His garments only a slight murmur made;</p> +<p class="i2">He moved as shadowy as the Sisters weird,<a name="FNanchor_782" id="FNanchor_782"></a><a href="#Footnote_782" class="fnanchor">[782]</a></p> +<p>But slowly; and as he passed Juan by,</p> +<p>Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint</p> +<p class="i2">Of such a Spirit in these halls of old,</p> +<p>But thought, like most men, that there was nothing in't</p> +<p class="i2">Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,</p> +<p>Coined from surviving Superstition's mint,</p> +<p class="i2">Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,</p> +<p>But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.</p> +<p>And did he see this? or was it a vapour?</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[579]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Once, twice, thrice passed, repassed—the thing of air,</p> +<p class="i2">Or earth beneath, or Heaven, or t' other place;</p> +<p>And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base</p> +<p>As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair</p> +<p class="i2">Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;</p> +<p>He taxed his tongue for words, which were not granted,</p> +<p>To ask the reverend person what he wanted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The third time, after a still longer pause,</p> +<p class="i2">The shadow passed away—but where? the hall</p> +<p>Was long, and thus far there was no great cause</p> +<p class="i2">To think his vanishing unnatural:</p> +<p>Doors there were many, through which, by the laws</p> +<p class="i2">Of physics, bodies whether short or tall</p> +<p>Might come or go; but Juan could not state</p> +<p>Through which the Spectre seemed to evaporate.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He stood—how long he knew not, but it seemed</p> +<p class="i2">An age—expectant, powerless, with his eyes</p> +<p>Strained on the spot where first the figure gleamed</p> +<p class="i2">Then by degrees recalled his energies,</p> +<p>And would have passed the whole off as a dream,</p> +<p class="i2">But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,</p> +<p>Waking already, and returned at length</p> +<p>Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All there was as he left it: still his taper</p> +<p class="i2">Burned, and not <i>blue</i>, as modest tapers use,</p> +<p>Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour;</p> +<p class="i2">He rubbed his eyes, and they did not refuse</p> +<p>Their office: he took up an old newspaper;</p> +<p class="i2">The paper was right easy to peruse;</p> +<p>He read an article the King attacking,</p> +<p>And a long eulogy of "Patent Blacking."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This savoured of this world; but his hand shook:</p> +<p class="i2">He shut his door, and after having read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[580]</a></span></p> +<p>A paragraph, I think about Horne Tooke,</p> +<p class="i2">Undressed, and rather slowly went to bed.</p> +<p>There, couched all snugly on his pillow's nook,</p> +<p class="i2">With what he had seen his phantasy he fed;</p> +<p>And though it was no opiate, slumber crept</p> +<p>Upon him by degrees, and so he slept.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He woke betimes; and, as may be supposed,</p> +<p class="i2">Pondered upon his visitant or vision,</p> +<p>And whether it ought not to be disclosed,</p> +<p class="i2">At risk of being quizzed for superstition.</p> +<p>The more he thought, the more his mind was posed:</p> +<p class="i2">In the mean time, his valet, whose precision</p> +<p>Was great, because his master brooked no less,</p> +<p>Knocked to inform him it was time to dress.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He dressed; and like young people he was wont</p> +<p class="i2">To take some trouble with his toilet, but</p> +<p>This morning rather spent less time upon't;</p> +<p class="i2">Aside his very mirror soon was put;</p> +<p>His curls fell negligently o'er his front,</p> +<p class="i2">His clothes were not curbed to their usual cut,</p> +<p>His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was tied</p> +<p>Almost an hair's breadth too much on one side.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And when he walked down into the Saloon,</p> +<p class="i2">He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea,</p> +<p>Which he perhaps had not discovered soon,</p> +<p class="i2">Had it not happened scalding hot to be,</p> +<p>Which made him have recourse unto his spoon;</p> +<p class="i2">So much <i>distrait</i> he was, that all could see</p> +<p>That something was the matter—Adeline</p> +<p>The first—but <i>what</i> she could not well divine.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She looked, and saw him pale, and turned as pale</p> +<p class="i2">Herself; then hastily looked down, and muttered</p> +<p>Something, but what's not stated in my tale.</p> +<p class="i2">Lord Henry said, his muffin was ill buttered;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[581]</a></span></p> +<p>The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke played with her veil,</p> +<p class="i2">And looked at Juan hard, but nothing uttered.</p> +<p>Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes</p> +<p>Surveyed him with a kind of calm surprise.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But seeing him all cold and silent still,</p> +<p class="i2">And everybody wondering more or less,</p> +<p>Fair Adeline inquired, "If he were ill?"</p> +<p class="i2">He started, and said, "Yes—no—rather—yes."</p> +<p>The family physician had great skill,</p> +<p class="i2">And being present, now began to express</p> +<p>His readiness to feel his pulse and tell</p> +<p>The cause, but Juan said, he was "quite well."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Quite well; yes,—no."—These answers were mysterious,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet his looks appeared to sanction both,</p> +<p>However they might savour of delirious;</p> +<p class="i2">Something like illness of a sudden growth</p> +<p>Weighed on his spirit, though by no means serious:</p> +<p class="i2">But for the rest, as he himself seemed both</p> +<p>To state the case, it might be ta'en for granted</p> +<p>It was not the physician that he wanted.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Henry, who had now discussed his chocolate,</p> +<p class="i2">Also the muffin whereof he complained,</p> +<p>Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate,</p> +<p class="i2">At which he marvelled, since it had not rained;</p> +<p>Then asked her Grace what news were of the Duke of late?</p> +<p class="i2"><i>Her</i> Grace replied, <i>his</i> Grace was rather pained</p> +<p>With some slight, light, hereditary twinges</p> +<p>Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Then Henry turned to Juan, and addressed</p> +<p class="i2">A few words of condolence on his state:</p> +<p>"You look," quoth he, "as if you had had your rest</p> +<p class="i2">Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[582]</a></span></p> +<p>"What Friar?" said Juan; and he did his best</p> +<p class="i2">To put the question with an air sedate,</p> +<p>Or careless; but the effort was not valid</p> +<p>To hinder him from growing still more pallid.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?</p> +<p class="i2">The Spirit of these walls?"—"In truth not I."</p> +<p>"Why Fame—but Fame you know's sometimes a liar—</p> +<p class="i2">Tells an odd story, of which by and by:</p> +<p>Whether with time the Spectre has grown shyer,</p> +<p class="i2">Or that our Sires had a more gifted eye</p> +<p>For such sights, though the tale is half believed,</p> +<p>The Friar of late has not been oft perceived.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"The last time was——"—"I pray," said Adeline—</p> +<p class="i2">(Who watched the changes of Don Juan's brow,</p> +<p>And from its context thought she could divine</p> +<p class="i2">Connections stronger than he chose to avow</p> +<p>With this same legend)—"if you but design</p> +<p class="i2">To jest, you'll choose some other theme just now,</p> +<p>Because the present tale has oft been told,</p> +<p>And is not much improved by growing old."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"Jest!" quoth Milor; "why, Adeline, you know</p> +<p class="i2">That we ourselves—'twas in the honey moon</p> +<p>Saw——"—"Well, no matter, 'twas so long ago;</p> +<p class="i2">But, come, I'll set your story to a tune."</p> +<p>Graceful as Dian when she draws her bow,</p> +<p class="i2">She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon</p> +<p>As touched, and plaintively began to play</p> +<p>The air of "'Twas a Friar of Orders Gray."<a name="FNanchor_NZ" id="FNanchor_NZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_NZ" class="fnanchor">[NZ]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>"But add the words," cried Henry, "which you made;</p> +<p class="i2">For Adeline is half a poetess,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[583]</a></span></p> +<p>Turning round to the rest, he smiling said.</p> +<p class="i2">Of course the others could not but express</p> +<p>In courtesy their wish to see displayed</p> +<p class="i2">By one <i>three</i> talents, for there were no less—</p> +<p>The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once,</p> +<p>Could hardly be united by a dunce.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>After some fascinating hesitation,—</p> +<p class="i2">The charming of these charmers, who seem bound,</p> +<p>I can't tell why, to this dissimulation,—</p> +<p class="i2">Fair Adeline, with eyes fixed on the ground</p> +<p>At first, then kindling into animation,</p> +<p class="i2">Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound,</p> +<p>And sang with much simplicity,—a merit</p> +<p>Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>1.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,</p> +<p class="i2">Who sitteth by Norman stone,</p> +<p>For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,</p> +<p class="i2">And his mass of the days that are gone.</p> +<p>When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,</p> +<p class="i2">Made Norman Church his prey,</p> +<p>And expelled the friars, one friar still</p> +<p>Would not be driven away.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3><a id="songs2" name="songs2"></a>2.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,</p> +<p class="i2">To turn church lands to lay,</p> +<p>With sword in hand, and torch to light</p> +<p class="i2">Their walls, if they said nay;</p> +<p>A monk remained, unchased, unchained,</p> +<p class="i2">And he did not seem formed of clay,</p> +<p>For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church,</p> +<p>Though he is not seen by day.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>3.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And whether for good, or whether for ill,</p> +<p class="i2">It is not mine to say;</p> +<p>But still with the house of Amundeville</p> +<p class="i2">He abideth night and day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[584]</a></span></p> +<p>By the marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis said,</p> +<p class="i2">He flits on the bridal eve;</p> +<p>And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of Death<a name="FNanchor_OA" id="FNanchor_OA"></a><a href="#Footnote_OA" class="fnanchor">[OA]</a></p> +<p>He comes—but not to grieve.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>4.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>When an heir is born, he's heard to mourn,</p> +<p class="i2">And when aught is to befall</p> +<p>That ancient line, in the pale moonshine</p> +<p class="i2">He walks from hall to hall.</p> +<p>His form you may trace, but not his face,</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis shadowed by his cowl;</p> +<p>But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,</p> +<p>And they seem of a parted soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>5.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But beware! beware! of the Black Friar,</p> +<p class="i2">He still retains his sway,</p> +<p>For he is yet the Church's heir,</p> +<p class="i2">Whoever may be the lay.</p> +<p>Amundeville is Lord by day,</p> +<p class="i2">But the monk is Lord by night;</p> +<p>Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal</p> +<p>To question that Friar's right.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>6.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Say nought to him as he walks the Hall,</p> +<p class="i2">And he'll say nought to you;</p> +<p>He sweeps along in his dusky pall,</p> +<p class="i2">As o'er the grass the dew.</p> +<p>Then grammercy! for the Black Friar;</p> +<p class="i2">Heaven sain him! fair or foul,—</p> +<p>And whatsoe'er may be his prayer,</p> +<p>Let ours be for his soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling wires</p> +<p class="i2">Died from the touch that kindled them to sound;</p> +<p>And the pause followed, which when song expires</p> +<p class="i2">Pervades a moment those who listen round;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[585]</a></span></p> +<p>And then of course the circle much admires,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound,</p> +<p>The tones, the feeling, and the execution,</p> +<p>To the performer's diffident confusion.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Fair Adeline, though in a careless way,</p> +<p class="i2">As if she rated such accomplishment</p> +<p>As the mere pastime of an idle day,</p> +<p class="i2">Pursued an instant for her own content,</p> +<p>Would now and then as 'twere <i>without</i> display,</p> +<p class="i2">Yet <i>with</i> display in fact, at times relent</p> +<p>To such performances with haughty smile,</p> +<p>To show she <i>could</i>, if it were worth her while.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now this (but we will whisper it aside)</p> +<p class="i2">Was—pardon the pedantic illustration—</p> +<p>Trampling on Plato's pride with greater pride,</p> +<p class="i2">As did the Cynic on some like occasion;</p> +<p>Deeming the sage would be much mortified,</p> +<p class="i2">Or thrown into a philosophic passion,</p> +<p>For a spoilt carpet—but the "Attic Bee"</p> +<p>Was much consoled by his own repartee.<a name="FNanchor_783" id="FNanchor_783"></a><a href="#Footnote_783" class="fnanchor">[783]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Thus Adeline would throw into the shade</p> +<p class="i2">(By doing easily, whene'er she chose,</p> +<p>What dilettanti do with vast parade)</p> +<p class="i2">Their sort of <i>half profession</i>; for it grows</p> +<p>To something like this when too oft displayed;</p> +<p class="i2">And that it is so, everybody knows,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[586]</a></span></p> +<p>Who have heard Miss That or This, or Lady T'other,</p> +<p>Show off—to please their company or mother.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Oh! the long evenings of duets and trios!</p> +<p class="i2">The admirations and the speculations;</p> +<p>The "Mamma Mia's!" and the "Amor Mio's!"</p> +<p class="i2">The "Tanti palpiti's" on such occasions:</p> +<p>The "Lasciami's," and quavering "Addio's,"</p> +<p class="i2">Amongst our own most musical of nations!</p> +<p>With "Tu mi chamas's" from Portingale,<a name="FNanchor_784" id="FNanchor_784"></a><a href="#Footnote_784" class="fnanchor">[784]</a></p> +<p>To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.<a name="FNanchor_785" id="FNanchor_785"></a><a href="#Footnote_785" class="fnanchor">[785]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>In Babylon's <i>bravuras</i>—as the Home-</p> +<p class="i2">Heart-Ballads of Green Erin or Grey Highlands,</p> +<p>That bring Lochaber back to eyes that roam</p> +<p class="i2">O'er far Atlantic continents or islands,</p> +<p>The calentures<a name="FNanchor_786" id="FNanchor_786"></a><a href="#Footnote_786" class="fnanchor">[786]</a> of music which o'ercome</p> +<p class="i2">All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh lands,</p> +<p>No more to be beheld but in such visions—</p> +<p>Was Adeline well versed, as compositions.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>She also had a twilight tinge of "<i>Blue</i>,"</p> +<p class="i2">Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[587]</a></span></p> +<p>Made epigrams occasionally too</p> +<p class="i2">Upon her friends, as everybody ought.</p> +<p>But still from that sublimer azure hue,<a name="FNanchor_787" id="FNanchor_787"></a><a href="#Footnote_787" class="fnanchor">[787]</a></p> +<p class="i2">So much the present dye, she was remote;</p> +<p>Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet,</p> +<p>And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Aurora—since we are touching upon taste,</p> +<p class="i2">Which now-a-days is the thermometer</p> +<p>By whose degrees all characters are classed—</p> +<p class="i2">Was more Shakespearian, if I do not err.</p> +<p>The worlds beyond this World's perplexing waste</p> +<p class="i2">Had more of her existence, for in her</p> +<p>There was a depth of feeling to embrace</p> +<p>Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XLIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace,</p> +<p class="i2">The full-grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind,</p> +<p>If she had any, was upon her face,</p> +<p class="i2">And that was of a fascinating kind.</p> +<p>A little turn for mischief you might trace</p> +<p class="i2">Also thereon,—but that's not much; we find</p> +<p>Few females without some such gentle leaven,</p> +<p>For fear we should suppose us quite in Heaven.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>L.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I have not heard she was at all poetic,</p> +<p class="i2">Though once she was seen reading the <i>Bath Guide</i>,<a name="FNanchor_788" id="FNanchor_788"></a><a href="#Footnote_788" class="fnanchor">[788]</a></p> +<p>And Hayley's <i>Triumphs</i>,<a name="FNanchor_789" id="FNanchor_789"></a><a href="#Footnote_789" class="fnanchor">[789]</a> which she deemed pathetic,</p> +<p class="i2">Because she said <i>her temper</i> had been tried</p> +<p>So much, the bard had really been prophetic</p> +<p class="i2">Of what she had gone through with—since a bride.</p> +<p>But of all verse, what most ensured her praise</p> +<p>Were sonnets to herself, or <i>bouts rimés</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[588]</a></span></p><h3>LI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'Twere difficult to say what was the object</p> +<p class="i2">Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay</p> +<p>To bear on what appeared to her the subject</p> +<p class="i2">Of Juan's nervous feelings on that day.</p> +<p>Perhaps she merely had the simple project</p> +<p class="i2">To laugh him out of his supposed dismay;</p> +<p>Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it,</p> +<p>Though why I cannot say—at least this minute.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But so far the immediate effect</p> +<p class="i2">Was to restore him to his self-propriety,</p> +<p>A thing quite necessary to the elect,</p> +<p class="i2">Who wish to take the tone of their society:</p> +<p>In which you cannot be too circumspect,</p> +<p class="i2">Whether the mode be persiflage or piety,</p> +<p>But wear the newest mantle of hypocrisy,</p> +<p>On pain of much displeasing the gynocracy.<a name="FNanchor_790" id="FNanchor_790"></a><a href="#Footnote_790" class="fnanchor">[790]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And therefore Juan now began to rally</p> +<p class="i2">His spirits, and without more explanation</p> +<p>To jest upon such themes in many a sally.</p> +<p class="i2">Her Grace, too, also seized the same occasion,</p> +<p>With various similar remarks to tally,</p> +<p class="i2">But wished for a still more detailed narration</p> +<p>Of this same mystic friar's curious doings,</p> +<p>About the present family's deaths and wooings.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of these few could say more than has been said;</p> +<p class="i2">They passed as such things do, for superstition</p> +<p>With some, while others, who had more in dread</p> +<p class="i2">The theme, half credited the strange tradition;</p> +<p>And much was talked on all sides on that head:</p> +<p class="i2">But Juan, when cross-questioned on the vision,</p> +<p>Which some supposed (though he had not avowed it)</p> +<p>Had stirred him, answered in a way to cloud it.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[589]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>LV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then, the mid-day having worn to one,</p> +<p class="i2">The company prepared to separate;</p> +<p>Some to their several pastimes, or to none,</p> +<p class="i2">Some wondering 'twas so early, some so late.</p> +<p>There was a goodly match too, to be run</p> +<p class="i2">Between some greyhounds on my Lord's estate,</p> +<p>And a young race-horse of old pedigree,</p> +<p>Matched for the spring, whom several went to see.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a picture-dealer who had brought</p> +<p class="i2">A special Titian, warranted original,</p> +<p>So precious that it was not to be bought,</p> +<p class="i2">Though Princes the possessor were besieging all—</p> +<p>The King himself had cheapened it, but thought</p> +<p class="i2">The civil list he deigns to accept (obliging all</p> +<p>His subjects by his gracious acceptation)—</p> +<p>Too scanty, in these times of low taxation.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur,—</p> +<p class="i2">The friend of Artists, if not Arts,—the owner,</p> +<p>With motives the most classical and pure,</p> +<p class="i2">So that he would have been the very donor,</p> +<p>Rather than seller, had his wants been fewer,</p> +<p class="i2">So much he deemed his patronage an honour,</p> +<p>Had brought the <i>capo d'opera</i>, not for sale,</p> +<p>But for his judgment—never known to fail.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There was a modern Goth, I mean a Gothic</p> +<p class="i2">Bricklayer of Babel, called an architect,<a name="FNanchor_OB" id="FNanchor_OB"></a><a href="#Footnote_OB" class="fnanchor">[OB]</a></p> +<p>Brought to survey these grey walls which, though so thick,</p> +<p class="i2">Might have from Time acquired some slight defect;</p> +<p>Who, after rummaging the Abbey through thick</p> +<p class="i2">And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect</p> +<p>New buildings of correctest conformation,</p> +<p>And throw down old—which he called <i>restoration</i>.<a name="FNanchor_791" id="FNanchor_791"></a><a href="#Footnote_791" class="fnanchor">[791]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[590]</a></span></p> +<h3><a id="c16slix" name="c16slix"></a>LIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The cost would be a trifle—an "old song,"</p> +<p class="i2">Set to some thousands ('tis the usual burden</p> +<p>Of that same tune, when people hum it long)—</p> +<p class="i2">The price would speedily repay its worth in</p> +<p>An edifice no less sublime than strong,</p> +<p class="i2">By which Lord Henry's good taste would go forth in</p> +<p>Its glory, through all ages shining sunny,</p> +<p>For Gothic daring shown in English money.<a name="FNanchor_792" id="FNanchor_792"></a><a href="#Footnote_792" class="fnanchor">[792]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were two lawyers busy on a mortgage</p> +<p class="i2">Lord Henry wished to raise for a new purchase;</p> +<p>Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage,<a name="FNanchor_793" id="FNanchor_793"></a><a href="#Footnote_793" class="fnanchor">[793]</a></p> +<p class="i2">And one on tithes, which sure as Discord's torches,</p> +<p>Kindling Religion till she throws down <i>her</i> gage,</p> +<p class="i2">"Untying" squires "to fight against the churches;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[591]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_794" id="FNanchor_794"></a><a href="#Footnote_794" class="fnanchor">[794]</a></p> +<p>There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and ploughman,</p> +<p>For Henry was a sort of Sabine showman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were two poachers caught in a steel trap,</p> +<p class="i2">Ready for gaol, their place of convalescence;</p> +<p>There was a country girl in a close cap</p> +<p class="i2">And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since—</p> +<p>Since—since—in youth, I had the sad mishap—</p> +<p class="i2">But luckily I have paid few parish fees since):<a name="FNanchor_795" id="FNanchor_795"></a><a href="#Footnote_795" class="fnanchor">[795]</a></p> +<p>That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with rigour,</p> +<p>Presents the problem of a double figure.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A reel within a bottle is a mystery,</p> +<p class="i2">One can't tell how it e'er got in or out;</p> +<p>Therefore the present piece of natural history</p> +<p class="i2">I leave to those who are fond of solving doubt;</p> +<p>And merely state, though not for the Consistory,</p> +<p class="i2">Lord Henry was a Justice, and that Scout</p> +<p>The constable, beneath a warrant's banner,</p> +<p>Had bagged this poacher upon Nature's manor.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Now Justices of Peace must judge all pieces</p> +<p class="i2">Of mischief of all kinds, and keep the game</p> +<p>And morals of the country from caprices</p> +<p class="i2">Of those who have not a licence for the same;</p> +<p>And of all things, excepting tithes and leases,</p> +<p class="i2">Perhaps these are most difficult to tame:</p> +<p>Preserving partridges and pretty wenches</p> +<p>Are puzzles to the most precautious benches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The present culprit was extremely pale,</p> +<p class="i2">Pale as if painted so; her cheek being red</p> +<p>By nature, as in higher dames less hale</p> +<p class="i2">'Tis white, at least when they just rise from bed.</p> +<p>Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming frail,</p> +<p class="i2">Poor soul! for she was country born and bred,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[592]</a></span></p> +<p>And knew no better in her immorality</p> +<p>Than to wax white—for blushes are for quality.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Her black, bright, downcast, yet <i>espiègle</i> eye,</p> +<p class="i2">Had gathered a large tear into its corner,</p> +<p>Which the poor thing at times essayed to dry,</p> +<p class="i2">For she was not a sentimental mourner</p> +<p>Parading all her sensibility,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor insolent enough to scorn the scorner,</p> +<p>But stood in trembling, patient tribulation,</p> +<p>To be called up for her examination.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Of course these groups were scattered here and there,</p> +<p class="i2">Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies gent.<a name="FNanchor_796" id="FNanchor_796"></a><a href="#Footnote_796" class="fnanchor">[796]</a></p> +<p>The lawyers in the study; and in air</p> +<p class="i2">The prize pig, ploughman, poachers: the men sent</p> +<p>From town, viz. architect and dealer, were</p> +<p class="i2">Both busy (as a General in his tent</p> +<p>Writing despatches) in their several stations,</p> +<p>Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But this poor girl was left in the great hall,</p> +<p class="i2">While Scout, the parish guardian of the frail,</p> +<p>Discussed (he hated beer yclept the "small")</p> +<p class="i2">A mighty mug of <i>moral</i> double ale.</p> +<p>She waited until Justice could recall</p> +<p class="i2">Its kind attentions to their proper pale,</p> +<p>To name a thing in nomenclature rather<a name="FNanchor_OC" id="FNanchor_OC"></a><a href="#Footnote_OC" class="fnanchor">[OC]</a></p> +<p>Perplexing for most virgins—a child's father.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>You see here was enough of occupation</p> +<p class="i2">For the Lord Henry, linked with dogs and horses.</p> +<p>There was much bustle too, and preparation</p> +<p class="i2">Below stairs on the score of second courses;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[593]</a></span></p> +<p>Because, as suits their rank and situation,</p> +<p class="i2">Those who in counties have great land resources</p> +<p>Have "public days," when all men may carouse,</p> +<p>Though not exactly what's called "open house."</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But once a week or fortnight, <i>un</i>invited</p> +<p class="i2">(Thus we translate a <i>general invitation</i>)</p> +<p>All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted,</p> +<p class="i2">May drop in without cards, and take their station</p> +<p>At the full board, and sit alike delighted</p> +<p class="i2">With fashionable wines and conversation;</p> +<p>And, as the isthmus of the grand connection,</p> +<p>Talk o'er themselves the past and next election.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Lord Henry was a great electioneerer,</p> +<p class="i2">Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit.</p> +<p>But county contests cost him rather dearer,</p> +<p class="i2">Because the neighbouring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit</p> +<p>Had English influence, in the self-same sphere here;</p> +<p class="i2">His son, the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit,</p> +<p>Was member for the "other interest" (meaning</p> +<p>The same self-interest, with a different leaning).</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Courteous and cautious therefore in his county,</p> +<p class="i2">He was all things to all men, and dispensed</p> +<p>To some civility, to others bounty,</p> +<p class="i2">And promises to all—which last commenced</p> +<p>To gather to a somewhat large amount, he</p> +<p class="i2">Not calculating how much they condensed;</p> +<p>But what with keeping some, and breaking others,</p> +<p>His word had the same value as another's.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A friend to Freedom and freeholders—yet</p> +<p class="i2">No less a friend to Government—he held,</p> +<p>That he exactly the just medium hit</p> +<p class="i2">Twixt Place and Patriotism—albeit compelled,</p> +<p>Such was his Sovereign's pleasure, (though unfit,</p> +<p class="i2">He added modestly, when rebels railed,)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[594]</a></span></p> +<p>To hold some sinecures he wished abolished,</p> +<p>But that with them all Law would be demolished.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was "free to confess"—(whence comes this phrase?</p> +<p class="i2">Is 't English? No—'tis only parliamentary)</p> +<p>That Innovation's spirit now-a-days</p> +<p class="i2">Had made more progress than for the last century.</p> +<p>He would not tread a factious path to praise,</p> +<p class="i2">Though for the public weal disposed to venture high;</p> +<p>As for his place, he could but say this of it,</p> +<p>That the fatigue was greater than the profit.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life</p> +<p class="i2">Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;</p> +<p>But could he quit his King in times of strife,</p> +<p class="i2">Which threatened the whole country with perdition?</p> +<p>When demagogues would with a butcher's knife</p> +<p class="i2">Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)</p> +<p>The Gordian or the G<i>e</i>ordi-an knot, whose strings</p> +<p>Have tied together Commons, Lords, and Kings.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Sooner "come Place into the Civil List</p> +<p class="i2">And champion him to the utmost<a name="FNanchor_797" id="FNanchor_797"></a><a href="#Footnote_797" class="fnanchor">[797]</a>—" he would keep it,</p> +<p>Till duly disappointed or dismissed:</p> +<p class="i2">Profit he cared not for, let others reap it;</p> +<p>But should the day come when Place ceased to exist,</p> +<p class="i2">The country would have far more cause to weep it:</p> +<p>For how could it go on? Explain who can!</p> +<p><i>He</i> gloried in the name of Englishman.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>He was as independent—aye, much more—</p> +<p class="i2">Than those who were not paid for independence,</p> +<p>As common soldiers, or a common——shore,</p> +<p class="i2">Have in their several arts or parts ascendance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[595]</a></span></p> +<p>O'er the irregulars in lust or gore,</p> +<p class="i2">Who do not give professional attendance.</p> +<p>Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager</p> +<p>To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>All this (save the last stanza) Henry said,</p> +<p class="i2">And thought. I say no more—I've said too much;</p> +<p>For all of us have either heard or read—</p> +<p class="i2">Off—or <i>upon</i> the hustings—some slight such</p> +<p>Hints from the independent heart or head</p> +<p class="i2">Of the official candidate. I'll touch</p> +<p>No more on this—the dinner-bell hath rung,</p> +<p>And grace is said; the grace I <i>should</i> have <i>sung</i>—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But I'm too late, and therefore must make play.</p> +<p class="i2">'Twas a great banquet, such as Albion old</p> +<p>Was wont to boast—as if a glutton's tray</p> +<p class="i2">Were something very glorious to behold.</p> +<p>But 'twas a public feast and public day,—</p> +<p class="i2">Quite full—right dull—guests hot, and dishes cold,—</p> +<p>Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,—</p> +<p>And everybody out of their own sphere.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The squires familiarly formal, and</p> +<p class="i2">My Lords and Ladies proudly condescending;</p> +<p>The very servants puzzling how to hand</p> +<p class="i2">Their plates—without it might be too much bending</p> +<p>From their high places by the sideboard's stand—</p> +<p class="i2">Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending;</p> +<p>For any deviation from the graces</p> +<p>Might cost both man and master too—their <i>places</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose hounds ne'er erred, nor greyhounds deigned to lurch;</p> +<p>Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers,<a name="FNanchor_798" id="FNanchor_798"></a><a href="#Footnote_798" class="fnanchor">[798]</a> seen</p> +<p class="i2">Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[596]</a></span></p> +<p>Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen.</p> +<p class="i2">There were some massy members of the church,</p> +<p>Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches,</p> +<p>And several who sung fewer psalms than catches.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were some country wags too—and, alas!</p> +<p class="i2">Some exiles from the Town, who had been driven</p> +<p>To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass,</p> +<p class="i2">And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven.</p> +<p>And lo! upon that day it came to pass,</p> +<p class="i2">I sate next that o'erwhelming son of Heaven,</p> +<p>The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,<a name="FNanchor_799" id="FNanchor_799"></a><a href="#Footnote_799" class="fnanchor">[799]</a></p> +<p>The loudest wit I e'er was deafened with.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3><a id="c16slxxxii" name="c16slxxxii"></a>LXXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I knew him in his livelier London days,</p> +<p class="i2">A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate,</p> +<p>And not a joke he cut but earned its praise,</p> +<p class="i2">Until Preferment, coming at a sure rate,</p> +<p>(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!</p> +<p class="i2">Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?)</p> +<p>Gave him, to lay the Devil who looks o'er Lincoln,<a name="FNanchor_800" id="FNanchor_800"></a><a href="#Footnote_800" class="fnanchor">[800]</a></p> +<p>A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.</p> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[597]</a></span></p> + +<h3>LXXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;</p> +<p class="i2">But both were thrown away amongst the fens;</p> +<p>For Wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.<a name="FNanchor_OD" id="FNanchor_OD"></a><a href="#Footnote_OD" class="fnanchor">[OD]</a></p> +<p class="i2">No longer ready ears and short-hand pens</p> +<p>Imbibed the gay <i>bon-mot</i>, or happy hoax:<a name="FNanchor_OE" id="FNanchor_OE"></a><a href="#Footnote_OE" class="fnanchor">[OE]</a></p> +<p class="i2">The poor priest was reduced to common sense,</p> +<p>Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,</p> +<p>To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng.<a name="FNanchor_OF" id="FNanchor_OF"></a><a href="#Footnote_OF" class="fnanchor">[OF]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There <i>is</i> a difference, says the song, "between</p> +<p class="i2">A beggar and a Queen,"<a name="FNanchor_801" id="FNanchor_801"></a><a href="#Footnote_801" class="fnanchor">[801]</a> or <i>was</i> (of late</p> +<p>The latter worse used of the two we've seen—</p> +<p class="i2">But we 'll say nothing of affairs of state);</p> +<p>A difference "'twixt a Bishop and a Dean,"</p> +<p class="i2">A difference between crockery ware and plate,</p> +<p>As between English beef and Spartan broth—</p> +<p>And yet great heroes have been bred by both.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But of all Nature's discrepancies, none</p> +<p class="i2">Upon the whole is greater than the difference</p> +<p>Beheld between the Country and the Town,</p> +<p class="i2">Of which the latter merits every preference</p> +<p>From those who have few resources of their own.</p> +<p class="i2">And only think, or act, or feel, with reference</p> +<p>To some small plan of interest or ambition—</p> +<p>Both which are limited to no condition.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3><a id="c16slxxxvi" name="c16slxxxvi"></a>LXXXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But <i>En avant!</i> The light loves languish o'er</p> +<p class="i2">Long banquets and too many guests, although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[598]</a></span></p> +<p>A slight repast makes people love much more,</p> +<p class="i2">Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know,</p> +<p>Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore</p> +<p class="i2">With vivifying Venus,<a name="FNanchor_802" id="FNanchor_802"></a><a href="#Footnote_802" class="fnanchor">[802]</a> who doth owe</p> +<p>To these the invention of champagne and truffles:</p> +<p>Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Dully passed o'er the dinner of the day;</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan took his place, he knew not where,</p> +<p>Confused, in the confusion, and <i>distrait</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">And sitting as if nailed upon his chair:</p> +<p>Though knives and forks clanked round as in a fray,</p> +<p class="i2">He seemed unconscious of all passing there,</p> +<p>Till some one, with a groan, expressed a wish</p> +<p>(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>On which, at the <i>third</i> asking of the banns,</p> +<p class="i2">He started; and perceiving smiles around</p> +<p>Broadening to grins, he coloured more than once,</p> +<p class="i2">And hastily—as nothing can confound</p> +<p>A wise man more than laughter from a dunce—</p> +<p class="i2">Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound,</p> +<p>And with such hurry, that, ere he could curb it,</p> +<p>He had paid his neighbour's prayer with half a turbot.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>LXXXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This was no bad mistake, as it occurred,</p> +<p class="i2">The supplicator being an amateur;</p> +<p>But others, who were left with scarce a third,</p> +<p class="i2">Were angry—as they well might, to be sure,</p> +<p>They wondered how a young man so absurd</p> +<p class="i2">Lord Henry at his table should endure;</p> +<p>And this, and his not knowing how much oats</p> +<p>Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XC.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>They little knew, or might have sympathized,</p> +<p class="i2">That he the night before had seen a ghost,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[599]</a></span></p> +<p>A prologue which but slightly harmonized</p> +<p class="i2">With the substantial company engrossed</p> +<p>By matter, and so much materialised,</p> +<p class="i2">That one scarce knew at what to marvel most</p> +<p>Of two things—<i>how</i> (the question rather odd is)</p> +<p>Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what confused him more than smile or stare</p> +<p class="i2">From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around,</p> +<p>Who wondered at the abstraction of his air,</p> +<p class="i2">Especially as he had been renowned</p> +<p>For some vivacity among the fair,</p> +<p class="i2">Even in the country circle's narrow bound—</p> +<p>(For little things upon my Lord's estate</p> +<p>Were good small talk for others still less great)—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his,</p> +<p class="i2">And something like a smile upon her cheek.</p> +<p>Now this he really rather took amiss;</p> +<p class="i2">In those who rarely smile, their smile bespeaks</p> +<p>A strong external motive; and in this</p> +<p class="i2">Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique,</p> +<p>Or Hope, or Love—with any of the wiles</p> +<p>Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'Twas a mere quiet smile of contemplation,</p> +<p class="i2">Indicative of some surprise and pity;</p> +<p>And Juan grew carnation with vexation,</p> +<p class="i2">Which was not very wise, and still less witty,</p> +<p>Since he had gained at least her observation,</p> +<p class="i2">A most important outwork of the city—</p> +<p>As Juan should have known, had not his senses</p> +<p>By last night's Ghost been driven from their defences.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But what was bad, she did not blush in turn,</p> +<p class="i2">Nor seem embarrassed—quite the contrary;</p> +<p>Her aspect was as usual, still—<i>not</i> stern—</p> +<p class="i2">And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[600]</a></span></p> +<p>Yet grew a little pale—with what? concern?</p> +<p class="i2">I know not; but her colour ne'er was high—</p> +<p>Though sometimes faintly flushed—and always clear,</p> +<p>As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But Adeline was occupied by fame</p> +<p class="i2">This day; and watching, witching, condescending</p> +<p>To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game,</p> +<p class="i2">And dignity with courtesy so blending,</p> +<p>As all must blend whose part it is to aim</p> +<p class="i2">(Especially as the sixth year is ending)</p> +<p>At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's</p> +<p>Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Though this was most expedient on the whole</p> +<p class="i2">And usual—Juan, when he cast a glance</p> +<p>On Adeline while playing her grand <i>rôle</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">Which she went through as though it were a dance,</p> +<p>Betraying only now and then her soul</p> +<p class="i2">By a look scarce perceptibly askance</p> +<p>(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel</p> +<p>Some doubt how much of Adeline was <i>real</i>;</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>So well she acted all and every part</p> +<p class="i2">By turns—with that vivacious versatility,</p> +<p>Which many people take for want of heart.</p> +<p class="i2">They err—'tis merely what is called mobility,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[601]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_803" id="FNanchor_803"></a><a href="#Footnote_803" class="fnanchor">[803]</a></p> +<p>A thing of temperament and not of art,</p> +<p class="i2">Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;</p> +<p>And false—though true; for, surely, they're sincerest</p> +<p>Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,</p> +<p class="i2">Heroes sometimes, though seldom—sages never:</p> +<p>But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,</p> +<p class="i2">Little that's great, but much of what is clever;</p> +<p>Most orators, but very few financiers,</p> +<p class="i2">Though all Exchequer Chancellors endeavour,</p> +<p>Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours,<a name="FNanchor_804" id="FNanchor_804"></a><a href="#Footnote_804" class="fnanchor">[804]</a></p> +<p>And grow quite figurative with their figures.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XCIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The poets of Arithmetic are they</p> +<p class="i2">Who, though they prove not two and two to be</p> +<p>Five, as they might do in a modest way,</p> +<p class="i2">Have plainly made it out that four are three,</p> +<p>Judging by what they take, and what they pay:</p> +<p class="i2">The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea,</p> +<p>That most unliquidating liquid, leaves</p> +<p>The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>C.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces,</p> +<p class="i2">The fair Fitz-Fulke seemed very much at ease;</p> +<p>Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces,</p> +<p class="i2">Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize</p> +<p>The ridicules of people in all places—</p> +<p class="i2">That honey of your fashionable bees—</p> +<p>And store it up for mischievous enjoyment;</p> +<p>And this at present was her kind employment.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[602]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>However, the day closed, as days must close;</p> +<p class="i2">The evening also waned—and coffee came.</p> +<p>Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose,</p> +<p class="i2">And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame,</p> +<p>Retired: with most unfashionable bows</p> +<p class="i2">Their docile Esquires also did the same,</p> +<p>Delighted with their dinner and their Host,</p> +<p>But with the Lady Adeline the most.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Some praised her beauty: others her great grace;</p> +<p class="i2">The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity</p> +<p>Was obvious in each feature of her face,</p> +<p class="i2">Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity.</p> +<p>Yes; <i>she</i> was truly worthy <i>her</i> high place!</p> +<p class="i2">No one could envy her deserved prosperity.</p> +<p>And then her dress—what beautiful simplicity</p> +<p>Draperied her form with curious felicity!<a name="FNanchor_805" id="FNanchor_805"></a><a href="#Footnote_805" class="fnanchor">[805]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their praises,</p> +<p class="i2">By an impartial indemnification</p> +<p>For all her past exertion and soft phrases,</p> +<p class="i2">In a most edifying conversation,</p> +<p>Which turned upon their late guests' miens and faces,</p> +<p class="i2">Their families, even to the last relation;</p> +<p>Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses,</p> +<p>And truculent distortion of their tresses.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>True, <i>she</i> said little—'twas the rest that broke</p> +<p class="i2">Forth into universal epigram;</p> +<p>But then 'twas to the purpose what she spoke:</p> +<p class="i2">Like Addison's "faint praise,"<a name="FNanchor_806" id="FNanchor_806"></a><a href="#Footnote_806" class="fnanchor">[806]</a> so wont to damn,</p> +<p>Her own but served to set off every joke,</p> +<p class="i2">As music chimes in with a melodrame.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[603]</a></span></p> +<p>How sweet the task to shield an absent friend!</p> +<p>I ask but this of mine, to——<i>not</i> defend.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There were but two exceptions to this keen</p> +<p class="i2">Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; one,</p> +<p>Aurora, with her pure and placid mien;</p> +<p class="i2">And Juan, too, in general behind none</p> +<p>In gay remark on what he had heard or seen,</p> +<p class="i2">Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone:</p> +<p>In vain he heard the others rail or rally,</p> +<p>He would not join them in a single sally.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>'Tis true he saw Aurora look as though</p> +<p class="i2">She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook</p> +<p>Its motive for that charity we owe</p> +<p class="i2">But seldom pay the absent, nor would look</p> +<p>Farther—it might or it might not be so.</p> +<p class="i2">But Juan, sitting silent in his nook,</p> +<p>Observing little in his reverie,</p> +<p>Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Ghost at least had done him this much good,</p> +<p class="i2">In making him as silent as a ghost,</p> +<p>If in the circumstances which ensued</p> +<p class="i2">He gained esteem where it was worth the most;</p> +<p>And, certainly, Aurora had renewed</p> +<p class="i2">In him some feelings he had lately lost,</p> +<p>Or hardened; feelings which, perhaps ideal,</p> +<p>Are so divine, that I must deem them real:—</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The love of higher things and better days;</p> +<p class="i2">The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance</p> +<p>Of what is called the World, and the World's ways;</p> +<p class="i2">The moments when we gather from a glance</p> +<p>More joy than from all future pride or praise,</p> +<p class="i2">Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance</p> +<p>The Heart in an existence of its own,</p> +<p>Of which another's bosom is the zone.</p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[604]</a></span></div></div> + +<h3>CIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Who would not sigh <span title="Ai)/ ai)/ ta\n Kythe/reian">Αἴ αἴ τὰν Κυθέρειαν</span><a name="FNanchor_807" id="FNanchor_807"></a><a href="#Footnote_807" class="fnanchor">[807]</a></p> +<p class="i2">That <i>hath</i> a memory, or that <i>had</i> a heart?</p> +<p>Alas! <i>her</i> star must fade like that of Dian:</p> +<p class="i2">Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart.</p> +<p>Anacreon only had the soul to tie an</p> +<p class="i2">Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart</p> +<p>Of Eros: but though thou hast played us many tricks,</p> +<p>Still we respect thee, "<i>Alma Venus Genetrix!</i>"<a name="FNanchor_808" id="FNanchor_808"></a><a href="#Footnote_808" class="fnanchor">[808]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And full of sentiments, sublime as billows</p> +<p class="i2">Heaving between this World and Worlds beyond,</p> +<p>Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows</p> +<p class="i2">Arrived, retired to his; but to despond</p> +<p>Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows</p> +<p class="i2">Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond</p> +<p>Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,</p> +<p>And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The night was as before: he was undrest,</p> +<p class="i2">Saving his night-gown, which is an undress;</p> +<p>Completely <i>sans culotte</i>, and without vest;</p> +<p class="i2">In short, he hardly could be clothed with less:</p> +<p>But apprehensive of his spectral guest,</p> +<p class="i2">He sate with feelings awkward to express</p> +<p>(By those who have not had such visitations),</p> +<p>Expectant of the Ghost's fresh operations.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And not in vain he listened;—Hush! what's that?</p> +<p class="i2">I see—I see—Ah, no!—'t is not—yet 't is—</p> +<p>Ye powers! it is the—the—the—Pooh! the cat!</p> +<p class="i2">The Devil may take that stealthy pace of his!</p> +<p>So like a spiritual pit-a-pat,</p> +<p class="i2">Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[605]</a></span></p> +<p>Gliding the first time to a <i>rendezvous</i>,</p> +<p>And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Again—what is 't? The wind? No, no,—this time</p> +<p class="i2">It is the sable Friar as before,</p> +<p>With awful footsteps regular as rhyme,</p> +<p class="i2">Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more.</p> +<p>Again through shadows of the night sublime,</p> +<p class="i2">When deep sleep fell on men,<a name="FNanchor_809" id="FNanchor_809"></a><a href="#Footnote_809" class="fnanchor">[809]</a> and the World wore</p> +<p>The starry darkness round her like a girdle</p> +<p>Spangled with gems—the Monk made his blood curdle.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,<a name="FNanchor_810" id="FNanchor_810"></a><a href="#Footnote_810" class="fnanchor">[810]</a></p> +<p class="i2">Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter,</p> +<p>Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,</p> +<p class="i2">Sounding like very supernatural water,</p> +<p>Came over Juan's ear, which throbbed, alas!</p> +<p class="i2">For Immaterialism's a serious matter;</p> +<p>So that even those whose faith is the most great</p> +<p>In Souls immortal, shun them <i>tête-à-tête</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Were his eyes open?—Yes! and his mouth too.</p> +<p class="i2">Surprise has this effect—to make one dumb,</p> +<p>Yet leave the gate which Eloquence slips through</p> +<p class="i2">As wide as if a long speech were to come.</p> +<p>Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,</p> +<p class="i2">Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:</p> +<p>His eyes were open, and (as was before</p> +<p>Stated) his mouth. What opened next?—the door.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>It opened with a most infernal creak,</p> +<p class="i2">Like that of Hell. "Lasciate ogni speranza,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[606]</a></span></p> +<p>Voi, ch' entrate!"<a name="FNanchor_811" id="FNanchor_811"></a><a href="#Footnote_811" class="fnanchor">[811]</a> The hinge seemed to speak,</p> +<p class="i2">Dreadful as Dante's <i>rima</i>, or this stanza;</p> +<p>Or—but all words upon such themes are weak:</p> +<p class="i2">A single shade's sufficient to entrance a</p> +<p>Hero—for what is Substance to a Spirit?</p> +<p>Or how is 't <i>Matter</i> trembles to come near it?<a name="FNanchor_OG" id="FNanchor_OG"></a><a href="#Footnote_OG" class="fnanchor">[OG]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The door flew wide, not swiftly,—but, as fly</p> +<p class="i2">The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight—</p> +<p>And then swung back; nor close—but stood awry,</p> +<p class="i2">Half letting in long shadows on the light,</p> +<p>Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high,</p> +<p class="i2">For he had two, both tolerably bright,</p> +<p>And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood</p> +<p>The sable Friar in his solemn hood.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXVIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken</p> +<p class="i2">The night before; but being sick of shaking,</p> +<p>He first inclined to think he had been mistaken;</p> +<p class="i2">And then to be ashamed of such mistaking;</p> +<p>His own internal ghost began to awaken</p> +<p class="i2">Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking—</p> +<p>Hinting that Soul and Body on the whole</p> +<p>Were odds against a disembodied Soul.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXIX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce,</p> +<p class="i2">And he arose, advanced—the Shade retreated;</p> +<p>But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,</p> +<p class="i2">Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated,</p> +<p>Resolved to thrust the mystery <i>carte</i> and <i>tierce</i>,</p> +<p class="i2">At whatsoever risk of being defeated:</p> +<p>The Ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until</p> +<p>He reached the ancient wall, then stood stone still.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Juan put forth one arm—Eternal powers!</p> +<p class="i2">It touched no soul, nor body, but the wall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[607]</a></span></p> +<p>On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers,</p> +<p class="i2">Chequered with all the tracery of the Hall;</p> +<p>He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers</p> +<p class="i2">When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal.</p> +<p>How odd, a single hobgoblin's nonentity</p> +<p>Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But still the Shade remained: the blue eyes glared,</p> +<p class="i2">And rather variably for stony death;</p> +<p>Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,</p> +<p class="i2">The Ghost had a remarkably sweet breath:</p> +<p>A straggling curl showed he had been fair-haired;</p> +<p class="i2">A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,</p> +<p>Gleamed forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud</p> +<p>The Moon peeped, just escaped from a grey cloud.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust</p> +<p class="i2">His other arm forth—Wonder upon wonder!</p> +<p>It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust,</p> +<p class="i2">Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.</p> +<p>He found, as people on most trials must,</p> +<p class="i2">That he had made at first a silly blunder,</p> +<p>And that in his confusion he had caught</p> +<p>Only the wall, instead of what he sought.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>CXXIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Ghost, if Ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul</p> +<p class="i2">As ever lurked beneath a holy hood:</p> +<p>A dimpled chin,<a name="FNanchor_OH" id="FNanchor_OH"></a><a href="#Footnote_OH" class="fnanchor">[OH]</a> a neck of ivory, stole</p> +<p class="i2">Forth into something much like flesh and blood;</p> +<p>Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,</p> +<p class="i2">And they revealed—alas! that e'er they should!</p> +<p>In full, voluptuous, but <i>not o'er</i>grown bulk,</p> +<p>The phantom of her frolic Grace—Fitz-Fulke!<a name="FNanchor_812" id="FNanchor_812"></a><a href="#Footnote_812" class="fnanchor">[812]</a></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_768" id="Footnote_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768"><span class="label">[768]</span></a> <a name="Note_572" id="Note_572"></a>{572}March 29, 1823.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_769" id="Footnote_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769"><span class="label">[769]</span></a> [Herodotus, <i>Hist.</i>, i. 136.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_770" id="Footnote_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770"><span class="label">[770]</span></a> [<i>Hamlet</i>, act ii. sc. 2, line 103.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_771" id="Footnote_771"></a><a href="#FNanchor_771"><span class="label">[771]</span></a> <a name="Note_573" id="Note_573"></a>{573}[The story is told of St. Thomas Aquinas, that he +wrote a work <i>De Omnibus Rebus</i>, which was followed by a second +treatise, <i>De Quibusdam Aliis.</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_772" id="Footnote_772"></a><a href="#FNanchor_772"><span class="label">[772]</span></a> [Not St. Augustine, but Tertullian. See his treatise, <i>De +Carne Christi</i>, cap. V. c. (<i>Opera</i>, 1744, p. 310): "Crucifixus est Dei +filius: non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei filius: prorsus +credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit: certum est quia +impossibile est."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_773" id="Footnote_773"></a><a href="#FNanchor_773"><span class="label">[773]</span></a> <a name="Note_574" id="Note_574"></a>{574}["That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I +will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried +testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or +unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and +believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is +diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never +heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but +experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, +can very little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with +their tongues, confess it with their fears."—<i>Rasselas</i>, chap. xxx., +<i>Works</i>, ed. 1806, iii. 372, 373.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_774" id="Footnote_774"></a><a href="#FNanchor_774"><span class="label">[774]</span></a> <a name="Note_575" id="Note_575"></a>{575}The composition of the old Tyrian purple, whether +from a shell-fish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an +article of dispute; and even its colour—some say purple, others +scarlet: I say nothing. +</p><p> +[Kermes is cochineal, the Greek <span title="ko/kkinon">κόκκινον</span>. +The shell-fish (<i>murex</i>) is the <i>Purpura patula</i>. Both substances were used +as dyes.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_775" id="Footnote_775"></a><a href="#FNanchor_775"><span class="label">[775]</span></a> [See Ovid, <i>Heroid</i>, Epist. ix. line 161.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_776" id="Footnote_776"></a><a href="#FNanchor_776"><span class="label">[776]</span></a> [Titus used to promise to "bear in mind," "to keep on his +list," the petitions of all his supplicants, and once, at dinner-time, +his conscience smote him, that he had let a day go by without a single +grant, or pardon, or promotion. Hence his confession. "Amici, diem +perdidi!" <i>Vide</i> Suetonius, <i>De XII. Cæs.</i>, "Titus," lib. viii. cap. +8.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_777" id="Footnote_777"></a><a href="#FNanchor_777"><span class="label">[777]</span></a> [<i>Tuism</i> is not in Johnson's <i>Dictionary</i>. Coleridge has +a note dated 1800 (<i>Literary Remains</i>, i. 292), on "egotizing in +<i>tuism</i>" but it was not included in Southey's <i>Omniana</i> of 1812, and +must have been unknown to Byron.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_778" id="Footnote_778"></a><a href="#FNanchor_778"><span class="label">[778]</span></a> <a name="Note_576" id="Note_576"></a>{576}[Sc. <i>toilette</i>, a Gallicism.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_779" id="Footnote_779"></a><a href="#FNanchor_779"><span class="label">[779]</span></a> [Byron loved to make fact and fancy walk together, but, +here, his memory played him false, or his art kept him true. The Black +Friar walked and walks in the Guests' Refectory (or Banqueting Hall, or +"Gallery" of this stanza), which adjoins the Prior's Parlour, but the +room where Byron slept (in a four-post bed—a coronet, at each corner, +atop) is on the floor above the Prior's Parlour, and can only be +approached by a spiral staircase. Both rooms look west, and command a +view of the "lake's billow" and the "cascade." Moreover, the Guests' +Refectory was never hung with "old pictures." It would seem that Don +Juan (perhaps Byron on an emergency) slept in the Prior's Parlour, and +that in the visionary Newstead the pictures forsook the Grand +Drawing-Room for the Hall. Hence the scene! <i>El Libertado</i> steps out of +the Gothic Chamber "forth" into the "gallery," and lo! "a monk in cowl +and beads." But, <i>Quien sabe?</i> The Psalmist's caution with regard to +princes is not inapplicable to poets.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_780" id="Footnote_780"></a><a href="#FNanchor_780"><span class="label">[780]</span></a> <a name="Note_577" id="Note_577"></a>{577}[Compare Mariner's description of the cave in Hoonga +Island (<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 629, note 1).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_781" id="Footnote_781"></a><a href="#FNanchor_781"><span class="label">[781]</span></a> <a name="Note_578" id="Note_578"></a>{578}["The place," wrote Byron to Moore, August 13, 1814, +"is worth seeing as a ruin, and I can assure you there <i>was</i> some fun +there, even in my time; but that is past. The ghosts, however, and the +Gothics, and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively still." +"It was," comments Moore (<i>Life</i>, p. 262, note 1), "if I mistake not, +during his recent visit to Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he +saw the ghost of the Black Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the +Abbey from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and which he +thus describes from the recollection, perhaps, of his own fantasy, in +<i>Don Juan</i>.... It is said that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to +Lord Byron's cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of +him from memory." The legend of the Black Friar may, it is believed at +Newstead (<i>et vide post</i>, <a href="#songs2">"Song," stanza ii</a>. line 5, p. 583), be traced +to the alarm and suspicion of the country-folk, who, on visiting the +Abbey, would now and then catch sight of an aged lay-brother, or monkish +domestic, who had been retained in the service of the Byrons long after +the Canons had been "turned adrift." He would naturally keep out of +sight of a generation who knew not monks, and, when surprised in the +cloisters or ruins of the church, would glide back to his own quarters +in the dormitories.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_782" id="Footnote_782"></a><a href="#FNanchor_782"><span class="label">[782]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Shew his eyes, and grieve his heart;</p> +<p class="i2">Come like shadows, so depart."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iv. sc. 1, lines 110, 111.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_NZ" id="Footnote_NZ"></a><a href="#FNanchor_NZ"><span class="label">[NZ]</span></a> <a name="Note_582" id="Note_582"></a>{582} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>With that she rose as graceful as a Roe</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Slips from the mountain in the month of June,</i></p> +<p><i>And opening her Piano 'gan to play</i></p> +<p class="i2"><i>Forthwith—"It was a Friar of Orders Gray."</i>—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OA" id="Footnote_OA"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OA"><span class="label">[OA]</span></a> <a name="Note_584" id="Note_584"></a>{584}<i>By their bed of death he receives their</i> +[<i>breath</i>].—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_783" id="Footnote_783"></a><a href="#FNanchor_783"><span class="label">[783]</span></a> <a name="Note_585" id="Note_585"></a>{585}I think that it was a carpet on which Diogenes trod, +with—"Thus I trample on the pride of Plato!"—"With greater pride," as +the other replied. But as carpets are meant to be trodden upon, my +memory probably misgives me, and it might be a robe, or tapestry, or a +table-cloth, or some other expensive and uncynical piece of furniture. +</p><p> +[It was Plato's couch or lounge which Diogenes stamped upon. "So much +for Plato's pride!" "And how much for yours, Diogenes?" "Calco Platonis +fastum!" "Ast fastu alio?" (<i>Vide</i> Diogenis Laertii <i>De Vita et +Sententiis</i>, lib. vi. ed. 1595, p. 321.) +</p><p> +For "Attic Bee," <i>vide</i> Cic. I. <i>De Div.</i>, xxxvi. § 78, "At Platoni cum +in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum est, +singulari illum suavitate orationis fore."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_784" id="Footnote_784"></a><a href="#FNanchor_784"><span class="label">[784]</span></a> <a name="Note_586" id="Note_586"></a>{586}[For two translations of this Portuguese song, see +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1900, iii. 71.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_785" id="Footnote_785"></a><a href="#FNanchor_785"><span class="label">[785]</span></a> I remember that the mayoress of a provincial town, +somewhat surfeited with a similar display from foreign parts, did rather +indecorously break through the applauses of an intelligent +audience—intelligent, I mean, as to music—for the words, besides being +in recondite languages (it was some years before the peace, ere all the +world had travelled, and while I was a collegian), were sorely disguised +by the performers:—this mayoress, I say, broke out with, "Rot your +Italianos! for my part, I loves a simple ballat!" Rossini will go a good +way to bring most people to the same opinion some day. Who would imagine +that he was to be the successor of Mozart? However, I state this with +diffidence, as a liege and loyal admirer of Italian music in general, +and of much of Rossini's; but we may say, as the connoisseur did of +painting in <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>, that "the picture would be better +painted if the painter had taken more pains." +</p><p> +[A little while, and Rossini is being lauded at the expense of a +degenerate modern rival. Compare Browning's <i>Bishop Blougram's Apology</i>. +"Where sits Rossini patient in his stall."—<i>Poetical Works</i>, ed. 1868, +v. 276.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_786" id="Footnote_786"></a><a href="#FNanchor_786"><span class="label">[786]</span></a> [Compare <i>The Two Foscari</i>, act iii. sc. 1, line 172, +<i>Poetical Works</i>, 1901, v. 159, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_787" id="Footnote_787"></a><a href="#FNanchor_787"><span class="label">[787]</span></a> <a name="Note_587" id="Note_587"></a>{587}[Of Lady Beaumont, who was "weak enough" to admire +Wordsworth, see <i>The Blues</i>, Ecl. II. line 47, <i>sq.</i>, <i>Poetical Works</i>, +1901, iv. 582.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_788" id="Footnote_788"></a><a href="#FNanchor_788"><span class="label">[788]</span></a> [Christopher Anstey (1724-1802) published his <i>New Bath +Guide</i> in 1766.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_789" id="Footnote_789"></a><a href="#FNanchor_789"><span class="label">[789]</span></a> [Compare <i>English Bards, etc.</i>, lines 309-318, <i>Poetical +Works</i>, 1898, i. 321, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_790" id="Footnote_790"></a><a href="#FNanchor_790"><span class="label">[790]</span></a> +<a name="Note_588" id="Note_588"></a>{588}[For "Gynocracy," <i>vide ante</i>, <a href="#Footnote_638">p. 473, note 1</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OB" id="Footnote_OB"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OB"><span class="label">[OB]</span></a> <a name="Note_589" id="Note_589"></a>{589}<i>Thrower down of buildings</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_791" id="Footnote_791"></a><a href="#FNanchor_791"><span class="label">[791]</span></a> [Byron had, no doubt, inspected the plan of Colonel +Wildman's elaborate restoration of the Abbey, which was carried out at a +cost of one hundred thousand pounds (see <a href="#c16slix">stanza lix</a>. lines 1, 2). The +kitchen and domestic offices, which extended at right angles to the west +front of the Abbey (see "Newstead from a Picture by Peter Tilleman, +<i>circ.</i> 1720" <i>Letters</i>, 1898, i. (to face p.) 216), were pulled down +and rebuilt, the massive Sussex Tower (so named in honour of H.R.H. the +Duke of Sussex) was erected at the south-west corner of the Abbey, and +the south front was, in part, rebuilt and redecorated. Byron had been +ready to "leave everything" with regard to his beloved Newstead to +Wildman's "own feelings, present or future" (see his letter, November +18, 1818, <i>Letters</i>, 1900, iv. 270); but when the time came, the +necessary and, on the whole, judicious alterations of his successor, +must have cost the "banished Lord" many a pang.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_792" id="Footnote_792"></a><a href="#FNanchor_792"><span class="label">[792]</span></a> <a name="Note_590" id="Note_590"></a>{590}"Ausu Romano, sere Veneto" is the inscription (and +well inscribed in this instance) on the sea walls between the Adriatic +and Venice. The walls were a republican work of the Venetians; the +inscription, I believe, Imperial; and inscribed by Napoleon the <i>First</i>. +It is time to continue to him that title—there will be a second by and +by, "Spes altera mundi," <i>if he live</i>; let him not defeat it like his +father. But in any case, he will be preferable to "<i>Imbéciles</i>." There +is a glorious field for him, if he know how to cultivate it. +</p><p> +[Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon, Duke of Reichstadt, died at Vienna, +July 22, 1832. But, none the less, Byron's prophecy was fulfilled.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_793" id="Footnote_793"></a><a href="#FNanchor_793"><span class="label">[793]</span></a> [Burgage, or tenure in burgage, is where the king or some +other person is lord of an ancient borough, in which the tenements are +held by a yearly rent certain.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_794" id="Footnote_794"></a><a href="#FNanchor_794"><span class="label">[794]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["I conjure you, by that which you profess,</p> +<p class="i2">(Howe'er you come to know it) answer me:</p> +<p class="i2">Though you <i>untie</i> the winds, and let them fight</p> +<p class="i2">Against the <i>churches</i>."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iv. sc. 1, lines 50-53.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_795" id="Footnote_795"></a><a href="#FNanchor_795"><span class="label">[795]</span></a> <a name="Note_591" id="Note_591"></a>{591}[See the lines "To my Son," <i>Poetical Works</i>, 1898, +i. 260, note 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_796" id="Footnote_796"></a><a href="#FNanchor_796"><span class="label">[796]</span></a> <a name="Note_592" id="Note_592"></a>{592}[See Spenser's <i>Faëry Queen</i>, Book I. Canto IX. +stanza 6, line 1.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OC" id="Footnote_OC"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OC"><span class="label">[OC]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>To name what passes for a puzzle rather,</i></p> +<p><i>Although there must be such a thing—a father</i>.—[MS. erased.]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_797" id="Footnote_797"></a><a href="#FNanchor_797"><span class="label">[797]</span></a> <a name="Note_594" id="Note_594"></a>{594} +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,</p> +<p class="i2">And champion me to the utterance."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib"><i>Macbeth</i>, act iii. sc. 1, lines 70, 71.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_798" id="Footnote_798"></a><a href="#FNanchor_798"><span class="label">[798]</span></a> <a name="Note_595" id="Note_595"></a>{595}[For "Septemberers (<i>Septembriseurs</i>)," see +Carlyle's <i>French Revolution</i>, 1839, iii. 50.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_799" id="Footnote_799"></a><a href="#FNanchor_799"><span class="label">[799]</span></a> <a name="Note_596" id="Note_596"></a>{596}["Query, <i>Sydney Smith</i>, author of Peter Plymley's +Letters?—Printer's Devil."—Ed. 1833. Byron must have met Sydney Smith +(1771-1845) at Holland House. The "fat fen vicarage" (<i>vide infra</i>, +<a href="#c16slxxxii">stanza lxxxii. line 8</a>) was Foston-le-Clay (Foston, All Saints), near +Barton Hill, Yorkshire, which Lord Chancellor Erskine presented to +Sydney Smith in 1806. The "living" consisted of "three hundred acres of +glebe-land of the stiffest clay," and there was no parsonage house.—See +<i>A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith</i>, by Lady Holland, 1855, i. +100-107.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_800" id="Footnote_800"></a><a href="#FNanchor_800"><span class="label">[800]</span></a> ["Observe, also, three grotesque figures in the blank +arches of the gable which forms the eastern end of St. Hugh's Chapel," +and of these, "one is popularly said to represent the 'Devil looking +over Lincoln.'"—<i>Handbook to the Cathedrals of England</i>, by R.J. King, +<i>Eastern Division</i>, p. 394, note x. +</p><p> +The devil looked over Lincoln because the unexampled height of the +central tower of the cathedral excited his envy and alarm; or, as Fuller +(<i>Worthies: Lincolnshire</i>) has it, "overlooked this church, when first +finished, with a torve and tetrick countenance, as maligning men's +costly devotions." So, at least, the vanity of later ages interpreted +the saying; but a time was when the devil "looked over" Lincoln to some +purpose, for in A.D. 1185 an earthquake clave the Church of Remigius in +twain, and in 1235 a great part of the central tower, which had been +erected by Bishop Hugh de Wells, fell and injured the rest of the +building.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OD" id="Footnote_OD"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OD"><span class="label">[OD]</span></a> <a name="Note_597" id="Note_597"></a>{597}<i>For laughter rarely shakes these aguish +folks</i>.—[MS, erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OE" id="Footnote_OE"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OE"><span class="label">[OE]</span></a> <i>Took down the gay</i> bon-mot——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OF" id="Footnote_OF"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OF"><span class="label">[OF]</span></a> <i>To hammer half a laugh</i>——.—[MS. erased.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_801" id="Footnote_801"></a><a href="#FNanchor_801"><span class="label">[801]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>["There's a difference to be seen between a beggar and a Queen;</p> +<p class="i4">And I 'll tell you the reason why;</p> +<p class="i2">A Queen does not swagger, nor get drunk like a beggar,</p> +<p class="i4">Nor be half so merry as I," etc.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<p>"There's a difference to be seen,'twixt a Bishop and a Dean,</p> +<p class="i4">And I'll tell you the reason why;</p> +<p class="i2">A Dean can not dish up a dinner like a Bishop,</p> +<p class="i4">And that's the reason why!"]</p> +</div></div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_802" id="Footnote_802"></a><a href="#FNanchor_802"><span class="label">[802]</span></a> <a name="Note_598" id="Note_598"></a>{598}["Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus." Terentius, +<i>Eun.</i>, act iv. sc. 5, line 6.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_803" id="Footnote_803"></a><a href="#FNanchor_803"><span class="label">[803]</span></a> <a name="Note_601" id="Note_601"></a>{601}In French "<i>mobilité</i>." I am not sure that mobility +is English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs to +other climates, though it is sometimes seen to a great extent in our +own. It may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate +impressions—at the same time without <i>losing</i> the past: and is, though +sometimes apparently useful to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy +attribute. +</p><p> +["That he was fully aware not only of the abundance of this quality in +his own nature, but of the danger in which it placed consistency and +singleness of character, did not require the note on this passage to +assure us. The consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to +yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing +impulse, was not only for ever present in his mind, but ... had the +effect of keeping him in that general line of consistency, on certain +great subjects, which ... he continued to preserve throughout +life."—<i>Life</i>, p. 646. "Mobility" is not the tendency to yield to +<i>every</i> impression, to change with <i>every</i> impulse, but the capability +of being moved by many and various impressions, of responding to an +ever-renewed succession of impulses. Byron is defending the enthusiastic +temperament from the charge of inconstancy and insincerity.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_804" id="Footnote_804"></a><a href="#FNanchor_804"><span class="label">[804]</span></a> [The first edition of Cocker's <i>Arithmetic</i> was published +in 1677. There are many allusions to Cocker in Arthur Murphy's +<i>Apprentice</i> (1756), whence, perhaps, the saying, "according to +Cocker."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_805" id="Footnote_805"></a><a href="#FNanchor_805"><span class="label">[805]</span></a> <a name="Note_602" id="Note_602"></a>{602} "[Et Horatii] Curiosa felicitas."—Petronius +Arbiter, <i>Salyricôn</i>, cap. cxviii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_806" id="Footnote_806"></a><a href="#FNanchor_806"><span class="label">[806]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>["Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,</p> +<p class="i2">And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."</p> +</div></div> +<p class="attrib">Pope <i>on Addison, Prologue to the Satires</i>, lines 201, 202.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_807" id="Footnote_807"></a><a href="#FNanchor_807"><span class="label">[807]</span></a> <a name="Note_604" id="Note_604"></a>{604}[Bion, <i>Epitaphium Adonidis</i>, line 28.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_808" id="Footnote_808"></a><a href="#FNanchor_808"><span class="label">[808]</span></a> [" ... genetrix hominum, divômque voluptas, Alma Venus!" +Lucret., <i>De Rerum Nat</i>., lib. i. lines 1, 2.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_809" id="Footnote_809"></a><a href="#FNanchor_809"><span class="label">[809]</span></a> <a name="Note_605" id="Note_605"></a>{605}[<i>Job</i> iv. 13.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_810" id="Footnote_810"></a><a href="#FNanchor_810"><span class="label">[810]</span></a> See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince +Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer—"Karl—Karl—was willst du mit +mir?" +</p><p> +[For Johann Georg Schrepfer (1730(?)-1774), see J.S.B. Schlegel's +<i>Tagebuch, etc.</i>, 1806, and <i>Schwärmer und Schwindler</i>, von Dr. Eugen +Sierke, 1874, pp. 298-332.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_811" id="Footnote_811"></a><a href="#FNanchor_811"><span class="label">[811]</span></a> <a name="Note_606" id="Note_606"></a>{606}[<i>Inferno</i>, Canto III. line 9.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OG" id="Footnote_OG"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OG"><span class="label">[OG]</span></a> <i>When once discovered it don't like to come near +it</i>.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_OH" id="Footnote_OH"></a><a href="#FNanchor_OH"><span class="label">[OH]</span></a> <a name="Note_607" id="Note_607"></a>{607}<i>A beardless chin</i>——.—[MS.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_812" id="Footnote_812"></a><a href="#FNanchor_812"><span class="label">[812]</span></a> [End of Canto 16. B. My. 6, 1823.—MS.]</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[608]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CANTO_THE_SEVENTEENTH" id="CANTO_THE_SEVENTEENTH"></a> +CANTO THE SEVENTEENTH.<a name="FNanchor_813" id="FNanchor_813"></a><a href="#Footnote_813" class="fnanchor">[813]</a> +<br /><span class="center"><img src="images/decoration.png" alt="swash" /></span> +</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The world is full of orphans: firstly, those</p> +<p class="i2">Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase;</p> +<p>But many a lonely tree the loftier grows</p> +<p class="i2">Than others crowded in the Forest's maze—</p> +<p>The next are such as are not doomed to lose</p> +<p class="i2">Their tender parents, in their budding days,</p> +<p>But, merely, their parental tenderness,</p> +<p>Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The next are "<i>only</i> Children," as they are styled,</p> +<p class="i2">Who grow up <i>Children</i> only, since th' old saw</p> +<p>Pronounces that an "only's" a spoilt child—</p> +<p class="i2">But not to go too far, I hold it law,</p> +<p>That where their education, harsh or mild,</p> +<p class="i2">Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[609]</a></span></p> +<p>The sufferers—be 't in heart or intellect—</p> +<p>Whate'er the <i>cause</i>, are orphans in <i>effect</i>.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>But to return unto the stricter rule—</p> +<p class="i2">As far as words make rules—our common notion</p> +<p>Of orphan paints at once a parish school,</p> +<p class="i2">A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean,</p> +<p>A human (what the Italians nickname) "Mule!"<a name="FNanchor_814" id="FNanchor_814"></a><a href="#Footnote_814" class="fnanchor">[814]</a></p> +<p class="i2">A theme for Pity or some worse emotion;</p> +<p>Yet, if examined, it might be admitted</p> +<p>The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what</p> +<p class="i2">Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared</p> +<p>With Nature's genial Genitors? so that</p> +<p class="i2">A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward,</p> +<p>(I'll take the likeness I can first come at,)</p> +<p class="i2">Is like—a duckling by Dame Partlett reared,</p> +<p>And frights—especially if 'tis a daughter,</p> +<p>Th' old Hen—by running headlong to the water.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>There is a common-place book argument,</p> +<p class="i2">Which glibly glides from every tongue;</p> +<p>When any dare a new light to present,</p> +<p class="i2">"If you are right, then everybody's wrong"!</p> +<p>Suppose the converse of this precedent</p> +<p class="i2">So often urged, so loudly and so long;</p> +<p>"If you are wrong, then everybody's right"!</p> +<p>Was ever everybody yet so quite?</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Therefore I would solicit free discussion</p> +<p class="i2">Upon all points—no matter what, or whose—</p> +<p>Because as Ages upon Ages push on,</p> +<p class="i2">The last is apt the former to accuse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[610]</a></span></p> +<p>Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion,</p> +<p class="i2">Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse:</p> +<p>What was a paradox becomes a truth or</p> +<p>A something like it—witness Luther!</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>The Sacraments have been reduced to two,</p> +<p class="i2">And Witches unto none, though somewhat late</p> +<p>Since burning agéd women (save a few—</p> +<p class="i2">Not witches only b—ches—who create</p> +<p>Mischief in families, as some know or knew,</p> +<p class="i2">Should still be singed, but lightly, let me state,)</p> +<p>Has been declared an act of inurbanity,</p> +<p><i>Malgré</i> Sir Matthew Hales's great humanity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Great Galileo was debarred the Sun,</p> +<p class="i2">Because he fixed it; and, to stop his talking,</p> +<p>How Earth could round the solar orbit run,</p> +<p class="i2">Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking:</p> +<p>The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun</p> +<p class="i2">To think his skull had not some need of caulking;</p> +<p>But now, it seems, he's right—his notion just:</p> +<p>No doubt a consolation to his dust.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages</p> +<p class="i2">Might be filled up, as vainly as before,</p> +<p>With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,</p> +<p class="i2">Who in his life-time, each, was deemed a Bore!</p> +<p>The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages:</p> +<p class="i2">This they must bear with and, perhaps, much more;</p> +<p>The wise man's sure when he no more can share it, he</p> +<p>Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>If such doom waits each intellectual Giant,</p> +<p class="i2">We little people in our lesser way,</p> +<p>In Life's small rubs should surely be more pliant,</p> +<p class="i2">And so for one will I—as well I may—</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[611]</a></span>Would that I were less bilious—but, oh, fie on 't!</p> +<p class="i4">Just as I make my mind up every day,</p> +<p>To be a "<i>totus, teres</i>," Stoic, Sage,</p> +<p>The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Temperate I am—yet never had a temper;</p> +<p class="i2">Modest I am—yet with some slight assurance;</p> +<p>Changeable too—yet somehow "<i>Idem semper</i>:"</p> +<p class="i2">Patient—but not enamoured of endurance;</p> +<p>Cheerful—but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper:</p> +<p class="i2">Mild—but at times a sort of "<i>Hercules furens</i>:"</p> +<p>So that I almost think that the same skin</p> +<p>For one without—has two or three within.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth,</p> +<p class="i2">Left in a tender moonlight situation,</p> +<p>Such as enables Man to show his strength</p> +<p class="i2">Moral or physical: on this occasion</p> +<p>Whether his virtue triumphed—or, at length,</p> +<p class="i2">His vice—for he was of a kindling nation—</p> +<p>Is more than I shall venture to describe;—</p> +<p>Unless some Beauty with a kiss should bribe.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>I leave the thing a problem, like all things:—</p> +<p class="i2">The morning came—and breakfast, tea and toast,</p> +<p>Of which most men partake, but no one sings.</p> +<p class="i2">The company whose birth, wealth, worth, has cost</p> +<p>My trembling Lyre already several strings,</p> +<p class="i2">Assembled with our hostess, and mine host;</p> +<p>The guests dropped in—the last but one, Her Grace,</p> +<p>The latest, Juan, with his virgin face.</p> +</div></div> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p>Which best it is to encounter—Ghost, or none,</p> +<p class="i2">'Twere difficult to say—but Juan looked</p> +<p>As if he had combated with more than one,</p> +<p class="i2">Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[612]</a></span></p> +<p>The light, that through the Gothic window shone:</p> +<p class="i2">Her Grace, too, had a sort of air rebuked—</p> +<p>Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept</p> +<p>A vigil, or dreamt rather more than slept.</p> +</div></div> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top:2em;">THE END.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p> +<a name="Footnote_813" id="Footnote_813"></a><a href="#FNanchor_813"><span class="label">[813]</span></a> <a name="Note_608" id="Note_608"></a>{608}[May 8, 1823.—<i>MS</i>. +More than one "Seventeenth +Canto," or so-called continuation of <i>Don Juan</i>, has been published. +Some of these "Sequels" pretend to be genuine, while others are +undisguisedly imitations or parodies. For an account of these spurious +and altogether worthless continuations, see "Bibliography," vol. vii. +There was, however, a foundation for the myth. Before Byron left Italy +he had begun (May 8, 1823) a seventeenth canto, and when he sailed for +Greece he took the new stanzas with him. Trelawny found "fifteen stanzas +of the seventeenth canto of <i>Don Juan</i>" in Byron's room at Missolonghi +(<i>Recollections, etc.</i>, 1858, p. 237). The MS., together with other +papers, was handed over to John Cam Hobhouse, and is now in the +possession of his daughter, the Lady Dorchester. The copyright was +purchased by the late John Murray. The fourteen (not fifteen) stanzas +are now printed and published for the first time.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_814" id="Footnote_814"></a><a href="#FNanchor_814"><span class="label">[814]</span></a> <a name="Note_609" id="Note_609"></a>{609}The Italians, at least in some parts of Italy, call +bastards and foundlings the <i>mules—why</i>, I cannot see, unless they mean +to infer that the offspring of matrimony are asses.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6, by Lord Byron + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, VOLUME 6 *** + +***** This file should be named 18762-h.htm or 18762-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/6/18762/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Cortesi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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