The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 (part 1 of 3)

The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6

THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON.

A NEW, REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

Poetry. Vol. VI.

EDITED BY ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A., HON. F.R.S.L.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

1903.

THIS EDITION OF A GREAT POEM IS DEDICATED WITH HIS PERMISSION

TO

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

MDCCCCII.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

This etext is a Unicode (UTF8) file. In a few places there are phrases or lines of Greek text, each followed by a Beta-code transliteration, for example: νους [Greek: nous].

An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnotes indexed with arabic numbers (e.g. [17], [221]) are informational. Note text in square brackets is the work of editor E.H. Coleridge, and is unique to this edition. Other note text is from earlier editions and is by a preceding editor or Byron himself.

Footnotes indexed with letters (e.g. [c], [bf]) document variant forms of the text from manuscripts and other sources.

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: {321}. These represent the page number on which following notes originally appeared, and can be used to find notes by page. For example, the Preface directs you to "a note (pp. 495..." and you can locate this note in its new location by searching for {495}.

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH VOLUME.

The text of this edition of Don Juan 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.

I have collated with the original authorities, and in many instances retranscribed, the numerous quotations from Sir G. Dalzell's Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea (1812, 8vo) [Canto II. stanzas xxiv.-civ. pp. 87-112], and from a work entitled Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la Nouvelle Russie, 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 Poetical Works.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

NOTE.

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 Don Juan itself occupies 612 pages.

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.

CONTENTS OF VOL. VI.

Dedication v Preface to Vol. VI. of the Poems vii Introduction to DON JUAN xv Dedication to Robert Southey, Esq. 3 DON JUAN-- Canto I 11 Canto II 81 Canto III 143 Canto IV 183 Canto V 218 Preface to Cantos VI., VII., and VIII 264 Canto VI 268 Canto VII 302 Canto VIII 330 Canto IX 373 Canto X 400 Canto XI 427 Canto XII 455 Canto XIII 481 Canto XIV 516 Canto XV 544 Canto XVI 572 Canto XVII 608

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON, FROM A DRAWING FROM THE LIFE BY J. HOLMES, FORMERLY THE PROPERTY OF THE LATE HUGH CHARLES TREVANION, ESQ. Frontispiece

2. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY H.W. PICKERSGILL, R.A., IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY To face p. 4

3. NINON DE LENCLOS, FROM A MINIATURE IN THE POSSESSION OF SIR J.G. TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR, BART. 246

4. FOUNTAIN AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY 500

INTRODUCTION TO DON JUAN

Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. His Tales 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 Childe Harold in the autumn of 1809, and he did not complete the fourth canto till the spring of 1818. He began the first canto of Don Juan 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. Childe Harold 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 Don Juan the story is continuous, and the scenery is exhibited as a background for the dramatic evolution of the personality of the hero. Childe Harold came out at intervals, because there were periods when the author was stationary; but the interruptions in the composition and publication of Don Juan 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 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 Don Juan, considered as a whole, synchronized with the composition of all the dramas (except Manfred) and the following poems: The Prophecy of Dante, (the translation of) The Morgante Maggiore, The Vision of Judgment, The Age of Bronze, and The Island.

There is little to be said with regard to the "Sources" of Don Juan. Frere's Whistlecraft had suggested Beppo, and, at the same time, had prompted and provoked a sympathetic study of Frere's Italian models, Berni and Pulci (see "Introduction to Beppo," Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 155-158; and "Introduction to The Morgante Maggiore" ibid., pp. 279-281); and, again, the success of Beppo, and, still more, a sense of inspiration and the conviction that he had found the path to excellence, suggested another essay of the ottava rima, a humorous poem "à la Beppo" 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) El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra (The Deceiver of Seville and the Stone Guest), 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. Convitato di Pietra, del Dottor Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Fiorentino [see L. Allacci Dramaturgia, 1755, 4º, p. 862]) or French adaptations of the legend (e.g. Le Festin de Pierre, ou le fils criminel, Tragi-comédie de De Villiers, 1659; and Molière's Dom Juan, ou Le Festin de Pierre, 1665). He had seen (vide post, p. 11, note 2) Delpini's pantomime, which was based on Shadwell's Libertine, and he may have witnessed, at Milan or Venice, a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni; 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 Selections from the Works of Lord Byron, by A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. xxvi.), "as something to his purpose nothing"!

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 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 Beppo, 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 Don Juan was "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 have no plan--I had 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 Don Juan, 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 Cavalier Servente 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 gâté and blasé, 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."

Byron meant what he said, but he kept back the larger truth. Great works, in which the poet speaks ex animo, and the man lays bare the very pulse of the machine, are not conceived or composed unconsciously and at haphazard. Byron did not "whistle" Don Juan "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 Critique on [Maturin's] Bertram (vide post, p. 4, note 1), 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 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.

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." Don Juan was taboo 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 natural and so comparative insignificance. Byron was under no delusion as to the grossness of Don Juan. His plea or pretence, that he was sheltered by the superior grossness of Ariosto and La Fontaine, of Prior and of Fielding, is nihil ad rem, if it is not insincere. When Murray (May 3, 1819) charges him with "approximations to indelicacy," 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 "raison d'être 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.

Don Juan has won great praise from the great. Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 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 (Kunst und Alterthum, 1821 [ed. Weimar, iii. 197, and Sämmtliche Werke, xiii. 637]) described Don Juan 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 Prose Works, 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 Don Juan: "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" (A Selection, etc., by A.C. Swinburne, 1885, p. x.).

Cantos I., II. of Don Juan were reviewed in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, August, 1819, vol. v. pp. 512-518; Cantos III., IV., V., August, 1821, vol. x. pp. 107-115; and Cantos VI., VII., VIII., July, 1823, vol. xiv. pp. 88-92: in the British Critic, 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 British Review, 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 Examiner, 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 Literary Gazette, 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 Monthly Review., 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 New Monthly Magazine, Cantos I., II. were reviewed August, 1819, vol. xii. p. 75. See, too, an article on the "Morality of Don Juan," Dublin University Magazine, May, 1875, vol. lxxxv. pp. 630-637.

Neither the Quarterly nor the Edinburgh Review devoted separate articles to Don Juan; but Heber, in the Quarterly Review (Lord Byron's Dramas), July, 1822, vol. xxvii. p. 477, and Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review (Lord Byron's Tragedies), February, 1822, vol. 36, pp. 446-450, took occasion to pass judgment on the poem and its author.

For the history of the legend, see History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, 1888, vol. ii. pp. 380, 381; and Das Kloster, von J. Scheible, 1846, vol. iii. pp. 663-765. See, too, Notes sur le Don Juanisme, par Henri de Bruchard, Mercure de France, Avril, 1898, vol. xxvi. pp. 58-73; and Don Juan, par Gustave Kahn, Revue Encyclopédique, 1898, tom. viii. pp. 326-329.

DON JUAN.

FRAGMENT ON THE BACK OF THE MS. OF CANTO I.

I WOULD to Heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling-- Because at least the past were passed away, And for the future--(but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly to-day, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say--the future is a serious matter-- And so--for God's sake--hock and soda-water!

DEDICATION.[1]

I.

BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 't is true that you turned out a Tory at Last,--yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye;

II.

"Which pye being opened they began to sing," (This old song and new simile holds good), "A dainty dish to set before the King," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;-- And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,-- Explaining Metaphysics to the nation-- I wish he would explain his Explanation.[2]

III.

You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know, At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob![3]

IV.

And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion," (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system[4] to perplex the sages; 'T is poetry-at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the dog-star rages-- And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel.

V.

You--Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your own At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion Of one another's minds, at last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That Poesy has wreaths for you alone: There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean.

VI.

I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.[5] You're shabby fellows--true--but poets still, And duly seated on the Immortal Hill.

VII.

Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows-- Perhaps some virtuous blushes;--let them go-- To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs-- And for the fame you would engross below, The field is universal, and allows Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try 'Gainst you the question with posterity.

VIII.

For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the wingéd steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy, and the skill you need; And, recollect, a poet nothing loses In giving to his brethren their full meed Of merit--and complaint of present days Is not the certain path to future praise.

IX.

He that reserves his laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injured by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion, The major part of such appellants go To--God knows where--for no one else can know.

X.

If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues,[6] Milton appealed to the Avenger, Time, If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "Sublime," He deigned not to belie his soul in songs, Nor turn his very talent to a crime; He did not loathe the Sire to laud the Son, But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.

XI.

Think'st thou, could he--the blind Old Man--arise Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more The blood of monarchs with his prophecies, Or be alive again--again all hoar With time and trials, and those helpless eyes, And heartless daughters--worn--and pale[7]--and poor; Would he adore a sultan? he obey The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?[8]

XII.

Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore, And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferred to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, With just enough of talent, and no more, To lengthen fetters by another fixed, And offer poison long already mixed.

XIII.

An orator of such set trash of phrase Ineffably--legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes--all nations--condescend to smile,-- Nor even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless torments and perpetual motion.

XIV.

A bungler even in its disgusting trade, And botching, patching, leaving still behind Something of which its masters are afraid-- States to be curbed, and thoughts to be confined, Conspiracy or Congress to be made-- Cobbling at manacles for all mankind-- A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, With God and Man's abhorrence for its gains.

XV.

If we may judge of matter by the mind, Emasculated to the marrow It Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit, Eutropius of its many masters,[9]--blind To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit, Fearless--because no feeling dwells in ice, Its very courage stagnates to a vice.[10]

XVI.

Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, For I will never feel them?--Italy! Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o'er thee[11]-- Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds, Have voices--tongues to cry aloud for me. Europe has slaves--allies--kings--armies still-- And Southey lives to sing them very ill.

XVII.

Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate, In honest simple verse, this song to you. And, if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 'T is that I still retain my "buff and blue;"[12] My politics as yet are all to educate: Apostasy's so fashionable, too, To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean; Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian?[13]

Venice, Sept. 16, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

{3}[1] ["As the Poem is to be published anonymously, omit the Dedication. I won't attack the dog in the dark. Such things are for scoundrels and renegadoes like himself" [Revise]. See, too, letter to Murray, May 6, 1819 (Letters, 1900, iv. 294); and Southey's letter to Bedford, July 31, 1819 (Selections from the Letters, etc., 1856, in. 137, 138). According to the editor of the Works of Lord Byron, 1833 (xv. 101), the existence of the Dedication "became notorious" in consequence of Hobhouse's article in the Westminster Review, 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" (Life and Correspondence, 1850, vi. 217).]

{4}[2] [In the "Critique on Bertram," which Coleridge contributed to the Courier, in 1816, and republished in the Biographia Literaria, in 1817 (chap, xxiii.), he gives a detailed analysis of "the old Spanish play, entitled Atheista Fulminato [vide ante, the 'Introduction to Don Juan'] ... which under various names (Don Juan, the Libertine, 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 (Letters, 1900, iv. 172).]

[3] ["Have you heard that Don Juan 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 (sic) from the one Robert is supposed to be the reason why it has been suppressed" (Southey to Rev. H. Hill, August 13, 1819, Selections from the Letters, etc., 1856, iii. 142). For "Quarrel between Byron and Southey," see Introduction to The Vision of Judgment, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 475-480; and Letters, 1901, vi. 377-399 (Appendix I.).]

[4] [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 Poems of William Wordsworth, published in 1815. In the Preface to the Excursion (1814) it is expressly stated that "it is not the author's intention formally to announce a system."]

{5}[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 [despised retainer,--MS. erased] of the worst prejudices of the aristocracy.

[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). The Excursion was dedicated to Lord Lonsdale in a sonnet dated July 29, 1814--

"Oft through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer, In youth I roamed ... Now, by thy care befriended, I appear Before thee, Lonsdale, and this Work present." ]

{6}[6] [Paradise Lost, vii. 25, 26.]

{7}[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, Life of Milton, by W. Hayley (or Hailey, as spelt in the edition before me).

[The Life of Milton, by William Hailey (sic), Esq., Basil, 1799, p. 186.]

[8] Or--

"Would he subside into a hackney Laureate-- A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorned Iscariot?"

I doubt if "Laureate" and "Iscariot" be good rhymes, but must say, as Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with--

"I, John Sylvester, Lay with your sister."

Jonson answered--"I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife." Sylvester answered,--"That is not rhyme."--"No," said Ben Jonson; "but it is true."

[For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, see The Age of Bronze, line 538, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 568, note 2; and Letters, 1900, iv. 108, note 1.]

{8}[9] For the character of Eutropius, the eunuch and minister at the court of Arcadius, see Gibbon, [Decline and Fall, 1825, ii. 307, 308].

[10] ["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.e. 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."--MS. M.]

[11] [Commenting on a "pathetic sentiment" of Leoni, the author of the Italian translation of Childe Harold ("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, Letters, 1901, v. 22, note 1.]

{9}[12] [Charles James Fox and the Whig Club of his time adopted a uniform of blue and buff. Hence the livery of the Edinburgh Review.]

[13] I allude not to our friend Landor's hero, the traitor Count Julian, but to Gibbon's hero, vulgarly yclept "The Apostate."

DON JUAN

CANTO THE FIRST.[14]

I.

I WANT a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan-- We all have seen him, in the pantomime,[15] Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.

II.

Vernon,[16] the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe, Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk, And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now; Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk, Followers of Fame, "nine farrow"[17] of that sow: France, too, had Buonaparté[18] and Dumourier[19] Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III.

Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette[20] Were French, and famous people, as we know; And there were others, scarce forgotten yet, Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,[21] With many of the military set, Exceedingly remarkable at times, But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV.

Nelson was once Britannia's god of War, And still should be so, but the tide is turned; There's no more to be said of Trafalgar, 'T is with our hero quietly inurned; Because the army's grown more popular, At which the naval people are concerned; Besides, the Prince is all for the land-service. Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V.

Brave men were living before Agamemnon[22] And since, exceeding valorous and sage, A good deal like him too, though quite the same none; But then they shone not on the poet's page, And so have been forgotten:--I condemn none, But can't find any in the present age Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one); So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

VI.

Most epic poets plunge "in medias res"[23] (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road), And then your hero tells, whene'er you please, What went before--by way of episode, While seated after dinner at his ease, Beside his mistress in some soft abode, Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern, Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.

VII.

That is the usual method, but not mine-- My way is to begin with the beginning; The regularity of my design Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning), Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother, if you'd rather.

VIII.

In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, Famous for oranges and women,--he Who has not seen it will be much to pity, So says the proverb[24]--and I quite agree; Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty, Cadiz perhaps--but that you soon may see;-- Don Juan's parents lived beside the river, A noble stream, and called the Guadalquivir.

IX.

His father's name was José-Don, of course,-- A true Hidalgo, free from every stain Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain; A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse, Or, being mounted, e'er got down again, Than José, who begot our hero, who Begot--but that's to come----Well, to renew:

X.[25]

His mother was a learnéd lady, famed For every branch of every science known-- In every Christian language ever named, With virtues equalled by her wit alone: She made the cleverest people quite ashamed, And even the good with inward envy groan, Finding themselves so very much exceeded, In their own way, by all the things that she did.

XI.

Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart All Calderon and greater part of Lopé; So, that if any actor missed his part, She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art,[26] And he himself obliged to shut up shop--he Could never make a memory so fine as That which adorned the brain of Donna Inez.

XII.

Her favourite science was the mathematical, Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity, Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all, Her serious sayings darkened to sublimity;[a] In short, in all things she was fairly what I call A prodigy--her morning dress was dimity, Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin, And other stuffs, with which I won't stay puzzling.

XIII.

She knew the Latin--that is, "the Lord's prayer," And Greek--the alphabet--I'm nearly sure; She read some French romances here and there, Although her mode of speaking was not pure; For native Spanish she had no great care, At least her conversation was obscure; Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem, As if she deemed that mystery would ennoble 'em.

XIV.

She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue, And said there was analogy between 'em; She proved it somehow out of sacred song, But I must leave the proofs to those who've seen 'em; But this I heard her say, and can't be wrong, And all may think which way their judgments lean 'em, "'T is strange--the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,' The English always use to govern d--n."

XV.

Some women use their tongues--she looked a lecture, Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily, An all-in-all sufficient self-director, Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,[27] The Law's expounder, and the State's corrector, Whose suicide was almost an anomaly-- One sad example more, that "All is vanity,"-- (The jury brought their verdict in "Insanity!")

XVI.

In short, she was a walking calculation, Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers,[28] Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education,[29] Or "Coelebs' Wife"[30] set out in quest of lovers, Morality's prim personification, In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; To others' share let "female errors fall,"[31] For she had not even one--the worst of all.

XVII.

Oh! she was perfect past all parallel-- Of any modern female saint's comparison; So far above the cunning powers of Hell, Her Guardian Angel had given up his garrison; Even her minutest motions went as well As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison:[32] In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar![33]

XVIII.

Perfect she was, but as perfection is Insipid in this naughty world of ours, Where our first parents never learned to kiss Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss,[b] (I wonder how they got through the twelve hours), Don José, like a lineal son of Eve, Went plucking various fruit without her leave.

XIX.

He was a mortal of the careless kind, With no great love for learning, or the learned, Who chose to go where'er he had a mind, And never dreamed his lady was concerned; The world, as usual, wickedly inclined To see a kingdom or a house o'erturned, Whispered he had a mistress, some said two. But for domestic quarrels one will do.

XX.

Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, A great opinion of her own good qualities; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities;[c] But then she had a devil of a spirit, And sometimes mixed up fancies with realities, And let few opportunities escape Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.

XXI.

This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might "brain them with their lady's fan;"[34] And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands.

XXII.

'T is pity learnéd virgins ever wed With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation: I don't choose to say much upon this head, I'm a plain man, and in a single station, But--Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?

XXIII.

Don José and his lady quarrelled--why, Not any of the many could divine, Though several thousand people chose to try, 'T was surely no concern of theirs nor mine; I loathe that low vice--curiosity; But if there's anything in which I shine, 'T is in arranging all my friends' affairs, Not having, of my own, domestic cares.

XXIV.

And so I interfered, and with the best Intentions, but their treatment was not kind; I think the foolish people were possessed, For neither of them could I ever find, Although their porter afterwards confessed-- But that's no matter, and the worst's behind, For little Juan o'er me threw, down stairs, A pail of housemaid's water unawares.

XXV.

A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing, And mischief-making monkey from his birth; His parents ne'er agreed except in doting Upon the most unquiet imp on earth; Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in Their senses, they'd have sent young master forth To school, or had him soundly whipped at home, To teach him manners for the time to come.

XXVI.

Don José and the Donna Inez led For some time an unhappy sort of life, Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;[d] They lived respectably as man and wife, Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred, And gave no outward signs of inward strife, Until at length the smothered fire broke out, And put the business past all kind of doubt.

XXVII.

For Inez called some druggists and physicians, And tried to prove her loving lord was mad,[35] But as he had some lucid intermissions, She next decided he was only bad; Yet when they asked her for her depositions, No sort of explanation could be had, Save that her duty both to man and God[36] Required this conduct--which seemed very odd.[37]

XXVIII.

She kept a journal, where his faults were noted, And opened certain trunks of books and letters,[38] All which might, if occasion served, be quoted; And then she had all Seville for abettors, Besides her good old grandmother (who doted); The hearers of her case became repeaters, Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges, Some for amusement, others for old grudges.

XXIX.

And then this best and meekest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose Never to say a word about them more-- Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity, That all the world exclaimed, "What magnanimity!"

XXX.

No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us, Is philosophic in our former friends; 'T is also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous, The more so in obtaining our own ends; And what the lawyers call a "malus animus" Conduct like this by no means comprehends: Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, But then 't is not my fault, if others hurt you.

XXXI.

And if our quarrels should rip up old stories, And help them with a lie or two additional, I'm not to blame, as you well know--no more is Any one else--they were become traditional; Besides, their resurrection aids our glories By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all: And Science profits by this resurrection-- Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.

XXXII.

Their friends had tried at reconciliation,[e] Then their relations, who made matters worse. ('T were hard to tell upon a like occasion To whom it may be best to have recourse-- I can't say much for friend or yet relation) The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,[f] But scarce a fee was paid on either side Before, unluckily, Don José died.

XXXIII.

He died: and most unluckily, because, According to all hints I could collect From Counsel learnéd in those kinds of laws, (Although their talk's obscure and circumspect) His death contrived to spoil a charming cause; A thousand pities also with respect To public feeling, which on this occasion Was manifested in a great sensation.

XXXIV.

But ah! he died; and buried with him lay The public feeling and the lawyers' fees: His house was sold, his servants sent away, A Jew took one of his two mistresses, A priest the other--at least so they say: I asked the doctors after his disease-- He died of the slow fever called the tertian, And left his widow to her own aversion.

XXXV.

Yet José was an honourable man, That I must say, who knew him very well; Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan, Indeed there were not many more to tell: And if his passions now and then outran Discretion, and were not so peaceable As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius), He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.[g]

XXXVI.

Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth, Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him. Let's own--since it can do no good on earth--[h] It was a trying moment that which found him Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, Where all his household gods lay shivered round him:[39] No choice was left his feelings or his pride, Save Death or Doctors' Commons--so he died.[i]

XXXVII.

Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands, Which, with a long minority and care, Promised to turn out well in proper hands: Inez became sole guardian, which was fair, And answered but to Nature's just demands; An only son left with an only mother Is brought up much more wisely than another.

XXXVIII.

Sagest of women, even of widows, she Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree, (His Sire was of Castile, his Dam from Aragon) Then, for accomplishments of chivalry, In case our Lord the King should go to war again, He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a fortress--or a nunnery.

XXXIX.

But that which Donna Inez most desired, And saw into herself each day before all The learnéd tutors whom for him she hired, Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral: Much into all his studies she inquired, And so they were submitted first to her, all, Arts, sciences--no branch was made a mystery To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.

XL.

The languages, especially the dead, The sciences, and most of all the abstruse, The arts, at least all such as could be said To be the most remote from common use, In all these he was much and deeply read: But not a page of anything that's loose, Or hints continuation of the species, Was ever suffered, lest he should grow vicious.

XLI.

His classic studies made a little puzzle, Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses, Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle, But never put on pantaloons or bodices;[40] His reverend tutors had at times a tussle, And for their Æneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,[j] Were forced to make an odd sort of apology, For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.

XLII.

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him, Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample, Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example, Although Longinus[41] tells us there is no hymn Where the Sublime soars forth on wings more ample; But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."[42]

XLIII.

Lucretius' irreligion is too strong For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food; I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong, Although no doubt his real intent was good, For speaking out so plainly in his song, So much indeed as to be downright rude; And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?

XLIV.

Juan was taught from out the best edition, Expurgated by learned men, who place, Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision, The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface Too much their modest bard by this omission,[k] And pitying sore his mutilated case, They only add them all in an appendix,[43] Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;

XLV.

For there we have them all "at one fell swoop," Instead of being scattered through the pages; They stand forth marshalled in a handsome troop, To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages, Till some less rigid editor shall stoop To call them back into their separate cages, Instead of standing staring all together, Like garden gods--and not so decent either.

XLVI.

The Missal too (it was the family Missal) Was ornamented in a sort of way Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they, Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all, Could turn their optics to the text and pray, Is more than I know--But Don Juan's mother Kept this herself, and gave her son another.

XLVII.

Sermons he read, and lectures he endured, And homilies, and lives of all the saints; To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured, He did not take such studies for restraints; But how Faith is acquired, and then insured, So well not one of the aforesaid paints As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions, Which make the reader envy his transgressions.[44]

XLVIII.

This, too, was a sealed book to little Juan-- I can't but say that his mamma was right, If such an education was the true one. She scarcely trusted him from out her sight; Her maids were old, and if she took a new one, You might be sure she was a perfect fright; She did this during even her husband's life-- I recommend as much to every wife.

XLIX.

Young Juan waxed in goodliness and grace; At six a charming child, and at eleven With all the promise of as fine a face As e'er to Man's maturer growth was given: He studied steadily, and grew apace, And seemed, at least, in the right road to Heaven, For half his days were passed at church, the other Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.

L.

At six, I said, he was a charming child, At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy; Although in infancy a little wild, They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy His natural spirit not in vain they toiled, At least it seemed so; and his mother's joy Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady, Her young philosopher was grown already.

LI.

I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still, But what I say is neither here nor there: I knew his father well, and have some skill In character--but it would not be fair From sire to son to augur good or ill: He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair-- But scandal's my aversion--I protest Against all evil speaking, even in jest.

LII.

For my part I say nothing--nothing--but This I will say--my reasons are my own-- That if I had an only son to put To school (as God be praised that I have none), 'T is not with Donna Inez I would shut Him up to learn his catechism alone, No--no--I'd send him out betimes to college, For there it was I picked up my own knowledge.

LIII.

For there one learns--'t is not for me to boast, Though I acquired--but I pass over that, As well as all the Greek I since have lost: I say that there's the place--but "Verbum sat," I think I picked up too, as well as most, Knowledge of matters--but no matter what-- I never married--but, I think, I know That sons should not be educated so.

LIV.

Young Juan now was sixteen years of age, Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seemed Active, though not so sprightly, as a page; And everybody but his mother deemed Him almost man; but she flew in a rage[45] And bit her lips (for else she might have screamed) If any said so--for to be precocious Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.

LV.

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all Selected for discretion and devotion, There was the Donna Julia, whom to call Pretty were but to give a feeble notion Of many charms in her as natural As sweetness to the flower, or salt to Ocean, Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid, (But this last simile is trite and stupid.)

LVI.

The darkness of her Oriental eye Accorded with her Moorish origin; (Her blood was not all Spanish; by the by, In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin;) When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly, Boabdil wept:[46] of Donna Julia's kin Some went to Africa, some stayed in Spain-- Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.

LVII.

She married (I forget the pedigree) With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down His blood less noble than such blood should be; At such alliances his sires would frown, In that point so precise in each degree That they bred in and in, as might be shown, Marrying their cousins--nay, their aunts, and nieces, Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.

LVIII.

This heathenish cross restored the breed again, Ruined its blood, but much improved its flesh; For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh; The sons no more were short, the daughters plain: But there's a rumour which I fain would hush,[l] 'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.

LIX.

However this might be, the race went on Improving still through every generation, Until it centred in an only son, Who left an only daughter; my narration May have suggested that this single one Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion I shall have much to speak about), and she Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

LX.

Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes) Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise Flashed an expression more of pride than ire, And love than either; and there would arise A something in them which was not desire, But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul Which struggled through and chastened down the whole.

LXI.

Her glossy hair was clustered o'er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like the aërial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow, As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth, Possessed an air and grace by no means common: Her stature tall--I hate a dumpy woman.

LXII.

Wedded she was some years, and to a man Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty; And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE 'T were better to have TWO of five-and-twenty, Especially in countries near the sun: And now I think on 't, "mi vien in mente", Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.[m]

LXIII.

'T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say, And all the fault of that indecent sun, Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay, But will keep baking, broiling, burning on, That howsoever people fast and pray, The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone: What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry,

LXIV.

Happy the nations of the moral North! Where all is virtue, and the winter season Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth ('T was snow that brought St. Anthony[47] to reason); Where juries cast up what a wife is worth, By laying whate'er sum, in mulct, they please on The lover, who must pay a handsome price, Because it is a marketable vice.

LXV.

Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord, A man well looking for his years, and who Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorred: They lived together as most people do, Suffering each other's foibles by accord, And not exactly either one or two; Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For Jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

LXVI.

Julia was--yet I never could see why-- With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend; Between their tastes there was small sympathy, For not a line had Julia ever penned: Some people whisper (but, no doubt, they lie, For Malice still imputes some private end) That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's marriage, Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;

LXVII.

And that still keeping up the old connection, Which Time had lately rendered much more chaste, She took his lady also in affection, And certainly this course was much the best: She flattered Julia with her sage protection, And complimented Don Alfonso's taste; And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal, At least she left it a more slender handle.

LXVIII.

I can't tell whether Julia saw the affair With other people's eyes, or if her own Discoveries made, but none could be aware Of this, at least no symptom e'er was shown; Perhaps she did not know, or did not care, Indifferent from the first, or callous grown: I'm really puzzled what to think or say, She kept her counsel in so close a way.

LXIX.

Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child, Caressed him often--such a thing might be Quite innocently done, and harmless styled, When she had twenty years, and thirteen he; But I am not so sure I should have smiled When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three; These few short years make wondrous alterations, Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.

LXX.

Whate'er the cause might be, they had become Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy, Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb, And much embarrassment in either eye; There surely will be little doubt with some That Donna Julia knew the reason why, But as for Juan, he had no more notion Than he who never saw the sea of Ocean.

LXXI.

Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind, And tremulously gentle her small hand Withdrew itself from his, but left behind A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland And slight, so very slight, that to the mind 'T was but a doubt; but ne'er magician's wand Wrought change with all Armida's[48] fairy art Like what this light touch left on Juan's heart.

LXXII.

And if she met him, though she smiled no more, She looked a sadness sweeter than her smile, As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store She must not own, but cherished more the while For that compression in its burning core; Even Innocence itself has many a wile, And will not dare to trust itself with truth, And Love is taught hypocrisy from youth.

LXXIII.

But Passion most dissembles, yet betrays Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays Its workings through the vainly guarded eye, And in whatever aspect it arrays Itself, 't is still the same hypocrisy; Coldness or Anger, even Disdain or Hate, Are masks it often wears, and still too late.

LXXIV.

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression, And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft, And burning blushes, though for no transgression, Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left; All these are little preludes to possession, Of which young Passion cannot be bereft, And merely tend to show how greatly Love is Embarrassed at first starting with a novice.

LXXV.

Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward state; She felt it going, and resolved to make The noblest efforts for herself and mate, For Honour's, Pride's, Religion's, Virtue's sake: Her resolutions were most truly great, And almost might have made a Tarquin quake: She prayed the Virgin Mary for her grace, As being the best judge of a lady's case.[49]

LXXVI.

She vowed she never would see Juan more, And next day paid a visit to his mother, And looked extremely at the opening door, Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in another; Grateful she was, and yet a little sore-- Again it opens, it can be no other, 'T is surely Juan now--No! I'm afraid That night the Virgin was no further prayed.[50]

LXXVII.

She now determined that a virtuous woman Should rather face and overcome temptation, That flight was base and dastardly, and no man Should ever give her heart the least sensation, That is to say, a thought beyond the common Preference, that we must feel, upon occasion, For people who are pleasanter than others, But then they only seem so many brothers.

LXXVIII.

And even if by chance--and who can tell? The Devil's so very sly--she should discover That all within was not so very well, And, if still free, that such or such a lover Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell Such thoughts, and be the better when they're over; And if the man should ask, 't is but denial: I recommend young ladies to make trial.

LXXIX.

And, then, there are such things as Love divine, Bright and immaculate, unmixed and pure, Such as the angels think so very fine, And matrons, who would be no less secure, Platonic, perfect, "just such love as mine;" Thus Julia said--and thought so, to be sure; And so I'd have her think, were I the man On whom her reveries celestial ran.

LXXX.

Such love is innocent, and may exist Between young persons without any danger. A hand may first, and then a lip be kissed; For my part, to such doings I'm a stranger, But hear these freedoms form the utmost list Of all o'er which such love may be a ranger: If people go beyond, 't is quite a crime, But not my fault--I tell them all in time.

LXXXI.

Love, then, but Love within its proper limits, Was Julia's innocent determination In young Don Juan's favour, and to him its Exertion might be useful on occasion; And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion He might be taught, by Love and her together-- I really don't know what, nor Julia either.

LXXXII.

Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced In mail of proof--her purity of soul[51]-- She, for the future, of her strength convinced, And that her honour was a rock, or mole,[n] Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed With any kind of troublesome control; But whether Julia to the task was equal Is that which must be mentioned in the sequel.

LXXXIII.

Her plan she deemed both innocent and feasible, And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen Not Scandal's fangs could fix on much that's seizable, Or if they did so, satisfied to mean Nothing but what was good, her breast was peaceable-- A quiet conscience makes one so serene! Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

LXXXIV.

And if in the mean time her husband died, But Heaven forbid that such a thought should cross Her brain, though in a dream! (and then she sighed) Never could she survive that common loss; But just suppose that moment should betide, I only say suppose it--inter nos: (This should be entre nous, for Julia thought In French, but then the rhyme would go for nought.)

LXXXV.

I only say, suppose this supposition: Juan being then grown up to man's estate Would fully suit a widow of condition, Even seven years hence it would not be too late; And in the interim (to pursue this vision) The mischief, after all, could not be great, For he would learn the rudiments of Love, I mean the seraph way of those above.

LXXXVI.

So much for Julia! Now we'll turn to Juan. Poor little fellow! he had no idea Of his own case, and never hit the true one; In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss Medea,[52] He puzzled over what he found a new one, But not as yet imagined it could be a Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming, Which, with a little patience, might grow charming.

LXXXVII.

Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow, His home deserted for the lonely wood, Tormented with a wound he could not know, His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude: I'm fond myself of solitude or so, But then, I beg it may be understood, By solitude I mean a Sultan's (not A Hermit's), with a haram for a grot.

LXXXVIII.

"Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this, Where Transport and Security entwine, Here is the Empire of thy perfect bliss, And here thou art a God indeed divine."[53] The bard I quote from does not sing amiss, With the exception of the second line, For that same twining "Transport and Security" Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.

LXXXIX.

The Poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals To the good sense and senses of mankind, The very thing which everybody feels, As all have found on trial, or may find, That no one likes to be disturbed at meals Or love.--I won't say more about "entwined" Or "Transport," as we knew all that before, But beg "Security" will bolt the door.

XC.

Young Juan wandered by the glassy brooks, Thinking unutterable things; he threw Himself at length within the leafy nooks Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew; There poets find materials for their books, And every now and then we read them through, So that their plan and prosody are eligible, Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.

XCI.

He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued His self-communion with his own high soul, Until his mighty heart, in its great mood, Had mitigated part, though not the whole Of its disease; he did the best he could With things not very subject to control, And turned, without perceiving his condition, Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.[54]

XCII.

He thought about himself, and the whole earth, Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth: And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;-- And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.

XCIII.

In thoughts like these true Wisdom may discern Longings sublime, and aspirations high, Which some are born with, but the most part learn To plague themselves withal, they know not why: 'T was strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky;[o] If you think 't was Philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

XCIV.

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers, And heard a voice in all the winds; and then He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers, And how the goddesses came down to men: He missed the pathway, he forgot the hours, And when he looked upon his watch again, He found how much old Time had been a winner-- He also found that he had lost his dinner.

XCV.

Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book, Boscan,[55] or Garcilasso;[56]--by the wind Even as the page is rustled while we look, So by the poesy of his own mind Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook, As if 't were one whereon magicians bind Their spells, and give them to the passing gale, According to some good old woman's tale.

XCVI.

Thus would he while his lonely hours away Dissatisfied, not knowing what he wanted; Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay, Could yield his spirit that for which it panted, A bosom whereon he his head might lay, And hear the heart beat with the love it granted, With----several other things, which I forget, Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.

XCVII.

Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries, Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes; She saw that Juan was not at his ease; But that which chiefly may, and must surprise, Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease Her only son with question or surmise; Whether it was she did not see, or would not, Or, like all very clever people, could not.

XCVIII.

This may seem strange, but yet 't is very common; For instance--gentlemen, whose ladies take Leave to o'erstep the written rights of Woman, And break the----Which commandment is 't they break? (I have forgot the number, and think no man Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake;) I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous, They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.

XCIX.

A real husband always is suspicious, But still no less suspects in the wrong place,[p] Jealous of some one who had no such wishes, Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace, By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious; The last indeed's infallibly the case: And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly, He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.

C.

Thus parents also are at times short-sighted: Though watchful as the lynx, they ne'er discover, The while the wicked world beholds delighted, Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss Fanny's lover, Till some confounded escapade has blighted The plan of twenty years, and all is over; And then the mother cries, the father swears, And wonders why the devil he got heirs.

CI.

But Inez was so anxious, and so clear Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion, She had some other motive much more near For leaving Juan to this new temptation, But what that motive was, I sha'n't say here; Perhaps to finish Juan's education, Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes, In case he thought his wife too great a prize.

CII.

It was upon a day, a summer's day;-- Summer's indeed a very dangerous season, And so is spring about the end of May; The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason; But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say, And stand convicted of more truth than treason, That there are months which nature grows more merry in,-- March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.

CIII.

'T was on a summer's day--the sixth of June: I like to be particular in dates, Not only of the age, and year, but moon; They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates Change horses, making History change its tune,[q] Then spur away o'er empires and o'er states, Leaving at last not much besides chronology, Excepting the post-obits of theology.[r]

CIV.

'T was on the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six--perhaps still nearer seven-- When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,[57] To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song-- He won them well, and may he wear them long!

CV.

She sate, but not alone; I know not well How this same interview had taken place, And even if I knew, I should not tell-- People should hold their tongues in any case; No matter how or why the thing befell, But there were she and Juan, face to face-- When two such faces are so, 't would be wise, But very difficult, to shut their eyes.

CVI.

How beautiful she looked! her conscious heart Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong: Oh Love! how perfect is thy mystic art, Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong! How self-deceitful is the sagest part Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along!-- The precipice she stood on was immense, So was her creed in her own innocence.[s]

CVII.

She thought of her own strength, and Juan's youth, And of the folly of all prudish fears, Victorious Virtue, and domestic Truth, And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years: I wish these last had not occurred, in sooth, Because that number rarely much endears, And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny, Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in money.

CVIII.

When people say, "I've told you fifty times," They mean to scold, and very often do; When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes," They make you dread that they 'll recite them too; In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes; At fifty love for love is rare, 't is true, But then, no doubt, it equally as true is, A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.

CIX.

Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore, By all the vows below to Powers above, She never would disgrace the ring she wore, Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove; And while she pondered this, besides much more, One hand on Juan's carelessly was thrown, Quite by mistake--she thought it was her own;

CX.

Unconsciously she leaned upon the other, Which played within the tangles of her hair; And to contend with thoughts she could not smother She seemed by the distraction of her air. 'T was surely very wrong in Juan's mother To leave together this imprudent pair,[t] She who for many years had watched her son so-- I'm very certain mine would not have done so.

CXI.

The hand which still held Juan's, by degrees Gently, but palpably confirmed its grasp, As if it said, "Detain me, if you please;" Yet there's no doubt she only meant to clasp His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze; She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp, Had she imagined such a thing could rouse A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.

CXII.

I cannot know what Juan thought of this, But what he did, is much what you would do; His young lip thanked it with a grateful kiss, And then, abashed at its own joy, withdrew In deep despair, lest he had done amiss,-- Love is so very timid when 't is new: She blushed, and frowned not, but she strove to speak, And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.

CXIII.

The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon: The Devil's in the moon for mischief; they Who called her CHASTE, methinks, began too soon Their nomenclature; there is not a day, The longest, not the twenty-first of June, Sees half the business in a wicked way, On which three single hours of moonshine smile-- And then she looks so modest all the while!

CXIV.

There is a dangerous silence in that hour, A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul To open all itself, without the power Of calling wholly back its self-control; The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower, Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole, Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws A loving languor, which is not repose.

CXV.

And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced And half retiring from the glowing arm, Which trembled like the bosom where 't was placed; Yet still she must have thought there was no harm, Or else 't were easy to withdraw her waist; But then the situation had its charm, And then--God knows what next--I can't go on; I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun.

CXVI.

Oh Plato! Plato! you have paved the way, With your confounded fantasies, to more Immoral conduct by the fancied sway Your system feigns o'er the controlless core Of human hearts, than all the long array Of poets and romancers:--You're a bore, A charlatan, a coxcomb--and have been, At best, no better than a go-between.

CXVII.

And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs, Until too late for useful conversation; The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes, I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion; But who, alas! can love, and then be wise? Not that Remorse did not oppose Temptation; A little still she strove, and much repented, And whispering "I will ne'er consent"--consented.

CXVIII.

'T is said that Xerxes offered a reward[58] To those who could invent him a new pleasure: Methinks the requisition's rather hard, And must have cost his Majesty a treasure: For my part, I'm a moderate-minded bard, Fond of a little love (which I call leisure); I care not for new pleasures, as the old Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.

CXIX.

Oh Pleasure! you're indeed a pleasant thing,[59] Although one must be damned for you, no doubt: I make a resolution every spring Of reformation, ere the year run out, But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing, Yet still, I trust, it may be kept throughout: I'm very sorry, very much ashamed, And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaimed.

CXX.

Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take-- Start not! still chaster reader--she'll be nice hence- Forward, and there is no great cause to quake; This liberty is a poetic licence, Which some irregularity may make In the design, and as I have a high sense Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit To beg his pardon when I err a bit.

CXXI.

This licence is to hope the reader will Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day, Without whose epoch my poetic skill For want of facts would all be thrown away), But keeping Julia and Don Juan still In sight, that several months have passed; we'll say 'T was in November, but I'm not so sure About the day--the era's more obscure.

CXXII.

We'll talk of that anon.--'T is sweet to hear At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,[60] By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep; 'T is sweet to see the evening star appear; 'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

CXXIII.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come;[u] 'T is sweet to be awakened by the lark, Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

CXXIV.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps, Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth, Sweet is revenge--especially to women-- Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

CXXV.

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet[v] The unexpected death of some old lady, Or gentleman of seventy years complete, Who've made "us youth"[61] wait too--too long already, For an estate, or cash, or country seat, Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, That all the Israelites are fit to mob its Next owner for their double-damned post-obits.[w]

CXXVI.

'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels, By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend: Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot[62] We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

CXXVII.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate Love--it stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked--all 's known-- And Life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.

CXXVIII.

Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use Of his own nature, and the various arts, And likes particularly to produce Some new experiment to show his parts; This is the age of oddities let loose, Where different talents find their different marts; You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost your Labour, there's a sure market for imposture.

CXXIX.

What opposite discoveries we have seen! (Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.) One makes new noses[63], one a guillotine, One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets; But Vaccination certainly has been A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets,[64] With which the Doctor paid off an old pox, By borrowing a new one from an ox.[65]

CXXX.

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes: And Galvanism has set some corpses grinning,[66] But has not answered like the apparatus Of the Humane Society's beginning, By which men are unsuffocated gratis: What wondrous new machines have late been spinning! I said the small-pox has gone out of late; Perhaps it may be followed by the great.[67]

CXXXI.

'T is said the great came from America; Perhaps it may set out on its return,-- The population there so spreads, they say 'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn, With war, or plague, or famine--any way, So that civilisation they may learn; And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is-- Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?

CXXXII.

This is the patent age of new inventions For killing bodies, and for saving souls, All propagated with the best intentions: Sir Humphry Davy's lantern,[68] by which coals Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions, Tombuctoo travels,[69] voyages to the Poles[70] Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

CXXXIII.

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what, And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure; 'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes Sin's a pleasure;[x] Few mortals know what end they would be at, But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, and when The goal is gained, we die, you know--and then----

CXXXIV.

What then?--I do not know, no more do you-- And so good night.--Return we to our story: 'T was in November, when fine days are few, And the far mountains wax a little hoary, And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;[y] And the sea dashes round the promontory, And the loud breaker boils against the rock, And sober suns must set at five o'clock.

CXXXV.

'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;[z] No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright With the piled wood, round which the family crowd; There's something cheerful in that sort of light, Even as a summer sky's without a cloud: I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,[aa][71] A lobster salad[72], and champagne, and chat.

CXXXVI.

'T was midnight--Donna Julia was in bed, Sleeping, most probably,--when at her door Arose a clatter might awake the dead, If they had never been awoke before, And that they have been so we all have read, And are to be so, at the least, once more;-- The door was fastened, but with voice and fist First knocks were heard, then "Madam--Madam--hist!

CXXXVII.

"For God's sake, Madam--Madam--here's my master,[73] With more than half the city at his back-- Was ever heard of such a curst disaster! 'T is not my fault--I kept good watch--Alack! Do pray undo the bolt a little faster-- They're on the stair just now, and in a crack Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly-- Surely the window's not so very high!"

CXXXVIII.

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived, With torches, friends, and servants in great number; The major part of them had long been wived, And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber Of any wicked woman, who contrived By stealth her husband's temples to encumber: Examples of this kind are so contagious, Were one not punished, all would be outrageous.

CXXXIX.

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion Could enter into Don Alfonso's head; But for a cavalier of his condition It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, Without a word of previous admonition, To hold a levee round his lady's bed, And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword, To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.

CXL.

Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep, (Mind--that I do not say--she had not slept), Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep; Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept, Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap, As if she had just now from out them crept:[ab] I can't tell why she should take all this trouble To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.

CXLI.

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid, Appeared like two poor harmless women, who Of goblins, but still more of men afraid, Had thought one man might be deterred by two, And therefore side by side were gently laid, Until the hours of absence should run through, And truant husband should return, and say, "My dear,--I was the first who came away."

CXLII.

Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried, "In Heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mean? Has madness seized you? would that I had died Ere such a monster's victim I had been![ac] What may this midnight violence betide, A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen? Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill? Search, then, the room!"--Alfonso said, "I will."

CXLIII.

He searched, they searched, and rummaged everywhere, Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-seat, And found much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete, With other articles of ladies fair, To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat: Arras they pricked and curtains with their swords, And wounded several shutters, and some boards.

CXLIV.

Under the bed they searched, and there they found-- No matter what--it was not that they sought; They opened windows, gazing if the ground Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought; And then they stared each others' faces round: 'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought, And seems to me almost a sort of blunder, Of looking in the bed as well as under.

CXLV.

During this inquisition Julia's tongue[ad] Was not asleep--"Yes, search and search," she cried, "Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong! It was for this that I became a bride! For this in silence I have suffered long A husband like Alfonso at my side; But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain, If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.

CXLVI.

"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more, If ever you indeed deserved the name, Is 't worthy of your years?--you have threescore-- Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same-- Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore For facts against a virtuous woman's fame? Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso, How dare you think your lady would go on so?

CXLVII.

"Is it for this I have disdained to hold The common privileges of my sex? That I have chosen a confessor so old And deaf, that any other it would vex, And never once he has had cause to scold, But found my very innocence perplex So much, he always doubted I was married-- How sorry you will be when I've miscarried!

CXLVIII.

"Was it for this that no Cortejo[74] e'er I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville? Is it for this I scarce went anywhere, Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel? Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were, I favoured none--nay, was almost uncivil? Is it for this that General Count O'Reilly, Who took Algiers,[75] declares I used him vilely?

CXLIX.

"Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani Sing at my heart six months at least in vain? Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,[76] Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain? Were there not also Russians, English, many? The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain, And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer, Who killed himself for love (with wine) last year.

CL.

"Have I not had two bishops at my feet? The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez; And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? I wonder in what quarter now the moon is: I praise your vast forbearance not to beat Me also, since the time so opportune is-- Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger, Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty figure?

CLI.

"Was it for this you took your sudden journey, Under pretence of business indispensable With that sublime of rascals your attorney, Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible Of having played the fool? though both I spurn, he Deserves the worst, his conduct's less defensible, Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee, And not from any love to you nor me.

CLII.

"If he comes here to take a deposition, By all means let the gentleman proceed; You've made the apartment in a fit condition:-- There's pen and ink for you, sir, when you need-- Let everything be noted with precision, I would not you for nothing should be fee'd-- But, as my maid's undressed, pray turn your spies out." "Oh!" sobbed Antonia, "I could tear their eyes out."

CLIII.

"There is the closet, there the toilet, there The antechamber--search them under, over; There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair, The chimney--which would really hold a lover.[ae] I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care And make no further noise, till you discover The secret cavern of this lurking treasure-- And when 't is found, let me, too, have that pleasure.

CLIV.

"And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown Doubt upon me, confusion over all, Pray have the courtesy to make it known Who is the man you search for? how d' ye call Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown-- I hope he's young and handsome--is he tall? Tell me--and be assured, that since you stain My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.

CLV.

"At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years, At that age he would be too old for slaughter, Or for so young a husband's jealous fears-- (Antonia! let me have a glass of water.) I am ashamed of having shed these tears, They are unworthy of my father's daughter; My mother dreamed not in my natal hour, That I should fall into a monster's power.

CLVI.

"Perhaps 't is of Antonia you are jealous, You saw that she was sleeping by my side, When you broke in upon us with your fellows: Look where you please--we've nothing, sir, to hide; Only another time, I trust, you'll tell us, Or for the sake of decency abide A moment at the door, that we may be Dressed to receive so much good company.

CLVII.

"And now, sir, I have done, and say no more; The little I have said may serve to show The guileless heart in silence may grieve o'er[af] The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:-- I leave you to your conscience as before, 'T will one day ask you why you used me so? God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief!-- Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?"

CLVIII.

She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; pale She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears, Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil, Waved and o'ershading her wan cheek, appears Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears Its snow through all;--her soft lips lie apart, And louder than her breathing beats her heart.

CLIX.

The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused; Antonia bustled round the ransacked room, And, turning up her nose, with looks abused Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom Not one, except the attorney, was amused; He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb, So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause, Knowing they must be settled by the laws.

CLX.

With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood, Following Antonia's motions here and there, With much suspicion in his attitude; For reputations he had little care; So that a suit or action were made good, Small pity had he for the young and fair, And ne'er believed in negatives, till these Were proved by competent false witnesses.

CLXI.

But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks, And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure; When, after searching in five hundred nooks, And treating a young wife with so much rigour, He gained no point, except some self-rebukes, Added to those his lady with such vigour Had poured upon him for the last half-hour, Quick, thick, and heavy--as a thunder-shower.

CLXII.

At first he tried to hammer an excuse, To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs, And indications of hysterics, whose Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs, Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose: Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;[77] He saw too, in perspective, her relations, And then he tried to muster all his patience.

CLXIII.

He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer, But sage Antonia cut him short before The anvil of his speech received the hammer, With "Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, Or madam dies."--Alfonso muttered, "D--n her,"[78] But nothing else, the time of words was o'er; He cast a rueful look or two, and did, He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.

CLXIV.

With him retired his "posse comitatus," The attorney last, who lingered near the door Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as Antonia let him--not a little sore At this most strange and unexplained "hiatus" In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore An awkward look; as he revolved the case, The door was fastened in his legal face.

CLXV.

No sooner was it bolted, than--Oh Shame! Oh Sin! Oh Sorrow! and Oh Womankind! How can you do such things and keep your fame, Unless this world, and t' other too, be blind? Nothing so dear as an unfilched good name! But to proceed--for there is more behind: With much heartfelt reluctance be it said, Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, from the bed.

CLXVI.

He had been hid--I don't pretend to say How, nor can I indeed describe the where-- Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay, No doubt, in little compass, round or square; But pity him I neither must nor may His suffocation by that pretty pair; 'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.[ag]

CLXVII.

And, secondly, I pity not, because He had no business to commit a sin, Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws;-- At least 't was rather early to begin, But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws So much as when we call our old debts in At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil, And find a deuced balance with the Devil.[ah]

CLXVIII.

Of his position I can give no notion: 'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle, How the physicians, leaving pill and potion, Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle, When old King David's blood grew dull in motion, And that the medicine answered very well; Perhaps 't was in a different way applied, For David lived, but Juan nearly died.

CLXIX.

What's to be done? Alfonso will be back The moment he has sent his fools away. Antonia's skill was put upon the rack, But no device could be brought into play-- And how to parry the renewed attack? Besides, it wanted but few hours of day: Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak, But pressed her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.

CLXX.

He turned his lip to hers, and with his hand Called back the tangles of her wandering hair; Even then their love they could not all command, And half forgot their danger and despair: Antonia's patience now was at a stand-- "Come, come, 't is no time now for fooling there," She whispered, in great wrath--"I must deposit This pretty gentleman within the closet:

CLXXI.

"Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night-- Who can have put my master in this mood? What will become on 't--I'm in such a fright, The Devil's in the urchin, and no good-- Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? Why, don't you know that it may end in blood? You'll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.

CLXXII.

"Had it but been for a stout cavalier[79] Of twenty-five or thirty--(come, make haste) But for a child, what piece of work is here! I really, madam, wonder at your taste-- (Come, sir, get in)--my master must be near: There, for the present, at the least, he's fast, And if we can but till the morning keep Our counsel--(Juan, mind, you must not sleep.)"

CLXXIII.

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone, Closed the oration of the trusty maid: She loitered, and he told her to be gone, An order somewhat sullenly obeyed; However, present remedy was none, And no great good seemed answered if she staid: Regarding both with slow and sidelong view, She snuffed the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

CLXXIV.

Alfonso paused a minute--then begun Some strange excuses for his late proceeding; He would not justify what he had done, To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding; But there were ample reasons for it, none Of which he specified in this his pleading: His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learned call "rigmarole."

CLXXV.

Julia said nought; though all the while there rose A ready answer, which at once enables A matron, who her husband's foible knows, By a few timely words to turn the tables, Which, if it does not silence, still must pose,-- Even if it should comprise a pack of fables; 'T is to retort with firmness, and when he Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.

CLXXVI.

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,-- Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known; But whether 't was that one's own guilt confounds-- But that can't be, as has been often shown, A lady with apologies abounds;-- It might be that her silence sprang alone From delicacy to Don Juan's ear, To whom she knew his mother's fame was dear.

CLXXVII.

There might be one more motive, which makes two; Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded,-- Mentioned his jealousy, but never who Had been the happy lover, he concluded, Concealed amongst his premises; 't is true, His mind the more o'er this its mystery brooded; To speak of Inez now were, one may say, Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way.

CLXXVIII.

A hint, in tender cases, is enough; Silence is best: besides, there is a tact[80]-- (That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff, But it will serve to keep my verse compact)-- Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough, A lady always distant from the fact: The charming creatures lie with such a grace, There's nothing so becoming to the face.

CLXXIX.

They blush, and we believe them; at least I Have always done so; 't is of no great use, In any case, attempting a reply, For then their eloquence grows quite profuse; And when at length they're out of breath, they sigh, And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose A tear or two, and then we make it up; And then--and then--and then--sit down and sup.

CLXXX.

Alfonso closed his speech, and begged her pardon, Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted, And laid conditions he thought very hard on, Denying several little things he wanted: He stood like Adam lingering near his garden, With useless penitence perplexed and haunted;[ai] Beseeching she no further would refuse, When, lo! he stumbled o'er a pair of shoes.

CLXXXI.

A pair of shoes![81]--what then? not much, if they Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but these (No one can tell how much I grieve to say) Were masculine; to see them, and to seize, Was but a moment's act.--Ah! well-a-day! My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze! Alfonso first examined well their fashion, And then flew out into another passion.

CLXXXII.

He left the room for his relinquished sword, And Julia instant to the closet flew. "Fly, Juan, fly! for Heaven's sake--not a word-- The door is open--you may yet slip through The passage you so often have explored-- Here is the garden-key--Fly--fly--Adieu! Haste--haste! I hear Alfonso's hurrying feet-- Day has not broke--there's no one in the street."

CLXXXIII.

None can say that this was not good advice, The only mischief was, it came too late; Of all experience 't is the usual price, A sort of income-tax laid on by fate: Juan had reached the room-door in a trice, And might have done so by the garden-gate, But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown, Who threatened death--so Juan knocked him down.

CLXXXIV.

Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light; Antonia cried out "Rape!" and Julia "Fire!" But not a servant stirred to aid the fight. Alfonso, pommelled to his heart's desire, Swore lustily he'd be revenged this night; And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher; His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar, And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.

CLXXXV.

Alfonso's sword had dropped ere he could draw it, And they continued battling hand to hand, For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it; His temper not being under great command, If at that moment he had chanced to claw it, Alfonso's days had not been in the land Much longer.--Think of husbands', lovers' lives! And how ye may be doubly widows--wives!

CLXXXVI.

Alfonso grappled to detain the foe, And Juan throttled him to get away, And blood ('t was from the nose) began to flow; At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay, Juan contrived to give an awkward blow, And then his only garment quite gave way; He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there, I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.

CLXXXVII.

Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found An awkward spectacle their eyes before; Antonia in hysterics, Julia swooned, Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door; Some half-torn drapery scattered on the ground, Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more: Juan the gate gained, turned the key about, And liking not the inside, locked the out.

CLXXXVIII.

Here ends this canto.--Need I sing, or say, How Juan, naked, favoured by the night, Who favours what she should not, found his way,[aj] And reached his home in an unseemly plight? The pleasant scandal which arose next day, The nine days' wonder which was brought to light, And how Alfonso sued for a divorce, Were in the English newspapers, of course.

CLXXXIX.

If you would like to see the whole proceedings, The depositions, and the Cause at full, The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings Of Counsel to nonsuit, or to annul, There's more than one edition, and the readings Are various, but they none of them are dull: The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney,[82] Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.[83]

CXC.

But Donna Inez, to divert the train Of one of the most circulating scandals That had for centuries been known in Spain, At least since the retirement of the Vandals, First vowed (and never had she vowed in vain) To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles; And then, by the advice of some old ladies, She sent her son to be shipped off from Cadiz.

CXCI.

She had resolved that he should travel through All European climes, by land or sea, To mend his former morals, and get new, Especially in France and Italy-- (At least this is the thing most people do.) Julia was sent into a convent--she Grieved--but, perhaps, her feelings may be better[ak] Shown in the following copy of her Letter:--

CXCII.

"They tell me 't is decided you depart: 'T is wise--'t is well, but not the less a pain; I have no further claim on your young heart, Mine is the victim, and would be again: To love too much has been the only art I used;--I write in haste, and if a stain Be on this sheet, 't is not what it appears; My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.

CXCIII.

"I loved, I love you, for this love have lost State, station, Heaven, Mankind's, my own esteem, And yet can not regret what it hath cost, So dear is still the memory of that dream; Yet, if I name my guilt, 't is not to boast, None can deem harshlier of me than I deem: I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest-- I've nothing to reproach, or to request.

CXCIV.

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,[al] 'T is a Woman's whole existence; Man may range The Court, Camp, Church, the Vessel, and the Mart; Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory, offer in exchange Pride, Fame, Ambition, to fill up his heart, And few there are whom these can not estrange; Men have all these resources, We but one,[84] To love again, and be again undone."[am]

CXCV.

"You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,[an] Beloved and loving many; all is o'er For me on earth, except some years to hide My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core: These I could bear, but cannot cast aside The passion which still rages as before,-- And so farewell--forgive me, love me--No, That word is idle now--but let it go.[ao]

CXCVI.

"My breast has been all weakness, is so yet; But still I think I can collect my mind;[ap] My blood still rushes where my spirit's set, As roll the waves before the settled wind; My heart is feminine, nor can forget-- To all, except one image, madly blind; So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.[aq]

CXCVII.

"I have no more to say, but linger still, And dare not set my seal upon this sheet, And yet I may as well the task fulfil, My misery can scarce be more complete; I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill; Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet, And I must even survive this last adieu, And bear with life, to love and pray for you!"

CXCVIII.

This note was written upon gilt-edged paper With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new;[ar] Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper, It trembled as magnetic needles do, And yet she did not let one tear escape her; The seal a sun-flower; "Elle vous suit partout,"[85] The motto cut upon a white cornelian; The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.

CXCIX.

This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; but whether I shall proceed with his adventures is Dependent on the public altogether; We'll see, however, what they say to this: Their favour in an author's cap's a feather, And no great mischief's done by their caprice; And if their approbation we experience, Perhaps they'll have some more about a year hence.

CC.

My poem's epic, and is meant to be Divided in twelve books; each book containing, With Love, and War, a heavy gale at sea, A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning, New characters; the episodes are three:[as] A panoramic view of Hell's in training, After the style of Virgil and of Homer, So that my name of Epic's no misnomer.

CCI.

All these things will be specified in time, With strict regard to Aristotle's rules, The Vade Mecum of the true sublime, Which makes so many poets, and some fools: Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond of rhyme, Good workmen never quarrel with their tools; I've got new mythological machinery, And very handsome supernatural scenery.

CCII.

There's only one slight difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this story's actually true.

CCIII.

If any person doubt it, I appeal To History, Tradition, and to Facts, To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel, To plays in five, and operas in three acts;[at] All these confirm my statement a good deal, But that which more completely faith exacts Is, that myself, and several now in Seville, Saw Juan's last elopement with the Devil.

CCIV.

If ever I should condescend to prose, I'll write poetical commandments, which Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those That went before; in these I shall enrich My text with many things that no one knows, And carry precept to the highest pitch: I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a Bottle,[au] Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle."

CCV.

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Because the first is crazed beyond all hope, The second drunk,[86] the third so quaint and mouthy: With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit--flirtation with the muse of Moore.

CCVI.

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse, His Pegasus, nor anything that's his; Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues"-- (There's one, at least, is very fond of this); Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose: This is true criticism, and you may kiss-- Exactly as you please, or not,--the rod; But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G--d!

CCVII.

If any person should presume to assert This story is not moral, first, I pray, That they will not cry out before they're hurt, Then that they'll read it o'er again, and say (But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert) That this is not a moral tale, though gay: Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show The very place where wicked people go.

CCVIII.

If, after all, there should be some so blind To their own good this warning to despise, Led by some tortuosity of mind, Not to believe my verse and their own eyes, And cry that they "the moral cannot find," I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies; Should captains the remark, or critics, make, They also lie too--under a mistake.

CCIX.

The public approbation I expect, And beg they'll take my word about the moral, Which I with their amusement will connect (So children cutting teeth receive a coral); Meantime they'll doubtless please to recollect My epical pretensions to the laurel: For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I've bribed my Grandmother's Review--the British.[87]

CCX.

I sent it in a letter to the Editor, Who thanked me duly by return of post-- I'm for a handsome article his creditor; Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast, And break a promise after having made it her, Denying the receipt of what it cost, And smear his page with gall instead of honey, All I can say is--that he had the money.

CCXI.

I think that with this holy new alliance I may ensure the public, and defy All other magazines of art or science, Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I Have not essayed to multiply their clients, Because they tell me 't were in vain to try, And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.

CCXII.

"_Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventâ Consule Planco_"[88] Horace said, and so Say I; by which quotation there is meant a Hint that some six or seven good years ago (Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta) I was most ready to return a blow, And would not brook at all this sort of thing In my hot youth--when George the Third was King.

CCXIII.

But now at thirty years my hair is grey-- (I wonder what it will be like at forty? I thought of a peruke the other day--)[av] My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squandered my whole summer while 't was May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I Have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what I deemed--my soul invincible.

CCXIV.

No more--no more--Oh! never more on me The freshness of the heart can fall like dew, Which out of all the lovely things we see Extracts emotions beautiful and new, Hived[89] in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee. Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew? Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power To double even the sweetness of a flower.

CCXV.

No more--no more--Oh! never more, my heart, Canst thou be my sole world, my universe! Once all in all, but now a thing apart, Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse: The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art Insensible, I trust, but none the worse, And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment, Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.

CCXVI.

My days of love are over; me no more[90] The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow, Can make the fool of which they made before,-- In short, I must not lead the life I did do; The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er, The copious use of claret is forbid too, So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

CCXVII.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, I've spoken, "Time is, Time was, Time's past:"[91]--a chymic treasure Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes-- My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

CCXVIII.

What is the end of Fame? 't is but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;[92] For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.[aw][93]

CCXIX.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King Cheops erected the first Pyramid And largest, thinking it was just the thing To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid; But somebody or other rummaging, Burglariously broke his coffin's lid: Let not a monument give you or me hopes, Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.[94]

CCXX.

But I, being fond of true philosophy, Say very often to myself, "Alas! All things that have been born were born to die, And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass; You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly, And if you had it o'er again--'t would pass-- So thank your stars that matters are no worse, And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse."

CCXXI.

But for the present, gentle reader! and Still gentler purchaser! the Bard--that's I-- Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,[ax] And so--"your humble servant, and Good-bye!" We meet again, if we should understand Each other; and if not, I shall not try Your patience further than by this short sample-- 'T were well if others followed my example.

CCXXII.

"Go, little Book, from this my solitude! I cast thee on the waters--go thy ways! And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, The World will find thee after many days."[95] When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood, I can't help putting in my claim to praise-- The four first rhymes are Southey's every line: For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine.

Nov. 1, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

{11}[14] [Begun at Venice, September 6; finished November 1, 1818.]

[15] [The pantomime which Byron and his readers "all had seen," was an abbreviated and bowdlerized version of Shadwell's Libertine. "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 Don Juan; or, The Libertine Destroyed: A Tragic Pantomimical Entertainment, In Two Acts. Music Composed by Mr. Gluck. "Scaramouch," the "Sganarelle" of Molière's Festin de Pierre, 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 Morning Chronicle, November 29, 1809) "there was considerable tumult in the pit." According to "Boz" (Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, 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.]

{12}[16] [Edward Vernon, Admiral (1684-1757), took Porto Bello in 1739.

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 Tales of a Grandfather, Prose Works, 1830, vii. 852, sq.

James Wolfe, General, born January 2, 1726, was killed at the siege of Quebec, September 13, 1759.

Edward, Lord Hawke, Admiral (1715-1781), totally defeated the French fleet in Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759.

Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1721-1792), gained the victory at Minden, August 1, 1759.

John Manners, Marquess of Granby (1721-1790), commanded the British forces in Germany (1766-1769).

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.

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.

Richard, Earl Howe, Admiral (1725-1799), known by the sailors as "Black Dick," defeated the French off Ushant, June 1, 1794.]

[17] [Compare Macbeth, act iv. sc. i, line 65.]

[18] ["In the eighth and concluding lecture of Mr. Hazlitt's canons of criticism, delivered at the Surrey Institution (The English Poets, 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.

"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 Childe Harold. 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, that 'the delineation was complete,' 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.

"Mr. Hazlitt accuses me further of delineating myself in Childe Harold, 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 first lines I ever wrote on Buonaparte were in his dispraise, in 1814,--the last, 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 Childe Harold, Canto III, stanza xxxvi. line 7, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 238, note 1.]

{13}[19] [Charles François Duperier Dumouriez (1739-1823) defeated the Austrians at Jemappes, November 6, 1792, etc. He published his Mémoires (Hamburg et Leipsic), 1794. For the spelling, see Memoirs of General Dumourier, written by himself, translated by John Fenwick. London, 1794. See, too, Lettre de Joseph Servan, Ex-ministre de la Guerre, Sur le mémoire lu par M. Dumourier le 13 Juin à l'Assemblée Nationale; Bibiothèque Historique de la Révolution, "Justifications," 7, 8, 9.]

[20] [Antoine Pierre Joseph Barnave, born 1761, was appointed President of the Constituent Assembly in 1790. He was guillotined November 30, 1793.

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.

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.

Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, born March 9, 1749, died April 2, 1791.

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.

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 French Revolution, 1839, iii. 315.)

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.

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.

Marie Jean Paul, Marquis de La Fayette, born September 6, 1757, died May 19, 1834.

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 Don Juan was written.]

{14}[21] [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.

For Hoche and Marceau, vide ante, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 296.

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.

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.

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.]

{15}[22] [Hor., Od., iv. c. ix. 1. 25-- "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona," etc.]

[23] [Hor., Epist. Ad Pisones, lines 148, 149-- "Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res, Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit--"]

[24] ["Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla."]

{16}[25] [In his reply to Blackwood (No. xxix. August, 1819), Byron somewhat disingenuously rebuts the charge that Don Juan 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.]

[26] [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" (Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, 1856, p. 42).]

{17}[a] Little she spoke--but what she spoke was Attic all, With words and deeds in perfect unanimity.--[MS.]

[27] [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 Letters, 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 my 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, Letters, 1900, iv. 316.]

[28] [Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) published Castle Rackrent, 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" (Diary, January 19, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 177-179).]

[29] [Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) published, in 1782, Easy Introduction to the Study of Nature; History of the Robins (dedicated to the Princess Sophia) in 1786, etc.]

[30] [Hannah More (1745-1833) published Coelebs in Search of a Wife in 1809.]

[31] [Pope, Rape of the Lock, Canto II, line 17.]

{19}[32] [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.]

[33] "Description des vertus incomparables de l'Huile de Macassar." See the Advertisement. [An Historical, Philosophical and Practical Essay on the Human Hair, was published by Alexander Rowland, jun., in 1816. It was inscribed, "To her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Cobourg."]

[b] Where all was innocence and quiet bliss.--[MS.]

[c] And so she seemed, in all outside formalities.--[MS.]

[34] ["'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan."--I Henry IV., act ii, sc 3, lines 19, 20.]

{21}[d] Wishing each other damned, divorced, or dead.--[MS.]

[35] [According to Medwin (Conversations, 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 Remarks on Mr. Moore's Life, etc. (Life, pp. 661-663), says that Dr. Baillie (vide post, p. 412, note 2), 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 Letters, 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."]

{22}[36] ["I deem it my duty to God to act as I am acting."--Letter of Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh, February 14, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 311.]

[37] ["This is so very pointed."--[?Hobhouse.] "If people make application, it is their own fault."--[B.].--[Revise.]

[38] ["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.].--[Revise.] Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 54) attributes the "breaking open my writing-desk" to Mrs. Charlment (i.e. Mrs. Clermont) the original of "A Sketch," Poetical Works, 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.]

{23}[e] First their friends tried at reconciliation.--[MS.]

[f] The lawyers recommended a divorce.--[MS.]

{24}[g] / besides was \ He had been ill brought up, < > bilious. \ besides being /

or, The reason was, perhaps, that he was bilious.--[MS.]

[h] / now but \ And we may own--since he is < > earth.--[MS.] \ laid in /

[39] ["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, Letters, 1900, iv, 262, 263. Compare, too--

"I had one only fount of quiet left, And that they poisoned! My pure household gods Were shivered on my hearth, and o'er their shrine Sate grinning Ribaldry and sneering Scorn."

Marino Faliero, act iii. sc. II, lines 361-364.]

{25}[i] / litigation--\ Save death or < > so he died.--[MS.] \ banishment--/

{26}[40] [Compare Leigh Hunt on the illustrations to Andrew Tooke's Pantheon: "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.'"--Autobiography, 1860, p. 75.]

[j] Defending still their Iliads and Odysseys.--[MS.]

[41] See Longinus, Section 10, "Ἵνα μὴ ἕν τι περὶ αὐτὴν πάθος φαίνηται, παθῶν δὲ σύνοδος." [Greek: "I(/na mê\ e(/n ti peri\ au)tê\n pa/thos phai/nêtai, pathô~n de\ sy/nodos."]

["The effect desired is that not one passion only should be seen in her, but a concourse of passions" (Longinis on the Sublime, by W. Rhys Roberts, 1899, pp. 70, 71).

The Ode alluded to is the famous Φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν, κ.τ.λ. [Greek: Phai/netai/ moi kê~nos i)/sos theoi~sin, k.t.l.]

"Him rival to the gods I place; Him loftier yet, if loftier be, Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face, Who listens and who looks on thee."

W.E. Gladstone.

"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.]--[Marginal notes in Revise.]]

[42] [Bucol., Ecl. ii. "Alexis."]

{27}[k] / antique \ / elision \ Too much their < modest > bard by the < >--[MS.] \ downright / \ omission /

[43] Fact! There is, or was, such an edition, with all the obnoxious epigrams of Martial placed by themselves at the end.

[In the Delphin Martial (Amsterdam, 1701) the Epigrammata Obscaena are printed as an Appendix (pp. 2-56), "[Ne] quiequam desideraretur a morosis quibusdam hominibus."]

{28}[44] See his Confessions, lib. i. cap. ix.; [lib. ii. cap. ii., et passim]. 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.

{30}[45] [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 'furiosa'" (Letters, 1898, i. 60, 101).]

[46] ["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."--Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, by Washington Irving, 1829, ii. 379-381.]

{31}[l] / silence! hush!_ \ _I'll tell you a secret--< >--[MS.] \ which you'll hush_ /

{32}[m] Spouses from twenty years of age to thirty / strict \ Are most admired by women of < > virtue.--[MS.] \ staid /

[47] For the particulars of St. Anthony's recipe for hot blood in cold weather, see Mr. Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints.

["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.'"--[MS. M.]

For the seven snow-balls, of which "the greatest" was his wife, see Life of "St. Francis of Assisi" (The Golden Legend (edited by F.S. Ellis), 1900, v. 221). See, too, the Lives of the Saints, etc., by the Rev. Alban Butler, 1838, ii. 574.]

{34}[48] [The sorceress in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. The story of Armida and Rinaldo forms the plot of operas by Glück and Rossini.]

[49]{35} Thinking God might not understand the case.--[MS. M., Revise.]

{36}[50] ["Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante." Dante, Inferno, canto v. line 138.]

{37}[51]

["Conscienzia m'assicura, La buona compagnia che l'uom francheggia Sotto l'osbergo del sentirsi pura."

Inferno, canto xxviii, lines 115-117.]

[n] Deemed that her thoughts no more required control.--[MS.]

{38}[52] [See Ovid, Metamorph., vii. 9, sq.]

{39}[53] Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming--(I think)--the opening of Canto Second [Part III. stanza i. lines 1-4]--but quote from memory.

[54] [See Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, chap. i. (ed. 1847, i. 14, 15); and Dejection: An Ode, lines 86-93.]

{40}[o] I say this by the way--so don't look stern. But if you're angry, reader, pass it by.--[MS.]

[55] [Juan Boscan, of Barcelona (1500-1544), in concert with his friend Garcilasso, Italianized Castilian poetry. He was the author of the Leandro, a poem in blank verse, of canzoni, and sonnets after the model of Petrarch, and of The Allegory.--History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, 1888, i. 513.]

[56] [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.--Vide ibidem, pp. 522-535.]

{42}[p] A real wittol always is suspicious, But always also hunts in the wrong place.--[MS.]

{43}[q] Change horses every hour from night till noon.--[MS.]

[r] Except the promises of true theology.--[MS.]

[57]

["Oh, Susan! I've said, in the moments of mirth, What's devotion to thee or to me? I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth, And believe that that heaven's in thee."

"The Catalogue," Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little, 1803, p. 128.]

{44}[s] She stood on Guilt's steep brink, in all the sense And full security of Innocence.--[MS.]

{45}[t] To leave these two young people then and there.--[MS.]

{46}[58] ["Age Xerxes.. eo usque luxuria gaudens, ut edicto præmium ei proponeret, qui novum voluptatis genus reperisset."--Val. Max, De Dictis, etc., lib. ix. cap. 1, ext. 3.]

[59] ["You certainly will be damned for all this scene."--[H.]]

{48}[60] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza iii. line 2, Poetical Works, ii. 329, note 3.]

[u] Our coming, nor look brightly till we come.--[MS.]

[v] Sweet is a lawsuit to the attorney--sweet, etc.--[MS.]

[61] [So, too, Falstaff, Henry IV., act ii. sc. 2, lines 79, 80.]

{49}[w] Who've made us wait--God knows how long already, For an entailed estate, or country-seat, Wishing them not exactly damned, but dead--he Knows nought of grief, who has not so been worried-- 'T is strange old people don't like to be buried.--[MS.]

[62] [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.]

{50}[63] [The reference is to the metallic tractors of Benjamin Charles Perkins, which were advertised as a "cure for all disorders, Red Noses," etc. Compare English Bards, etc., lines 131, 132--

"What varied wonders tempt us as they pass! The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas."

See Poetical Works, 1898, i. 307, note 3.]

[64] [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.

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.]

[65] ["Mon cher ne touchez pas à la petite Vérole."--[H.]--[Revise.]]

[66] [Experiments in galvanism were made on the body of Forster the murderer, by Galvani's nephew, Professor Aldini, January and February, 1803.]

[67] ["Put out these lines, and keep the others."--[H.]--[Revise.]]

{51}[68] [Sir Humphry Davy, P.R.S. (1778-1829), invented the safety-lamp in 1815.]

[69] [In a critique of An Account of the Empire of Marocco.... To which is added an ... account of Tombuctoo, the great Emporium of Central Africa, 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 ... Fas for Fez, or even Timbuctoo for Tombuctoo, but Marocco for Morocco is a little too much."--Edinburgh Review, July, 1809 vol. xiv. p. 307.]

[70] [Sir John Ross (1777-1856) published A Voyage of Discovery ... for the purpose of Exploring Baffin's Bay, etc., in 1819; Sir W.E. Parry (1790-1855) published his Journal of a Voyage of Discovery to the Arctic Regions between 4th April and 18th November, 1818, in 1820.]

[x] Not only pleasure's sin, but sin's a pleasure.--[MS.]

[y] And lose in shining snow their summits blue.--[MS.]

[z] 'Twas midnight--dark and sombre was the night, etc.--[MS.]

[aa] And supper, punch, ghost-stories, and such chat.--[MS.]

[71] ["'All that, Egad,' as Bayes says" [in the Duke of Buckingham's play The Rehearsal].--Letter to Murray, September 28, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 80.]

[72] ["Lobster-sallad, not a lobster-salad. Have you been at a London ball, and not known a Lobster-sallad?"--[H.]--[Revise.] ]

[73] ["To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over Don Juan, 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, 'Oh, my God, is he coming?' thinking it was her own....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, Letters, 1900, iv. 374.

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.]

[ab] And thus as 'twere herself from out them crept.--[MS. M.]

{54}[ac] Ere I the wife of such a man had been!--[MS.]

{55}[ad] But while this search was making, Julia's tongue.--[MS.]

[74] The Spanish "Cortejo" is much the same as the Italian "Cavalier Servente."

{56}[75] 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.

[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.]

[76] [The Italian names have an obvious signification.]

[ae] The chimney--fit retreat for any lover!--[MS.]

{58}[af] ---- may deplore.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

{59}[77] ["Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh" (Job ii. 10).]

[78] ["Don't be read aloud."--[H.]--[Revise.]]

{60}[ag] ---- than be put To drown with Clarence in his Malmsey butt.--[MS.]

[ah] And reckon up our balance with the devil.--[MS.]

{62}[79] ["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.' These are laughable: it is the serious--Little's poems and Lalla Rookh--that affect seriously. Now Lust is a serious passion, and cannot be excited by the ludicrous."--[B.]--Marginal Notes in Revise.]

For the "Miracle," see Imitations and Translations, 1809, pp. 111-128. "January and May" is Pope's version of Chaucer's Merchant's Tale. "Paulo Purganti" and "Hans Carvel" are by Matthew Prior; and for "Joconde" (Nouvelle Tirée de L'Ariosto, canto xxviii.) see Contes et Nouvelles en Vers, de Mr. de la Fontaine, 1691, i. 1-19.]

{63}[80] [Compare "The use made in the French tongue of the word tact, to denote that delicate sense of propriety, which enables a man to feel his way 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 taste)."--Outlines of Moral Philosophy, by Dugald Stewart, Part I. sect. x. ed. 1855, p. 48. For D'Alembert's use of tact, 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 Philosophical Essays, by Dugald Stewart, 1818, p. 603.]

{64}[ai] With base suspicion now no longer haunted.--[MS.]

[81] [For the incident of the shoes, Lord Byron was probably indebted to the Scottish ballad--

"Our goodman came hame at e'en, and hame came he; He spy'd a pair of jack-boots, where nae boots should be, What's this now, goodwife? What's this I see? How came these boots there, without the leave o' me! Boots! quo' she: Ay, boots, quo' he. Shame fa' your cuckold face, and ill mat ye see, It's but a pair of water stoups the cooper sent to me," etc.

See James Johnson's Musical Museum, 1787, etc., v. 466.]

{66}[aj] Found--heaven knows how--his solitary way.--[MS.]

[82] [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."--Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. "Gurney."]

{67}[83] ["Venice, December 7, 1818.

"After that stanza in the first canto of Don Juan (sent by Lord Lauderdale) towards the conclusion of the canto--I speak of the stanza whose two last lines are--

"'The best is that in short-hand ta'en by Gurney, Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey,'

insert the following stanzas, 'But Donna Inez,' etc."--B.

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" (vide infra) he changed his mind. The casual mention of "blundering Brougham" in English Bards, etc. (line 524, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 338, note 2), is a proof that his suspicions were not aroused as to the authorship of the review of Hours of Idleness (Edin. Rev., 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.

I.

"'Twas a fine cause for those in law delighting-- 'Tis pity that they had no Brougham in Spain, Famous for always talking, and ne'er fighting, For calling names, and taking them again; For blustering, bungling, trimming, wrangling, writing, Groping all paths to power, and all in vain-- Losing elections, character, and temper, A foolish, clever, fellow--Idem semper!

II.

"Bully in Senates, skulker in the Field,[*A] The Adulterer's advocate when duly feed, The libeller's gratis Counsel, dirty shield Which Law affords to many a dirty deed; A wondrous Warrior against those who yield-- A rod to Weakness, to the brave a reed-- The People's sycophant, the Prince's foe, And serving him the more by being so.

III.

"Tory by nurture, Whig by Circumstance, A Democrat some once or twice a year, Whene'er it suits his purpose to advance His vain ambition in its vague career: A sort of Orator by sufferance, Less for the comprehension than the ear; With all the arrogance of endless power, Without the sense to keep it for an hour.

IV.

"The House-of-Commons Damocles of words-- Above him, hanging by a single hair, On each harangue depend some hostile Swords; And deems he that we always will forbear? Although Defiance oft declined affords A blotted shield no Shire's true knight would wear: Thersites of the House. Parolles[*B] of Law, The double Bobadill[*C] takes Scorn for Awe.

V.

"How noble is his language--never pert-- How grand his sentiments which ne'er run riot! As when he swore 'by God he'd sell his shirt To head the poll!' I wonder who would buy it The skin has passed through such a deal of dirt In grovelling on to power--such stains now dye it-- So black the long-worn Lion's hide in hue, You'd swear his very heart had sweated through.

VI.

"Panting for power--as harts for cooling streams-- Yet half afraid to venture for the draught; A go-between, yet blundering in extremes, And tossed along the vessel fore and aft; Now shrinking back, now midst the first he seems, Patriot by force, and courtisan[*D] by craft; Quick without wit, and violent without strength-- A disappointed Lawyer, at full length.

VII.

"A strange example of the force of Law, And hasty temper on a kindling mind-- Are these the dreams his young Ambition saw? Poor fellow! he had better far been blind! I'm sorry thus to probe a wound so raw-- But, then, as Bard my duty to Mankind, For warning to the rest, compels these raps-- As Geographers lay down a Shoal in Maps."

[[*A] For Brougham's Fabian tactics with regard to duelling, vide post, Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv. line 1, p. 506, note 1.]

[[*B] Vide post, Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv. line 1, p. 506, note 1.]

[[*C] For "Captain Bobadill, a Paul's man," see Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, act iv. sc. 5, et passim.]

[[*D] The N. Eng. Dict., quotes a passage in Phil. Trans., iv. 286 (1669), as the latest instance of "courtisan" for "courtier."]

NOTE TO THE ANNEXED STANZAS ON BROUGHAM.

"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 not 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,[*E] 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.

"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.

"The above character is not 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.

"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."

[*E] [Possibly George Manners (1778-1853), editor of The Satirist, whose appointment to a foreign consulate Brougham sharply criticized in the House of Commons, July 9, 1817 (Parl. Deb., 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, Reminiscences, 1889, ii. 259, 260) was amused by his "various funny stories."]

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MURRAY.

"I enclose you the stanzas which were intended for 1st Canto, after the line

'Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey:'

but I do not mean them for present publication, because I will not, at this distance, publish that of a Man, for which he has a claim upon another too remote to give him redress.

"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^ss^ of D.'s house),[*F] 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.

"As I have no wish to have mysteries, I merely prohibit the publication of these stanzas in print, for the reasons of fairness mentioned; but I by no means wish him not to know 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 him 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 find him, and then we can have it out: he has shown so little courage, that he must fight at last in his absolute necessity to escape utter degradation.

"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."

[*F] [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, Letters, 1900, iv. 178.]

{71}[ak] Julia was sent into a nunnery, And there, perhaps, her feelings may be better.--[MS. M.]

[al] Man's love is of his life----.--[MS. M.]

[84] ["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."--Corinne, ou L'Italie, Madame de Staël, liv., xviii. chap. v. ed. 1835, iii. 209.]

[am] To mourn alone the love which has undone. or, To lift our fatal love to God from man.

Take that which, of these three, seems the best prescription.--B.

{72}[an] You will proceed in beauty and in pride, You will return----.--[MS. M.]

[ao] / fatal now \ Or, That word is < lost for me >--but let it go.--[MS. M.] \ deadly now /

[ap] I struggle, but can not collect my mind.--[MS.]

[aq] As turns the needle trembling to the pole It ne'er can reach--so turns to you my soul.--[MS.]

[ar] With a neat crow-quill, rather hard, but new.--[MS.]

{73}[85] [Byron had a seal bearing this motto.]

[as] And there are other incidents remaining Which shall be specified in fitting time, With good discretion, and in current rhyme.--[MS.]

{74}[at] To newspapers, to sermons, which the zeal Of pious men have published on his acts.--[MS.]

[au] I'll call the work "Reflections o'er a Bottle."--[MS.]

[86] [Here, and elsewhere in Don Juan, Byron attacked Coleridge fiercely and venomously, because he believed that his protégé 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, Letters, 1900, iv. 272; and "Introduction to the Vision of Judgment," Poetical Works, 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, Ubi lapsus, quid feci? 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, Letter ..., by John Bull, 1821, p. 14.)]

{76}[87] [Compare Byron's "Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review," Letters, 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 Don Juan (Cantos I., II.) in the British Review (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 au grand sérieux.]

{77}[88] [Hor., Od. III. C. xiv. lines 27, 28.]

[av] I thought of dyeing it the other day.--[MS.]

[89] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza cvii. line 2.]

{78}[90]

"Me nec femina, nec puer Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero; Nec vincire novis tempora floribus."

Hor., Od. IV. i. 30.

[In the revise the words nec puer Jam 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 settentrionale notions that I left out the remnant of the line."--[B.]]

[91] [For "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen head to speak," see The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon (Reprint, London, 1815, pp. 13-18); see, too, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, ed. Rev. Alexander Dyce, 1861, pp. 153-181.]

[92]

["Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?" etc.

Beattie's Minstrel, Bk. I. stanza i. lines 1, 2.]

{79}[aw] A book--a damned bad picture--and worse bust.--[MS.]

["Don't swear again--the third 'damn.'"--[H.]--[Revise.]]

[93] [Byron sat for his bust to Thorwaldsen, in May, 1817.]

[94] [This stanza appears to have been suggested by the following passage in the Quarterly Review, 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.]

{80}[ax] Must bid you both farewell in accents bland.--[MS.]

[95] [Lines 1-4 are taken from the last stanza of the Epilogue to the Lay of the Laureate, entitled "L'Envoy." (See Poetical Works of Robert Southey, 1838, x. 174.)]

CANTO THE SECOND.[96]

I.

OH ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, I pray ye flog them upon all occasions-- It mends their morals, never mind the pain: The best of mothers and of educations In Juan's case were but employed in vain, Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he Became divested of his native modesty.[ay]

II.

Had he but been placed at a public school, In the third form, or even in the fourth, His daily task had kept his fancy cool, At least, had he been nurtured in the North; Spain may prove an exception to the rule, But then exceptions always prove its worth-- A lad of sixteen causing a divorce Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III.

I can't say that it puzzles me at all, If all things be considered: first, there was His lady-mother, mathematical, A----never mind;--his tutor, an old ass; A pretty woman--(that's quite natural, Or else the thing had hardly come to pass) A husband rather old, not much in unity With his young wife--a time, and opportunity.

IV.

Well--well; the World must turn upon its axis, And all Mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails; The King commands us, and the Doctor quacks us, The Priest instructs, and so our life exhales, A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, devotion, dust,--perhaps a name.

V.

I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz-- A pretty town, I recollect it well-- 'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is, (Or was, before Peru learned to rebel), And such sweet girls![97]--I mean, such graceful ladies, Their very walk would make your bosom swell; I can't describe it, though so much it strike, Nor liken it--I never saw the like:[az]

VI.

An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb New broke, a camelopard, a gazelle, No--none of these will do;--and then their garb, Their veil and petticoat--Alas! to dwell Upon such things would very near absorb A canto--then their feet and ankles,--well, Thank Heaven I've got no metaphor quite ready, (And so, my sober Muse--come, let's be steady--

VII.

Chaste Muse!--well,--if you must, you must)--the veil Thrown back a moment with the glancing hand, While the o'erpowering eye, that turns you pale, Flashes into the heart:--All sunny land Of Love! when I forget you, may I fail To----say my prayers--but never was there planned A dress through which the eyes give such a volley, Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.[98] VIII.

But to our tale: the Donna Inez sent Her son to Cadiz only to embark; To stay there had not answered her intent, But why?--we leave the reader in the dark-- 'T was for a voyage the young man was meant, As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark, To wean him from the wickedness of earth, And send him like a Dove of Promise forth.

IX.

Don Juan bade his valet pack his things According to direction, then received A lecture and some money: for four springs He was to travel; and though Inez grieved (As every kind of parting has its stings), She hoped he would improve--perhaps believed: A letter, too, she gave (he never read it) Of good advice--and two or three of credit.

X.

In the mean time, to pass her hours away, Brave Inez now set up a Sunday school For naughty children, who would rather play (Like truant rogues) the devil, or the fool; Infants of three years old were taught that day, Dunces were whipped, or set upon a stool: The great success of Juan's education Spurred her to teach another generation.[ba]

XI.

Juan embarked--the ship got under way, The wind was fair, the water passing rough; A devil of a sea rolls in that bay, As I, who've crossed it oft, know well enough; And, standing on the deck, the dashing spray Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-tough: And there he stood to take, and take again, His first--perhaps his last--farewell of Spain.

XII.

I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new: I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white,[99] But almost every other country's blue, When gazing on them, mystified by distance, We enter on our nautical existence.

XIII.

So Juan stood, bewildered on the deck: The wind sung, cordage strained, and sailors swore, And the ship creaked, the town became a speck, From which away so fair and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beef-steak Against sea-sickness: try it, Sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I have found it answer--so may you.

XIV.

Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stern, Beheld his native Spain receding far: First partings form a lesson hard to learn, Even nations feel this when they go to war; There is a sort of unexpressed concern, A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar, At leaving even the most unpleasant people And places--one keeps looking at the steeple.

XV.

But Juan had got many things to leave, His mother, and a mistress, and no wife, So that he had much better cause to grieve Than many persons more advanced in life: And if we now and then a sigh must heave At quitting even those we quit in strife, No doubt we weep for those the heart endears-- That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.

XVI.

So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion: I'd weep,--but mine is not a weeping Muse, And such light griefs are not a thing to die on; Young men should travel, if but to amuse Themselves; and the next time their servants tie on Behind their carriages their new portmanteau, Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto.

XVII.

And Juan wept, and much he sighed and thought, While his salt tears dropped into the salt sea, "Sweets to the sweet;" (I like so much to quote; You must excuse this extract,--'t is where she, The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought Flowers to the grave;) and, sobbing often, he Reflected on his present situation, And seriously resolved on reformation.

XVIII.

"Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!" he cried, "Perhaps I may revisit thee no more, But die, as many an exiled heart hath died, Of its own thirst to see again thy shore: Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide! Farewell, my mother! and, since all is o'er, Farewell, too, dearest Julia!--(here he drew Her letter out again, and read it through.)

XIX.

"And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear-- But that's impossible, and cannot be-- Sooner shall this blue Ocean melt to air, Sooner shall Earth resolve itself to sea, Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair! Or think of anything, excepting thee; A mind diseased no remedy can physic-- (Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)

XX.

"Sooner shall Heaven kiss earth--(here he fell sicker) Oh, Julia! what is every other woe?-- (For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor; Pedro, Battista, help me down below.) Julia, my love!--(you rascal, Pedro, quicker)-- Oh, Julia!--(this curst vessel pitches so)-- Belovéd Julia, hear me still beseeching!" (Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)

XXI.

He felt that chilling heaviness of heart, Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends, Beyond the best apothecary's art, The loss of Love, the treachery of friends, Or death of those we dote on, when a part Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends: No doubt he would have been much more pathetic, But the sea acted as a strong emetic.

XXII.

Love's a capricious power: I've known it hold Out through a fever caused by its own heat, But be much puzzled by a cough and cold, And find a quinsy very hard to treat; Against all noble maladies he's bold, But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet, Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh, Nor inflammations redden his blind eye.

XXIII.

But worst of all is nausea, or a pain About the lower region of the bowels; Love, who heroically breathes a vein,[100] Shrinks from the application of hot towels, And purgatives are dangerous to his reign, Sea-sickness death: his love was perfect, how else[bb] Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar, Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before?

XXIV.

The ship, called the most holy "Trinidada,"[101] Was steering duly for the port Leghorn; For there the Spanish family Moncada Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born: They were relations, and for them he had a Letter of introduction, which the morn Of his departure had been sent him by His Spanish friends for those in Italy.

XXV.

His suite consisted of three servants and A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, Who several languages did understand, But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow And, rocking in his hammock, longed for land, His headache being increased by every billow; And the waves oozing through the port-hole made His berth a little damp, and him afraid.

XXVI.

'T was not without some reason, for the wind Increased at night, until it blew a gale; And though 't was not much to a naval mind, Some landsmen would have looked a little pale, For sailors are, in fact, a different kind: At sunset they began to take in sail, For the sky showed it would come on to blow, And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so.

XXVII.

At one o'clock the wind with sudden shift Threw the ship right into the trough of the sea, Which struck her aft, and made an awkward rift, Started the stern-post, also shattered the Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she could lift Herself from out her present jeopardy, The rudder tore away: 't was time to sound The pumps, and there were four feet water found.

XXVIII.

One gang of people instantly was put Upon the pumps, and the remainder set To get up part of the cargo, and what not; But they could not come at the leak as yet; At last they did get at it really, but Still their salvation was an even bet: The water rushed through in a way quite puzzling, While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, bales of muslin,

XXIX.

Into the opening; but all such ingredients Would have been vain, and they must have gone down, Despite of all their efforts and expedients, But for the pumps: I'm glad to make them known To all the brother tars who may have need hence, For fifty tons of water were upthrown By them per hour, and they had all been undone, But for the maker, Mr. Mann, of London.[102]

XXX.

As day advanced the weather seemed to abate, And then the leak they reckoned to reduce, And keep the ship afloat, though three feet yet Kept two hand--and one chain-pump still in use. The wind blew fresh again: as it grew late A squall came on, and while some guns broke loose, A gust--which all descriptive power transcends-- Laid with one blast the ship on her beam ends.

XXXI.

There she lay, motionless, and seemed upset; The water left the hold, and washed the decks, And made a scene men do not soon forget; For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks, Or any other thing that brings regret Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or heads, or necks: Thus drownings are much talked of by the divers, And swimmers, who may chance to be survivors.

XXXII.

Immediately the masts were cut away, Both main and mizen; first the mizen went, The main-mast followed: but the ship still lay Like a mere log, and baffled our intent. Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, and they Eased her at last (although we never meant To part with all till every hope was blighted), And then with violence the old ship righted.[103]

XXXIII.

It may be easily supposed, while this Was going on, some people were unquiet, That passengers would find it much amiss To lose their lives, as well as spoil their diet; That even the able seaman, deeming his Days nearly o'er, might be disposed to riot, As upon such occasions tars will ask For grog, and sometimes drink rum from the cask.

XXXIV.

There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion: thus it was, Some plundered, some drank spirits, some sung psalms, The high wind made the treble, and as bass The hoarse harsh waves kept time; fright cured the qualms Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick maws: Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, devotion, Clamoured in chorus to the roaring Ocean.

XXXV.

Perhaps more mischief had been done, but for[bc] Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his years, Got to the spirit-room, and stood before It with a pair of pistols;[104] and their fears, As if Death were more dreadful by his door Of fire than water, spite of oaths and tears, Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they sunk, Thought it would be becoming to die drunk.

XXXVI.

"Give us more grog," they cried, "for it will be All one an hour hence." Juan answered, "No! 'T is true that Death awaits both you and me, But let us die like men, not sink below Like brutes:"--and thus his dangerous post kept he, And none liked to anticipate the blow; And even Pedrillo, his most reverend tutor, Was for some rum a disappointed suitor.

XXXVII.

The good old gentleman was quite aghast, And made a loud and pious lamentation; Repented all his sins, and made a last Irrevocable vow of reformation; Nothing should tempt him more (this peril past) To quit his academic occupation, In cloisters of the classic Salamanca, To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho Panca.

XXXVIII.

But now there came a flash of hope once more; Day broke, and the wind lulled: the masts were gone The leak increased; shoals round her, but no shore, The vessel swam, yet still she held her own.[105] They tried the pumps again, and though before Their desperate efforts seemed all useless grown, A glimpse of sunshine set some hands to bale-- The stronger pumped, the weaker thrummed a sail.

XXXIX.

Under the vessel's keel the sail was passed, And for the moment it had some effect; But with a leak, and not a stick of mast, Nor rag of canvas, what could they expect? But still 't is best to struggle to the last, 'T is never too late to be wholly wrecked: And though 't is true that man can only die once, 'T is not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons.[bd]

XL.

There winds and waves had hurled them, and from thence, Without their will, they carried them away; For they were forced with steering to dispense, And never had as yet a quiet day On which they might repose, or even commence A jurymast or rudder, or could say The ship would swim an hour, which, by good luck, Still swam--though not exactly like a duck.

XLI.

The wind, in fact, perhaps, was rather less, But the ship laboured so, they scarce could hope To weather out much longer; the distress Was also great with which they had to cope For want of water, and their solid mess Was scant enough: in vain the telescope Was used--nor sail nor shore appeared in sight, Nought but the heavy sea, and coming night.

XLII.

Again the weather threatened,--again blew A gale, and in the fore and after hold Water appeared; yet, though the people knew All this, the most were patient, and some bold, Until the chains and leathers were worn through Of all our pumps:--a wreck complete she rolled, At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are Like human beings during civil war.

XLIII.

Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he Could do no more: he was a man in years, And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea, And if he wept at length they were not fears That made his eyelids as a woman's be, But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children,-- Two things for dying people quite bewildering.

XLIV.

The ship was evidently settling now Fast by the head; and, all distinction gone, Some went to prayers again, and made a vow Of candles to their saints[106]--but there were none To pay them with; and some looked o'er the bow; Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one That begged Pedrillo for an absolution, Who told him to be damned--in his confusion.[107]

XLV.

Some lashed them in their hammocks; some put on Their best clothes, as if going to a fair; Some cursed the day on which they saw the Sun, And gnashed their teeth, and, howling, tore their hair; And others went on as they had begun, Getting the boats out, being well aware That a tight boat will live in a rough sea, Unless with breakers close beneath her lee.[108]

XLVI.

The worst of all was, that in their condition, Having been several days in great distress, 'T was difficult to get out such provision As now might render their long suffering less: Men, even when dying, dislike inanition;[be] Their stock was damaged by the weather's stress: Two casks of biscuit, and a keg of butter, Were all that could be thrown into the cutter.

XLVII.

But in the long-boat they contrived to stow Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet; Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so; Six flasks of wine; and they contrived to get A portion of their beef up from below,[109] And with a piece of pork, moreover, met, But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon-- Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon.

XLVIII.

The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had Been stove in the beginning of the gale;[110] And the long-boat's condition was but bad, As there were but two blankets for a sail,[111] And one oar for a mast, which a young lad Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail; And two boats could not hold, far less be stored, To save one half the people then on board.

XLIX.

'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown[bf] Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear[bg] Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

L.

Some trial had been making at a raft, With little hope in such a rolling sea, A sort of thing at which one would have laughed,[112] If any laughter at such times could be, Unless with people who too much have quaffed, And have a kind of wild and horrid glee, Half epileptical, and half hysterical:-- Their preservation would have been a miracle.

LI.

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose, That still could keep afloat the struggling tars,[113] For yet they strove, although of no great use: There was no light in heaven but a few stars, The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews; She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, And, going down head foremost--sunk, in short.[114]

LII.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell-- Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,-- Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,[115] As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawned around her like a hell, And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die.

LIII.

And first one universal shriek there rushed, Louder than the loud Ocean, like a crash Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash Of billows; but at intervals there gushed, Accompanied by a convulsive splash, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

LIV.

The boats, as stated, had got off before, And in them crowded several of the crew; And yet their present hope was hardly more Than what it had been, for so strong it blew There was slight chance of reaching any shore; And then they were too many, though so few-- Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat, Were counted in them when they got afloat.

LV.

All the rest perished; near two hundred souls Had left their bodies; and what's worse, alas! When over Catholics the Ocean rolls, They must wait several weeks before a mass Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals, Because, till people know what's come to pass, They won't lay out their money on the dead-- It costs three francs for every mass that's said.

LVI.

Juan got into the long-boat, and there Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place; It seemed as if they had exchanged their care, For Juan wore the magisterial face Which courage gives, while poor Pedrillo's pair Of eyes were crying for their owner's case: Battista, though, (a name called shortly Tita), Was lost by getting at some aqua-vita.

LVII.

Pedro, his valet, too, he tried to save, But the same cause, conducive to his loss, Left him so drunk, he jumped into the wave, As o'er the cutter's edge he tried to cross, And so he found a wine-and-watery grave; They could not rescue him although so close, Because the sea ran higher every minute, And for the boat--the crew kept crowding in it.

LVIII.

A small old spaniel,--which had been Don José's, His father's, whom he loved, as ye may think, For on such things the memory reposes With tenderness--stood howling on the brink, Knowing, (dogs have such intellectual noses!) No doubt, the vessel was about to sink; And Juan caught him up, and ere he stepped Off threw him in, then after him he leaped.[116]

LIX.

He also stuffed his money where he could About his person, and Pedrillo's too, Who let him do, in fact, whate'er he would, Not knowing what himself to say, or do, As every rising wave his dread renewed; But Juan, trusting they might still get through, And deeming there were remedies for any ill, Thus re-embarked his tutor and his spaniel.

LX.

'T was a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet, That the sail was becalmed between the seas,[117] Though on the wave's high top too much to set, They dared not take it in for all the breeze: Each sea curled o'er the stern, and kept them wet, And made them bale without a moment's ease,[118] So that themselves as well as hopes were damped, And the poor little cutter quickly swamped.

LXI.

Nine souls more went in her: the long-boat still Kept above water, with an oar for mast, Two blankets stitched together, answering ill Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast; Though every wave rolled menacing to fill, And present peril all before surpassed,[119] They grieved for those who perished with the cutter, And also for the biscuit-casks and butter.

LXII.

The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sign Of the continuance of the gale: to run Before the sea until it should grow fine, Was all that for the present could be done: A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum and wine Were served out to the people, who begun[120] To faint, and damaged bread wet through the bags, And most of them had little clothes but rags.

LXIII.

They counted thirty, crowded in a space Which left scarce room for motion or exertion; They did their best to modify their case, One half sate up, though numbed with the immersion, While t' other half were laid down in their place, At watch and watch; thus, shivering like the tertian Ague in its cold fit, they filled their boat, With nothing but the sky for a great coat.[121]

LXIV.

'T is very certain the desire of life Prolongs it: this is obvious to physicians, When patients, neither plagued with friends nor wife, Survive through very desperate conditions, Because they still can hope, nor shines the knife Nor shears of Atropos before their visions: Despair of all recovery spoils longevity, And makes men's misery of alarming brevity.

LXV.

'T is said that persons living on annuities Are longer lived than others,--God knows why, Unless to plague the grantors,--yet so true it is, That some, I really think, do never die: Of any creditors the worst a Jew it is, And that's their mode of furnishing supply: In my young days they lent me cash that way, Which I found very troublesome to pay.[122]

LXVI.

'T is thus with people in an open boat, They live upon the love of Life, and bear More than can be believed, or even thought, And stand like rocks the tempest's wear and tear; And hardship still has been the sailor's lot, Since Noah's ark went cruising here and there; She had a curious crew as well as cargo, Like the first old Greek privateer, the Argo.

LXVII.

But man is a carnivorous production, And must have meals, at least one meal a day; He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey; Although his anatomical construction Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way, Your labouring people think, beyond all question, Beef, veal, and mutton, better for digestion.

LXVIII.

And thus it was with this our hapless crew; For on the third day there came on a calm, And though at first their strength it might renew, And lying on their weariness like balm, Lulled them like turtles sleeping on the blue Of Ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm, And fell all ravenously on their provision, Instead of hoarding it with due precision.

LXIX.

The consequence was easily foreseen-- They ate up all they had, and drank their wine, In spite of all remonstrances, and then On what, in fact, next day were they to dine? They hoped the wind would rise, these foolish men! And carry them to shore; these hopes were fine, But as they had but one oar, and that brittle, It would have been more wise to save their victual.

LXX.

The fourth day came, but not a breath of air, And Ocean slumbered like an unweaned child: The fifth day, and their boat lay floating there, The sea and sky were blue, and clear, and mild-- With their one oar (I wish they had had a pair) What could they do? and Hunger's rage grew wild: So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating, Was killed, and portioned out for present eating.[123]

LXXI.

On the sixth day they fed upon his hide, And Juan, who had still refused, because The creature was his father's dog that died, Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws, With some remorse received (though first denied) As a great favour one of the fore-paws,[124] Which he divided with Pedrillo, who Devoured it, longing for the other too.

LXXII.

The seventh day, and no wind--the burning sun Blistered and scorched, and, stagnant on the sea, They lay like carcasses; and hope was none, Save in the breeze that came not: savagely They glared upon each other--all was done, Water, and wine, and food,--and you might see The longings of the cannibal arise (Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes.

LXXIII.

At length one whispered his companion, who Whispered another, and thus it went round, And then into a hoarser murmur grew, An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound; And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew, 'T was but his own, suppressed till now, he found: And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood, And who should die to be his fellow's food.

LXXIV.

But ere they came to this, they that day shared Some leathern caps, and what remained of shoes; And then they looked around them, and despaired, And none to be the sacrifice would choose; At length the lots were torn up,[125] and prepared, But of materials that must shock the Muse-- Having no paper, for the want of better, They took by force from Juan Julia's letter.

LXXV.

The lots were made, and marked, and mixed, and handed, In silent horror,[126] and their distribution Lulled even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution; None in particular had sought or planned it, 'T was Nature gnawed them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuter-- And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor.

LXXVI.

He but requested to be bled to death: The surgeon had his instruments, and bled[127] Pedrillo, and so gently ebbed his breath, You hardly could perceive when he was dead. He died as born, a Catholic in faith, Like most in the belief in which they're bred, And first a little crucifix he kissed, And then held out his jugular and wrist.

LXXVII.

The surgeon, as there was no other fee, Had his first choice of morsels for his pains; But being thirstiest at the moment, he Preferred a draught from the fast-flowing veins:[128] Part was divided, part thrown in the sea, And such things as the entrails and the brains Regaled two sharks, who followed o'er the billow-- The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo.

LXXVIII.

The sailors ate him, all save three or four, Who were not quite so fond of animal food; To these was added Juan, who, before Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could Feel now his appetite increased much more; 'T was not to be expected that he should, Even in extremity of their disaster, Dine with them on his pastor and his master.

LXXIX.

'T was better that he did not; for, in fact, The consequence was awful in the extreme; For they, who were most ravenous in the act, Went raging mad[129]--Lord! how they did blaspheme! And foam, and roll, with strange convulsions racked, Drinking salt-water like a mountain-stream, Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, And, with hyæna-laughter, died despairing.

LXXX.

Their numbers were much thinned by this infliction, And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven knows; And some of them had lost their recollection, Happier than they who still perceived their woes; But others pondered on a new dissection, As if not warned sufficiently by those Who had already perished, suffering madly, For having used their appetites so sadly.

LXXXI.

And next they thought upon the master's mate, As fattest; but he saved himself, because, Besides being much averse from such a fate, There were some other reasons: the first was, He had been rather indisposed of late; And--that which chiefly proved his saving clause-- Was a small present made to him at Cadiz, By general subscription of the ladies.

LXXXII.

Of poor Pedrillo something still remained, But was used sparingly,--some were afraid, And others still their appetites constrained, Or but at times a little supper made; All except Juan, who throughout abstained, Chewing a piece of bamboo, and some lead:[130] At length they caught two Boobies, and a Noddy,[131] And then they left off eating the dead body.

LXXXIII.

And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking be, Remember Ugolino[132] condescends To eat the head of his arch-enemy The moment after he politely ends His tale: if foes be food in Hell, at sea 'T is surely fair to dine upon our friends, When Shipwreck's short allowance grows too scanty, Without being much more horrible than Dante.

LXXXIV.

And the same night there fell a shower of rain, For which their mouths gaped, like the cracks of earth When dried to summer dust; till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water's worth; If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, Or with a famished boat's-crew had your berth, Or in the desert heard the camel's bell, You'd wish yourself where Truth is--in a well.

LXXXV.

It poured down torrents, but they were no richer Until they found a ragged piece of sheet, Which served them as a sort of spongy pitcher, And when they deemed its moisture was complete, They wrung it out, and though a thirsty ditcher[133] Might not have thought the scanty draught so sweet As a full pot of porter, to their thinking They ne'er till now had known the joys of drinking.

LXXXVI.

And their baked lips, with many a bloody crack,[134] Sucked in the moisture, which like nectar streamed; Their throats were ovens, their swoln tongues were black, As the rich man's in Hell, who vainly screamed To beg the beggar, who could not rain back A drop of dew, when every drop had seemed To taste of Heaven--If this be true, indeed, Some Christians have a comfortable creed.

LXXXVII.

There were two fathers in this ghastly crew, And with them their two sons, of whom the one Was more robust and hardy to the view, But he died early; and when he was gone, His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw One glance at him, and said, "Heaven's will be done! I can do nothing," and he saw him thrown Into the deep without a tear or groan.[135]

LXXXVIII.

The other father had a weaklier child, Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;[136] But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little he said, and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep deadly thought, that they must part.

LXXXIX.

And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed, And when the wished-for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain Into his dying child's mouth--but in vain.[137]

XC.

The boy expired--the father held the clay, And looked upon it long, and when at last Death left no doubt, and the dead burthen lay Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, He watched it wistfully, until away 'T was borne by the rude wave wherein't was cast;[138] Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering, And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.

XCI.

Now overhead a rainbow, bursting through The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dark sea, Resting its bright base on the quivering blue; And all within its arch appeared to be Clearer than that without, and its wide hue Waxed broad and waving, like a banner free, Then changed like to a bow that's bent, and then Forsook the dim eyes of these shipwrecked men.

XCII.

It changed, of course; a heavenly Chameleon, The airy child of vapour and the sun, Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion, Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun, Glittering like crescents o'er a Turk's pavilion, And blending every colour into one, Just like a black eye in a recent scuffle (For sometimes we must box without the muffle).

XCIII.

Our shipwrecked seamen thought it a good omen-- It is as well to think so, now and then; 'T was an old custom of the Greek and Roman, And may become of great advantage when Folks are discouraged; and most surely no men Had greater need to nerve themselves again Than these, and so this rainbow looked like Hope-- Quite a celestial Kaleidoscope.

XCIV.

About this time a beautiful white bird, Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size And plumage (probably it might have erred Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes, And tried to perch, although it saw and heard The men within the boat, and in this guise It came and went, and fluttered round them till Night fell:--this seemed a better omen still.[139]

XCV.

But in this case I also must remark, 'T was well this bird of promise did not perch, Because the tackle of our shattered bark Was not so safe for roosting as a church; And had it been the dove from Noah's ark, Returning there from her successful search, Which in their way that moment chanced to fall, They would have eat her, olive-branch and all.

XCVI.

With twilight it again came on to blow, But not with violence; the stars shone out, The boat made way; yet now they were so low, They knew not where nor what they were about; Some fancied they saw land, and some said "No!" The frequent fog-banks gave them cause to doubt-- Some swore that they heard breakers, others guns,[140] And all mistook about the latter once.

XCVII.

As morning broke, the light wind died away, When he who had the watch sung out and swore, If 't was not land that rose with the Sun's ray, He wished that land he never might see more;[141] And the rest rubbed their eyes and saw a bay, Or thought they saw, and shaped their course for shore; For shore it was, and gradually grew Distinct, and high, and palpable to view.

XCVIII.

And then of these some part burst into tears, And others, looking with a stupid stare,[142] Could not yet separate their hopes from fears, And seemed as if they had no further care; While a few prayed--(the first time for some years)-- And at the bottom of the boat three were Asleep: they shook them by the hand and head, And tried to awaken them, but found them dead.

XCIX.

The day before, fast sleeping on the water, They found a turtle of the hawk's-bill kind, And by good fortune, gliding softly, caught her,[143] Which yielded a day's life, and to their mind Proved even still a more nutritious matter, Because it left encouragement behind: They thought that in such perils, more than chance Had sent them this for their deliverance.

C.

The land appeared a high and rocky coast, And higher grew the mountains as they drew, Set by a current, toward it: they were lost In various conjectures, for none knew To what part of the earth they had been tost, So changeable had been the winds that blew; Some thought it was Mount Ætna, some the highlands Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands.

CI.

Meantime the current, with a rising gale, Still set them onwards to the welcome shore, Like Charon's bark of spectres, dull and pale: Their living freight was now reduced to four, And three dead, whom their strength could not avail To heave into the deep with those before, Though the two sharks still followed them, and dashed The spray into their faces as they splashed.

CII.

Famine--despair--cold--thirst and heat, had done Their work on them by turns, and thinned them to Such things a mother had not known her son Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew;[144] By night chilled, by day scorched, thus one by one They perished, until withered to these few, But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter, In washing down Pedrillo with salt water.

CII.

As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen Unequal in its aspect here and there, They felt the freshness of its growing green, That waved in forest-tops, and smoothed the air, And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare-- Lovely seemed any object that should sweep Away the vast--salt--dread--eternal Deep.

CIV.

The shore looked wild, without a trace of man, And girt by formidable waves; but they Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran, Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay: A reef between them also now began To show its boiling surf and bounding spray, But finding no place for their landing better, They ran the boat for shore,--and overset her.[145]

CV.

But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir, Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont; And having learnt to swim in that sweet river, Had often turned the art to some account: A better swimmer you could scarce see ever, He could, perhaps, have passed the Hellespont, As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did.[146]

CVI.

So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark, He buoyed his boyish limbs, and strove to ply With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark, The beach which lay before him, high and dry: The greatest danger here was from a shark, That carried off his neighbour by the thigh; As for the other two, they could not swim, So nobody arrived on shore but him.

CVII.

Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar, Which, providentially for him, was washed Just as his feeble arms could strike no more, And the hard wave o'erwhelmed him as 't was dashed Within his grasp; he clung to it, and sore The waters beat while he thereto was lashed; At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he Rolled on the beach, half-senseless, from the sea:

CVIII.

There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, Should suck him back to her insatiate grave: And there he lay, full length, where he was flung, Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave, With just enough of life to feel its pain, And deem that it was saved, perhaps, in vain.

CIX.

With slow and staggering effort he arose, But sunk again upon his bleeding knee And quivering hand; and then he looked for those Who long had been his mates upon the sea; But none of them appeared to share his woes, Save one, a corpse, from out the famished three, Who died two days before, and now had found An unknown barren beach for burial ground.

CX.

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast, And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand Swam round and round, and all his senses passed: He fell upon his side, and his stretched hand Drooped dripping on the oar (their jury-mast), And, like a withered lily, on the land His slender frame and pallid aspect lay, As fair a thing as e'er was formed of clay.

CXI.

How long in his damp trance young Juan lay[147] He knew not, for the earth was gone for him, And Time had nothing more of night nor day For his congealing blood, and senses dim; And how this heavy faintness passed away He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb, And tingling vein, seemed throbbing back to life, For Death, though vanquished, still retired with strife.

CXII.

His eyes he opened, shut, again unclosed, For all was doubt and dizziness; he thought He still was in the boat, and had but dozed, And felt again with his despair o'erwrought, And wished it Death in which he had reposed, And then once more his feelings back were brought, And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen A lovely female face of seventeen.

CXIII.

'T was bending close o'er his, and the small mouth Seemed almost prying into his for breath; And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth Recalled his answering spirits back from Death: And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe Each pulse to animation, till beneath Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh To these kind efforts made a low reply.

CXIV.

Then was the cordial poured, and mantle flung Around his scarce-clad limbs; and the fair arm Raised higher the faint head which o'er it hung; And her transparent cheek, all pure and warm, Pillowed his death-like forehead; then she wrung His dewy curls, long drenched by every storm; And watched with eagerness each throb that drew A sigh from his heaved bosom--and hers, too.

CXV.

And lifting him with care into the cave, The gentle girl, and her attendant,--one Young, yet her elder, and of brow less grave, And more robust of figure,--then begun To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave Light to the rocks that roofed them, which the sun Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er She was, appeared distinct, and tall, and fair.

CXVI.

Her brow was overhung with coins of gold, That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair-- Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolled In braids behind; and though her stature were Even of the highest for a female mould, They nearly reached her heel; and in her air There was a something which bespoke command, As one who was a Lady in the land.

CXVII.

Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes Were black as Death, their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies, Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew; 'T is as the snake late coiled, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and his strength.

CXVIII.

Her brow was white and low, her cheek's pure dye Like twilight rosy still with the set sun; Short upper lip--sweet lips! that make us sigh Ever to have seen such; for she was one[bh] Fit for the model of a statuary (A race of mere impostors, when all's done-- I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).[bi][148]

CXIX.

I'll tell you why I say so, for 't is just One should not rail without a decent cause: There was an Irish lady,[149] to whose bust I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was A frequent model; and if e'er she must Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling laws, They will destroy a face which mortal thought Ne'er compassed, nor less mortal chisel wrought.

CXX.

And such was she, the lady of the cave: Her dress was very different from the Spanish, Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave; For, as you know, the Spanish women banish Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while wave Around them (what I hope will never vanish) The basquiña and the mantilla, they Seem at the same time mystical and gay.[150]

CXXI.

But with our damsel this was not the case: Her dress was many-coloured, finely spun; Her locks curled negligently round her face, But through them gold and gems profusely shone: Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace Flowed in her veil, and many a precious stone Flashed on her little hand; but, what was shocking, Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stocking.

CXXII.

The other female's dress was not unlike, But of inferior materials: she Had not so many ornaments to strike, Her hair had silver only, bound to be Her dowry; and her veil, in form alike, Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less free; Her hair was thicker, but less long; her eyes As black, but quicker, and of smaller size.

CXXIII.

And these two tended him, and cheered him both With food and raiment, and those soft attentions, Which are--as I must own--of female growth, And have ten thousand delicate inventions: They made a most superior mess of broth, A thing which poesy but seldom mentions, But the best dish that e'er was cooked since Homer's Achilles ordered dinner for new comers.[151]

CXXIV.

I'll tell you who they were, this female pair, Lest they should seem Princesses in disguise; Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize; And so, in short, the girls they really were They shall appear before your curious eyes, Mistress and maid; the first was only daughter Of an old man, who lived upon the water.

CXXV.

A fisherman he had been in his youth, And still a sort of fisherman was he; But other speculations were, in sooth, Added to his connection with the sea, Perhaps not so respectable, in truth: A little smuggling, and some piracy, Left him, at last, the sole of many masters Of an ill-gotten million of piastres.

CXXVI.

A fisher, therefore, was he,--though of men, Like Peter the Apostle, and he fished For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then, And sometimes caught as many as he wished; The cargoes he confiscated, and gain He sought in the slave-market too, and dished Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade, By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made.

CXXVII.

He was a Greek, and on his isle had built (One of the wild and smaller Cyclades) A very handsome house from out his guilt, And there he lived exceedingly at ease; Heaven knows what cash he got, or blood he spilt, A sad old fellow was he, if you please; But this I know, it was a spacious building, Full of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding.

CXXVIII.

He had an only daughter, called Haidée, The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles; Besides, so very beautiful was she, Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles: Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree She grew to womanhood, and between whiles Rejected several suitors, just to learn How to accept a better in his turn.

CXXIX.

And walking out upon the beach, below The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found, Insensible,--not dead, but nearly so,-- Don Juan, almost famished, and half drowned; But being naked, she was shocked, you know, Yet deemed herself in common pity bound, As far as in her lay, "to take him in, A stranger" dying--with so white a skin.

CXXX.

But taking him into her father's house Was not exactly the best way to save, But like conveying to the cat the mouse, Or people in a trance into their grave; Because the good old man had so much "νους"[Greek: "nous"], Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave, He would have hospitably cured the stranger, And sold him instantly when out of danger.

CXXXI.

And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best (A virgin always on her maid relies) To place him in the cave for present rest: And when, at last, he opened his black eyes, Their charity increased about their guest; And their compassion grew to such a size, It opened half the turnpike-gates to Heaven-- (St. Paul says, 't is the toll which must be given).

CXXXII.

They made a fire,--but such a fire as they Upon the moment could contrive with such Materials as were cast up round the bay,-- Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch Were nearly tinder, since, so long they lay, A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch; But, by God's grace, here wrecks were in such plenty, That there was fuel to have furnished twenty.

CXXXIII.

He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,[bj] For Haidée stripped her sables off to make His couch; and, that he might be more at ease, And warm, in case by chance he should awake, They also gave a petticoat apiece, She and her maid,--and promised by daybreak To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish.

CXXXIV.

And thus they left him to his lone repose: Juan slept like a top, or like the dead, Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows), Just for the present; and in his lulled head Not even a vision of his former woes Throbbed in accurséd dreams, which sometimes spread[bk] Unwelcome visions of our former years, Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.

CXXXV.

Young Juan slept all dreamless:--but the maid, Who smoothed his pillow, as she left the den Looked back upon him, and a moment stayed, And turned, believing that he called again. He slumbered; yet she thought, at least she said (The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen), He had pronounced her name--but she forgot That at this moment Juan knew it not.

CXXXVI.

And pensive to her father's house she went, Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant, She being wiser by a year or two: A year or two's an age when rightly spent, And Zoe spent hers, as most women do, In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge Which is acquired in Nature's good old college.

CXXXVII.

The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still Fast in his cave, and nothing clashed upon His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill, And the young beams of the excluded Sun, Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill; And need he had of slumber yet, for none Had suffered more--his hardships were comparative[bl] To those related in my grand-dad's "Narrative."[152]

CXXXVIII.

Not so Haidée: she sadly tossed and tumbled, And started from her sleep, and, turning o'er, Dreamed of a thousand wrecks, o'er which she stumbled, And handsome corpses strewed upon the shore; And woke her maid so early that she grumbled, And called her father's old slaves up, who swore In several oaths--Armenian, Turk, and Greek-- They knew not what to think of such a freak.

CXXXIX.

But up she got, and up she made them get, With some pretence about the Sun, that makes Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set; And 't is, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet With mist, and every bird with him awakes, And night is flung off like a mourning suit Worn for a husband,--or some other brute.[bm]

CXL.

I say, the Sun is a most glorious sight, I've seen him rise full oft, indeed of late I have sat up on purpose all the night,[bn][153] Which hastens, as physicians say, one's fate; And so all ye, who would be in the right In health and purse, begin your day to date From daybreak, and when coffined at fourscore, Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.

CXLI.

And Haidée met the morning face to face; Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race From heart to cheek is curbed into a blush, Like to a torrent which a mountain's base, That overpowers some Alpine river's rush, Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread; Or the Red Sea--but the sea is not red.[154]

CXLII.

And down the cliff the island virgin came, And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew, While the Sun smiled on her with his first flame, And young Aurora kissed her lips with dew, Taking her for a sister; just the same Mistake you would have made on seeing the two, Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair, Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.[bo]

CXLIII.

And when into the cavern Haidée stepped All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw That like an infant Juan sweetly slept; And then she stopped, and stood as if in awe (For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept And wrapped him closer, lest the air, too raw, Should reach his blood, then o'er him still as Death Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his scarce-drawn breath.

CXLIV.

And thus like to an Angel o'er the dying Who die in righteousness, she leaned; and there All tranquilly the shipwrecked boy was lying, As o'er him lay the calm and stirless air: But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying, Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair Must breakfast--and, betimes, lest they should ask it, She drew out her provision from the basket.

CXLV.

She knew that the best feelings must have victual, And that a shipwrecked youth would hungry be; Besides, being less in love, she yawned a little, And felt her veins chilled by the neighbouring sea; And so, she cooked their breakfast to a tittle; I can't say that she gave them any tea, But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, honey, With Scio wine,--and all for love, not money.

CXLVI.

And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and The coffee made, would fain have wakened Juan; But Haidée stopped her with her quick small hand, And without word, a sign her finger drew on Her lip, which Zoe needs must understand; And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a new one, Because her mistress would not let her break That sleep which seemed as it would ne'er awake.

CXLVII.

For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek A purple hectic played like dying day On the snow-tops of distant hills; the streak Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay, Where the blue veins looked shadowy, shrunk, and weak; And his black curls were dewy with the spray, Which weighed upon them yet, all damp and salt, Mixed with the stony vapours of the vault.

CXLVIII.

And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath, Hushed as the babe upon its mother's breast, Drooped as the willow when no winds can breathe, Lulled like the depth of Ocean when at rest, Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath, Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest;[bp] In short, he was a very pretty fellow, Although his woes had turned him rather yellow.

CXLIX.

He woke and gazed, and would have slept again, But the fair face which met his eyes forbade Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain Had further sleep a further pleasure made: For Woman's face was never formed in vain For Juan, so that even when he prayed He turned from grisly saints, and martyrs hairy, To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary.

CL.

And thus upon his elbow he arose, And looked upon the lady, in whose cheek The pale contended with the purple rose, As with an effort she began to speak; Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose, Although she told him, in good modern Greek, With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat.

CLI.

Now Juan could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird,[155] So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;[bq] The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why--an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends as from a throne.

CLII.

And Juan gazed as one who is awoke By a distant organ, doubting if he be Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke By the watchman, or some such reality, Or by one's early valet's curséd knock; At least it is a heavy sound to me, Who like a morning slumber--for the night Shows stars and women in a better light.

CLIII.

And Juan, too, was helped out from his dream, Or sleep, or whatsoe'er it was, by feeling A most prodigious appetite; the steam Of Zoe's cookery no doubt was stealing Upon his senses, and the kindling beam Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, kneeling, To stir her viands, made him quite awake And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak.

CLIV.

But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton, And, when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on: But this occurs but seldom, between whiles, For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut on; Others are fair and fertile, among which This, though not large, was one of the most rich.

CLV.

I say that beef is rare, and can't help thinking That the old fable of the Minotaur-- From which our modern morals, rightly shrinking, Condemn the royal lady's taste who wore A cow's shape for a mask--was only (sinking The allegory) a mere type, no more, That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle, To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.

CLVI.

For we all know that English people are Fed upon beef--I won't say much of beer, Because 't is liquor only, and being far From this my subject, has no business here; We know, too, they are very fond of war, A pleasure--like all pleasures--rather dear; So were the Cretans--from which I infer, That beef and battles both were owing to her.

CLVII.

But to resume. The languid Juan raised His head upon his elbow, and he saw A sight on which he had not lately gazed, As all his latter meals had been quite raw, Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised, And, feeling still the famished vulture gnaw, He fell upon whate'er was offered, like A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.

CLVIII.

He ate, and he was well supplied; and she, Who watched him like a mother, would have fed Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see Such appetite in one she had deemed dead: But Zoe, being older than Haidée, Knew (by tradition, for she ne'er had read) That famished people must be slowly nurst, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.

CLIX.

And so she took the liberty to state, Rather by deeds than words, because the case Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate, Unless he wished to die upon the place-- She snatched it, and refused another morsel, Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill.

CLX.

Next they--he being naked, save a tattered Pair of scarce decent trowsers--went to work, And in the fire his recent rags they scattered, And dressed him, for the present, like a Turk, Or Greek--that is, although it not much mattered, Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, dirk,-- They furnished him, entire, except some stitches, With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches.

CLXI.

And then fair Haidée tried her tongue at speaking, But not a word could Juan comprehend, Although he listened so that the young Greek in Her earnestness would ne'er have made an end; And, as he interrupted not, went eking Her speech out to her protégé and friend, Till pausing at the last her breath to take, She saw he did not understand Romaic.

CLXII.

And then she had recourse to nods, and signs, And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye, And read (the only book she could) the lines Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy, The answer eloquent, where the Soul shines And darts in one quick glance a long reply; And thus in every look she saw expressed A world of words, and things at which she guessed.

CLXIII.

And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes, And words repeated after her, he took A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise, No doubt, less of her language than her look: As he who studies fervently the skies Turns oftener to the stars than to his book, Thus Juan learned his alpha beta better From Haidée's glance than any graven letter.

CLXIV.

'T is pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes--that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been;[156] They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong They smile still more, and then there intervene Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss;--[br] I learned the little that I know by this:

CLXV.

That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek, Italian not at all, having no teachers;[bs] Much English I cannot pretend to speak, Learning that language chiefly from its preachers, Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week I study, also Blair--the highest reachers Of eloquence in piety and prose-- I hate your poets, so read none of those.

CLXVI.

As for the ladies, I have nought to say, A wanderer from the British world of Fashion,[157] Where I, like other "dogs, have had my day," Like other men, too, may have had my passion-- But that, like other things, has passed away, And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on: Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me But dreams of what has been, no more to be.[bt]

CLXVII.

Return we to Don Juan. He begun[158] To hear new words, and to repeat them; but Some feelings, universal as the Sun, Were such as could not in his breast be shut More than within the bosom of a nun: He was in love,--as you would be, no doubt, With a young benefactress,--so was she, Just in the way we very often see.

CLXVIII.

And every day by daybreak--rather early For Juan, who was somewhat fond of rest-- She came into the cave, but it was merely To see her bird reposing in his nest;[159] And she would softly stir his locks so curly, Without disturbing her yet slumbering guest, Breathing all gently o'er his cheek and mouth,[bu] As o'er a bed of roses the sweet South.

CLXIX.

And every morn his colour freshlier came, And every day helped on his convalescence; 'T was well, because health in the human frame Is pleasant, besides being true Love's essence, For health and idleness to Passion's flame Are oil and gunpowder; and some good lessons Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus, Without whom Venus will not long attack us.[160]

CLXX.

While Venus fills the heart, (without heart really Love, though good always, is not quite so good,) Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,-- For Love must be sustained like flesh and blood,-- While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly: Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;[bv] But who is their purveyor from above Heaven knows,--it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove.

CLXXI.

When Juan woke he found some good things ready, A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes That ever made a youthful heart less steady, Besides her maid's, as pretty for their size; But I have spoken of all this already-- A repetition's tiresome and unwise,-- Well--Juan, after bathing in the sea, Came always back to coffee and Haidée.

CLXXII.

Both were so young, and one so innocent, That bathing passed for nothing; Juan seemed To her, as 't were, the kind of being sent, Of whom these two years she had nightly dreamed, A something to be loved, a creature meant To be her happiness, and whom she deemed To render happy; all who joy would win Must share it,--Happiness was born a Twin.

CLXXIII.

It was such pleasure to behold him, such Enlargement of existence to partake Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch, To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake: To live with him for ever were too much; But then the thought of parting made her quake; He was her own, her ocean-treasure, cast Like a rich wreck--her first love, and her last.[bw]

CLXXIV.

And thus a moon rolled on, and fair Haidée Paid daily visits to her boy, and took Such plentiful precautions, that still he Remained unknown within his craggy nook; At last her father's prows put out to sea, For certain merchantmen upon the look, Not as of yore to carry off an Io, But three Ragusan vessels, bound for Scio.

CLXXV.

Then came her freedom, for she had no mother, So that, her father being at sea, she was Free as a married woman, or such other Female, as where she likes may freely pass, Without even the encumbrance of a brother, The freest she that ever gazed on glass: I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garrison.

CLXXVI.

Now she prolonged her visits and her talk (For they must talk), and he had learnt to say So much as to propose to take a walk,-- For little had he wandered since the day On which, like a young flower snapped from the stalk, Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay,-- And thus they walked out in the afternoon, And saw the sun set opposite the moon.[bx]

CLXXVII.

It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast, With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore, Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host, With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore A better welcome to the tempest-tost; And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar, Save on the dead long summer days, which make The outstretched Ocean glitter like a lake.

CLXXVIII.

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpassed the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,--the more because they preach in vain,-- Let us have Wine and Woman,[161] Mirth and Laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

CLXXIX.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of Life is but intoxication: Glory, the Grape, Love, Gold, in these are sunk The hopes of all men, and of every nation; Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk Of Life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion! But to return,--Get very drunk, and when You wake with headache--you shall see what then!

CLXXX.

Ring for your valet--bid him quickly bring Some hock and soda-water,[162] then you'll know A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king; For not the blest sherbet, sublimed with snow,[163] Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring, Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow,[by] After long travel, Ennui, Love, or Slaughter, Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water!

CLXXXI.

The coast--I think it was the coast that I Was just describing--Yes, it was the coast-- Lay at this period quiet as the sky, The sands untumbled, the blue waves untossed, And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry, And dolphin's leap, and little billow crossed By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret Against the boundary it scarcely wet.

CLXXXII.

And forth they wandered, her sire being gone, As I have said, upon an expedition; And mother, brother, guardian, she had none, Save Zoe, who, although with due precision She waited on her lady with the Sun, Thought daily service was her only mission, Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses, And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.

CLXXXIII.

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded, Circling all Nature, hushed, and dim, and still, With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill Upon the other, and the rosy sky With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

CLXXXIV.

And thus they wandered forth, and hand in hand, Over the shining pebbles and the shells, Glided along the smooth and hardened sand, And in the worn and wild receptacles Worked by the storms, yet worked as it were planned In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells, They turned to rest; and, each clasped by an arm, Yielded to the deep Twilight's purple charm.

CLXXXV.

They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow Spread like a rosy Ocean, vast and bright;[bz] They gazed upon the glittering sea below, Whence the broad Moon rose circling into sight; They heard the waves' splash, and the wind so low, And saw each other's dark eyes darting light Into each other--and, beholding this, Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;

CLXXXVI.

A long, long kiss, a kiss of Youth, and Love, And Beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one focus, kindled from above; Such kisses as belong to early days, Where Heart, and Soul, and Sense, in concert move, And the blood's lava, and the pulse a blaze, Each kiss a heart-quake,--for a kiss's strength, I think, it must be reckoned by its length.

CLXXXVII.

By length I mean duration; theirs endured Heaven knows how long--no doubt they never reckoned; And if they had, they could not have secured The sum of their sensations to a second: They had not spoken, but they felt allured, As if their souls and lips each other beckoned, Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung-- Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.[ca]

CLXXXVIII.

They were alone, but not alone as they Who shut in chambers think it loneliness; The silent Ocean, and the starlight bay, The twilight glow, which momently grew less, The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay Around them, made them to each other press, As if there were no life beneath the sky Save theirs, and that their life could never die.

CLXXXIX.

They feared no eyes nor ears on that lone beach; They felt no terrors from the night; they were All in all to each other: though their speech Was broken words, they thought a language there,-- And all the burning tongues the Passions teach[cb] Found in one sigh the best interpreter Of Nature's oracle--first love,--that all Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall.

CXC.

Haidée spoke not of scruples, asked no vows, Nor offered any; she had never heard Of plight and promises to be a spouse, Or perils by a loving maid incurred; She was all which pure Ignorance allows, And flew to her young mate like a young bird; And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she Had not one word to say of constancy.

CXCI.

She loved, and was belovéd--she adored, And she was worshipped after Nature's fashion-- Their intense souls, into each other poured, If souls could die, had perished in that passion,-- But by degrees their senses were restored, Again to be o'ercome, again to dash on; And, beating 'gainst his bosom, Haidée's heart Felt as if never more to beat apart.

CXCII.

Alas! they were so young, so beautiful, So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour Was that in which the Heart is always full, And, having o'er itself no further power, Prompts deeds Eternity can not annul, But pays off moments in an endless shower Of hell-fire--all prepared for people giving Pleasure or pain to one another living.

CXCIII.

Alas! for Juan and Haidée! they were So loving and so lovely--till then never, Excepting our first parents, such a pair Had run the risk of being damned for ever: And Haidée, being devout as well as fair, Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river, And Hell and Purgatory--but forgot Just in the very crisis she should not.

CXCIV.

They look upon each other, and their eyes Gleam in the moonlight; and her white arm clasps Round Juan's head, and his around her lies Half buried in the tresses which it grasps; She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs, He hers, until they end in broken gasps; And thus they form a group that's quite antique, Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek.

CXCV.

And when those deep and burning moments passed, And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms, She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast, Sustained his head upon her bosom's charms; And now and then her eye to Heaven is cast, And then on the pale cheek her breast now warms, Pillowed on her o'erflowing heart, which pants With all it granted, and with all it grants.[cc]

CXCVI.

An infant when it gazes on a light, A child the moment when it drains the breast, A devotee when soars the Host in sight, An Arab with a stranger for a guest, A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, A miser filling his most hoarded chest, Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.

CXCVII.

For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved, All that it hath of Life with us is living; So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved, And all unconscious of the joy 't is giving; All it hath felt, inflicted, passed, and proved, Hushed into depths beyond the watcher's diving: There lies the thing we love with all its errors And all its charms, like Death without its terrors.

CXCVIII.

The Lady watched her lover--and that hour Of Love's, and Night's, and Ocean's solitude O'erflowed her soul with their united power; Amidst the barren sand and rocks so rude She and her wave-worn love had made their bower, Where nought upon their passion could intrude, And all the stars that crowded the blue space Saw nothing happier than her glowing face.

CXCIX.

Alas! the love of Women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, And if 't is lost, Life hath no more to bring To them but mockeries of the past alone, And their revenge is as the tiger's spring, Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real Torture is theirs--what they inflict they feel.

CC.

They are right; for Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them--treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage--and what rests beyond? A thankless husband--next, a faithless lover-- Then dressing, nursing, praying--and all's over.

CCI.

Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers, Some mind their household, others dissipation, Some run away, and but exchange their cares, Losing the advantage of a virtuous station; Few changes e'er can better their affairs, Theirs being an unnatural situation, From the dull palace to the dirty hovel:[cd] Some play the devil, and then write a novel.[164]

CCII.

Haidée was Nature's bride, and knew not this; Haidée was Passion's child, born where the Sun Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss Of his gazelle-eyed daughters; she was one Made but to love, to feel that she was his Who was her chosen: what was said or done Elsewhere was nothing. She had nought to fear, Hope, care, nor love, beyond,--her heart beat here.

CCIII.

And oh! that quickening of the heart, that beat! How much it costs us! yet each rising throb Is in its cause as its effect so sweet, That Wisdom, ever on the watch to rob Joy of its alchemy, and to repeat Fine truths; even Conscience, too, has a tough job To make us understand each good old maxim, So good--I wonder Castlereagh don't tax 'em.

CCIV.

And now 't was done--on the lone shore were plighted Their hearts; the stars, their nuptial torches, shed Beauty upon the beautiful they lighted: Ocean their witness, and the cave their bed, By their own feelings hallowed and united, Their priest was Solitude, and they were wed:[ce] And they were happy--for to their young eyes Each was an angel, and earth Paradise.

CCV.

Oh, Love! of whom great Cæsar was the suitor, Titus the master,[165] Antony the slave, Horace, Catullus, scholars--Ovid tutor-- Sappho the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave All those may leap who rather would be neuter-- (Leucadia's rock still overlooks the wave)-- Oh, Love! thou art the very God of evil, For, after all, we cannot call thee Devil.

CCVI.

Thou mak'st the chaste connubial state precarious, And jestest with the brows of mightiest men: Cæsar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius,[166] Have much employed the Muse of History's pen: Their lives and fortunes were extremely various, Such worthies Time will never see again; Yet to these four in three things the same luck holds, They all were heroes, conquerors, and cuckolds.

CCVII.

Thou mak'st philosophers; there's Epicurus And Aristippus, a material crew! Who to immoral courses would allure us By theories quite practicable too; If only from the Devil they would insure us, How pleasant were the maxim (not quite new), "Eat, drink, and love, what can the rest avail us?" So said the royal sage Sardanapalus.[167]

CCVIII.

But Juan! had he quite forgotten Julia? And should he have forgotten her so soon? I can't but say it seems to me most truly a Perplexing question; but, no doubt, the moon Does these things for us, and whenever newly a Strong palpitation rises, 't is her boon, Else how the devil is it that fresh features Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?

CCIX.

I hate inconstancy--I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid; Love, constant love, has been my constant guest, And yet last night, being at a masquerade, I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, Which gave me some sensations like a villain.

CCX.

But soon Philosophy came to my aid, And whispered, "Think of every sacred tie!" "I will, my dear Philosophy!" I said, "But then her teeth, and then, oh, Heaven! her eye! I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid, Or neither--out of curiosity." "Stop!" cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian, (Though she was masqued then as a fair Venetian;)

CCXI.

"Stop!" so I stopped.--But to return: that which Men call inconstancy is nothing more Than admiration due where Nature's rich Profusion with young beauty covers o'er Some favoured object; and as in the niche A lovely statue we almost adore, This sort of adoration of the real Is but a heightening of the beau ideal.

CCXII.

'T is the perception of the Beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which Life would be extremely dull; In short, it is the use of our own eyes, With one or two small senses added, just To hint that flesh is formed of fiery dust.[cf]

CCXIII.

Yet 't is a painful feeling, and unwilling, For surely if we always could perceive In the same object graces quite as killing As when she rose upon us like an Eve, 'T would save us many a heartache, many a shilling, (For we must get them anyhow, or grieve), Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever, How pleasant for the heart, as well as liver!

CCXIV.

The Heart is like the sky, a part of Heaven, But changes night and day, too, like the sky; Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven, And Darkness and Destruction as on high: But when it hath been scorched, and pierced, and riven, Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye Pours forth at last the Heart's blood turned to tears, Which make the English climate of our years.

CCXV.

The liver is the lazaret of bile, But very rarely executes its function, For the first passion stays there such a while, That all the rest creep in and form a junction, Like knots of vipers on a dunghill's soil--[168] Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction-- So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, Like Earthquakes from the hidden fire called "central."

CCXVI.

In the mean time, without proceeding more In this anatomy, I've finished now Two hundred and odd stanzas as before,[cg] That being about the number I'll allow Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four; And, laying down my pen, I make my bow, Leaving Don Juan and Haidée to plead For them and theirs with all who deign to read.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] Begun at Venice, December 13, 1818,-finished January 20, 1819.

{81}[ay] Lost that most precious stone of stones--his modesty.--[MS.]

{82}[97] [Compare "The Girl of Cadiz," Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 1, and note 1.

[az] But d----n me if I ever saw the like.--[MS.]

{83}[98] Fazzioli--literally, little handkerchiefs--the veils most availing of St. Mark.

["I fazzioli, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads)."--Letter to Rogers, March 3, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv. 208.]

[ba] _Their manners mending, and their morals curing. She taught them to suppress their vice--and urine_.--[MS.]

{84}[99] [Compare--

"And fast the white rocks faded from his view * * * * * And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he."

Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza xii. lines 3-6, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 24.]

{87}[100] ["To breathe a vein ... to lance it so as to let blood." Compare--

"Rosalind. Is the fool sick? Biron. Sick at heart. Ros. Alack, let it blood." Love's Labour's Lost, act ii. sc. I, line 185.]

[bb] Sea-sickness death; then pardon Juan--how else Keep down his stomach ne'er at sea before?--[MS. M.]

[101] ["With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck, I think that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was not a single circumstance of it not taken from fact: not, indeed, from any single shipwreck, but all from actual facts of different wrecks."---Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821. In the Monthly Magazine, vol. liii. (August, 1821, pp. 19-22, and September, 1821, pp. 105-109), Byron's indebtedness to Sir G. Dalzell's Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea (1812, 8vo) is pointed out, and the parallel passages are printed in full.]

[102] ["Night came on worse than the day had been; and a sudden shift of wind, about midnight, 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 were immediately sounded, and in the course of a few minutes the water had increased to four feet....

"One gang was instantly put on them, and the remainder of the people employed in getting up rice from the run of the ship, and heaving it over, to come at the leak, if possible. After three or four hundred bags were thrown into the sea, we did get at it, and found the water rushing into the ship with astonishing rapidity; therefore we thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, tales of muslin, and everything of the like description that could be got, into the opening.

"Notwithstanding the pumps discharged fifty tons of water an hour, the ship certainly must have gone down, had not our expedients been attended with some success. The pumps, to the excellent construction of which I owe the preservation of my life, were made by Mr. Mann of London. As the next day advanced, the weather appeared to moderate, the men continued incessantly at the pumps, and every exertion was made to keep the ship afloat."--See "Loss of the American ship Hercules, Captain Benjamin Stout, June 16, 1796," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 316, 317.]

{90}[103] ["Scarce was this done, when a gust, exceeding in violence everything of the kind I had ever seen, or could conceive, laid the ship on her beam ends....

"The ship lay motionless, and, to all appearance, irrevocably overset.... The water forsook the hold, and appeared between decks....

"Immediate directions were given to cut away the main and mizen masts, trusting when the ship righted, to be able to wear her. On cutting one or two lanyards, the mizen-mast went first over, but without producing the smallest effect on the ship, and, on cutting the lanyard of one shroud, the main-mast followed. I had next the mortification to see the foremast and bowsprit also go over. On this, the ship immediately righted with great violence."--"Loss of the Centaur Man-of-War, 1782, by Captain Inglefield," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 41.]

[bc] Perhaps the whole would have got drunk, but for.--[MS.]

{91}[104] ["A midshipman was appointed to guard the spirit-room, to repress that unhappy desire of a devoted crew to die in a state of intoxication. The sailors, though in other respects orderly in conduct, here pressed eagerly upon him.

"'Give us some grog,' they exclaimed, 'it will be all one an hour hence.'--'I know we must die,' replied the gallant officer, coolly, 'but let us die like men!'--Armed with a brace of pistols, he kept his post, even while the ship was sinking."--"Loss of the Earl of Abergavenny, February 5, 1805," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 418. John Wordsworth, the poet's brother, was captain of the Abergavenny. See Life of William Wordsworth, by Professor Knight, 1889, i. 370-380; see, too, Coleridge's Anima Poetæ, 1895, p. 132. For a contemporary report, see a Maltese paper, Il Cartaginense, April 17, 1805.]

[105] ["However, by great exertions of the chain-pumps, we held our own.... All who were not seamen by profession, had been employed in thrumming a sail which was passed under the ship's bottom, and I thought had some effect....

"The Centaur laboured so much, that I could scarce hope she would swim till morning: ... our sufferings for want of water were very great....

"The weather again threatened, and by noon it blew a storm. The ship laboured greatly; the water appeared in the fore and after-hold. I was informed by the carpenter also that the leathers were nearly consumed, and the chains of the pumps, by constant exertion, and friction of the coils, were rendered almost useless....

"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....

"I perceived the ship settling by the head."--"Loss of the Centaur," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. pp. 45-49.]

{92}[bd] 'T is ugly dying in the Gulf of Lyons.--[MS.]

{93}[106] [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 Naufragium. The passage is scored with a pencil-mark in his copy of the Colloquies.]

[107] [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, his embroidered coat and his red scarf 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, 'Sennor Don Fernando, por l'amor de Dios, Confession.' The captain, when he struck him, said to him, 'Inimigo de Dios piedes Confession!' 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."--Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, 1723, iii. 353.]

{94}[108] ["Some appeared perfectly resigned, went to their hammocks, and desired their messmates to lash them in; others were securing themselves to gratings and small rafts; but the most predominant idea was that of putting on their best and cleanest clothes. The boats ... were got over the side."--"Loss of the Centaur," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 49, 50.]

[be] Men will prove hungry, even when next perdition.--[MS.]

{95}[109] ["Eight bags of rice, six casks of water, and a small quantity of salted beef and pork, were put into the long-boat, as provisions for the whole."--"Wreck of the Sidney, 1806," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 434.]

[110] ["The yawl was stove alongside and sunk."--"Loss of the Centaur," ibid., iii. 50.]

[111] ["One oar was erected for a main-mast, and the other broke to the breadth of the blankets for a yard."--"Loss of the Duke William Transport, 1758," ibid., ii. 387.]

[bf] Which being withdrawn, discloses but the frown.--[MS. erased.]

[bg] Of one who hates us, so the night was shown And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale, And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone Gazed dim and desolate----.--[MS.]

{96}[112] ["As rafts had been mentioned by the carpenter, I thought it right to make the attempt.... 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 Centaur," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 50. 51.]

[113] ["Spars, booms, hencoops, and every thing buoyant, was therefore cast loose, that the men might have some chance to save themselves."--"Loss of the Pandora," ibid., iii. 197.]

[114] ["We had scarce quitted the ship, when she gave a heavy lurch to port, and then went down, head foremost."--"Loss of the Lady Hobart," ibid., iii. 378.]

[115] ["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 leap overboard, which they did, uttering a most dreadful yell."--"Loss of the Pandora," ibid., iii. 198.]

{98}[116] ["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 took him in."--"Shipwreck of the Sloop Betsy, on the Coast of Dutch Guiana, August 5, 1756 (Philip Aubin, Commander)," Remarkable Shipwrecks, Hartford, 1813, p. 175.]

[117] [Qy. "My good Sir! when the sea runs very high this is the case, as I know, but if my authority is not enough, see Bligh's account of his run to Timor, after being cut adrift by the mutineers headed by Christian."--[B.]

"Pray tell me who was the Lubber who put the query? surely not you, 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."]

{99}[118] ["It blew a violent storm, and the sea ran very high, so that between the seas the sail was becalmed; and when on the top of the sea, it was too much to have set, but I was obliged to carry it, for we were now in very imminent danger and distress; the sea curling over the stern of the boat, which obliged us to bale with all our might."--A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 23.]

[119] ["Before it was dark, a blanket was discovered in the boat. This was immediately bent to one of the stretchers, and under it, as a sail, we scudded all night, in expectation of being swallowed up by every wave."--"Loss of the Centaur," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 52.]

[120] ["The sun rose very fiery and red, a sure indication of a severe gale of wind.--We could do nothing more than keep before the sea.--I now served a tea-spoonful of rum to each person, ... with a quarter of a bread-fruit, which was scarce eatable, for dinner."--A Narrative, etc., by W. Bligh, 1790, pp. 23, 24.]

{100}[121] ["[As] our lodgings were very miserable and confined, I had only in my power to remedy the latter defect, by putting ourselves at watch and watch; so that one half always sat up, while the other half lay down on the boat's bottom, with nothing to cover us but the heavens."--A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 28.]

[122] [For Byron's debts to Mrs. Massingberd, "Jew" King, etc., and for money raised on annuities, see Letters, 1898, ii. 174, note 2, and letter to Hanson, December 11, 1817, Letters, 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."]

{101}[123] ["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 Betsy," Remarkable Shipwrecks, Hartford, 1813, p. 177.]

{102}[124] ["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."--The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron, etc., 1768, pp. 47, 48.]

{103}[125] [Being driven to distress for want of food, "they soaked their shoes, and two hairy caps 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 Thomas [Twelve Men in an Open Boat, 1797]," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii 356.]

[126] ["The lots were drawn: '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 an awful silence; 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 Peggy, 1765," Remarkable Shipwrecks, Hartford, 1813, pp. 358, 359.]

[127] ["He requested to be bled to death, the surgeon being with them, and having his case of instruments in his pocket when he quitted the vessel."--"Sufferings of the Crew of the Thomas," Shipwrecks, etc., 1812, iii. 357.]

{104}[128] ["Yet scarce was the vein divided when the operator, applying his own parched lips, drank the stream as it flowed, and his comrades anxiously watched the last breath of the victim, that they might prey upon his flesh."--Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 357.]

[129] ["Those who indulged their cannibal appetite to excess speedily perished in raging madness," etc.--Ibid.]

{105}[130] ["Another expedient we had frequent recourse to, on finding it supplied our mouths with temporary moisture, was chewing any substance we could find, generally a bit of canvas, or even lead."--"The Shipwreck of the Juno on the Coast of Aracan," 1795, Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 270.]

[131] ["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 boobies."--A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 41.]

[132]

["Quand' ebbe detto ciò, con gli occhi torti Riprese il teschio misero coi denti, Che furo all' osso, come d'un can forti."

Dante, Inferno, canto xxxiii. lines 76-78.]

{106}[133] ["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."--Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 270. Compare The Island, Canto I. stanza ix. lines 193, 194, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 595.]

[134] [Compare--

"With throats unslaked, with black lips baked."

Ancient Mariner, Part III. line 157.]

{107}[135] ["Mr. Wade's boy, a stout healthy lad, died early, 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 he could do nothing for him, and left him to his fate."--"Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno, 1795," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 273.]

[136] ["The other [Father] 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."--Ibid.]

[137] ["Whenever the boy was seized with a fit of retching, the father lifted him up and wiped away the foam from his lips; and if a shower came, he made him open his mouth to receive the drops, or gently squeezed them into it from a rag."--Ibid.]

{108}[138] ["In this affecting situation both remained four or five days, till the boy expired. The unfortunate parent, as if unwilling to believe the fact, raised the body, looked wistfully at it, and when he could no longer entertain any doubt, watched it in silence until it was carried off by sea; then wrapping himself in a piece of canvas, sunk down, and rose no more; though he must have lived two days longer, as we judged from the quivering of his limbs when a wave broke over him."--"Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno, 1795," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, p. 274.]

{109}[139] ["About this time a beautiful white bird, web-footed, and not unlike a dove in size and plumage, hovered over the mast-head of the cutter, and, notwithstanding the pitching of the boat, frequently attempted to perch on it, and continued fluttering there till dark. Trifling as such an incident may appear, we all considered it a propitious omen."--"Loss of the Lady Hobart, 1803," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 389.]

[140] ["I found it necessary to caution the people against being deceived by the appearance of land, or calling out till we were quite convinced of its reality, more especially as fog-banks are often mistaken for land: several of the poor fellows nevertheless repeatedly exclaimed they heard breakers, and some the firing of guns."--"Loss of the Lady Hobart," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii. 391.]

{110}[141] ["At length one of them broke out into a most immoderate swearing fit of joy, which I could not restrain, and declared, that he had never seen land in his life, if what he now saw was not so."--"Loss of the Centaur," ibid., p. 55.]

[142] ["The joy at a speedy relief affected us all in a most remarkable way. Many burst into tears; some looked at each other with a stupid stare, as if doubtful 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 Lady Hobart," ibid., p. 391.]

[143] [After having suffered the horrors of hunger and thirst for many days, "they accidentally descried a small turtle floating on the surface of the water asleep."--"Sufferings of the Crew of the Thomas," ibid., p. 356.]

{111}[144] ["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."--Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, p. 80. Compare The Siege of Corinth, lines 1048, 1049, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 494, note 3.]

{112}[145] ["They discovered land right ahead, and steered for it. There being a very heavy surf, they endeavoured to turn the boat's head to it, which, from weakness, they were unable to accomplish, and soon afterwards the boat upset."--"Sufferings of Six Deserters from St. Helena, 1799," Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, 1812, iii, 371.]

[146] [Compare lines "Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos," Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 13, note 1; see, too, Letters, 1898, i. 262, 263, note 1.]

{114}[147] [Compare--

"How long in that same fit I lay I have not to declare."

The Ancient Mariner, Part V. lines 393, 394.]

{115}[bh] ---- in short she's one.--[MS.]

{116}[bi] A set of humbug rascals, when all's done-- I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their d----d ideal.--[MS.]

[148] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza 1. lines 6-9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 366, note 1.]

[149] [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 Letters, 1898, ii. 230, note 3.]

[150] ["The saya or basquiña ... the outer petticoat ... is always black, and is put over the indoor dress on going out." Compare Μελανείμονες ἅπαντες τὸ πλέον ἐν σάγοις, [Greek: Melanei/mones a(/pantes to\ ple/on e)n sa/gois,] Strabo, lib. iii. ed. 1807, i. 210. Ford's Handbook for Spain, 1855, i. 111.]

{117}[151] ["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." (Iliad, ix. 193, sq.)--Study of the Classics, by H.N. Coleridge, 1830, p, 71]

{119}[bj] And such a bed of furs, and a pelisse.--[MS.]

{120}[bk] ---- which often spread, And come like opening Hell upon the mind, No "baseless fabric" but "a wrack behind."--[MS.]

{121}[bl] Had e'er escaped more dangers on the deep;-- And those who are not drowned, at least may sleep.--[MS.]

[152] [Entitled "A Narrative of the Honourable John Byron (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 Letters, 1898, i. 3.]

[bm] Wore for a husband--or some such like brute.--[MS.]

[bn] ---- although of late I've changed, for some few years, the day to night.--[MS.]

[153] [The second canto of Don Juan was finished in January, 1819, when the Venetian Carnival was at its height.]

{122}[154] [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."]

[bo] ---- just the same As at this moment I should like to do;-- But I have done with kisses--having kissed All those that would--regretting those I missed.--[MS.]

{124}[bp] Fair as the rose just plucked to crown the wreath, Soft as the unfledged birdling when at rest.--[MS.]

[155] [Compare Mazeppa, lines 829, sq., Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 232.]

{125}[bq] That finer melody was never heard, The kind of sound whose echo is a tear, Whose accents are the steps of Music's throne.[*]--[MS.]

[*] ["To the Publisher. Take of these varieties which is thought best. I have no choice."]

{128}[156] [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."--Life, p. 93. See, too, letter to his mother, August 11, 1809, Letters, 1898, i. 240.]

[br] Pressure of hands, et cetera--or a kiss.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[bs] Italian rather more, having more teachers.--[MS. erased.]

[157] ["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, Letters, 1901, v. 177, 178.]

[bt] foes, friends, sex, kind, are nothing more to me Than a mere dream of something o'er the sea.--[MS.]

{129}[158] [For the same archaism or blunder, compare Manfred, act i. sc. 4, line 19, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 132.]

[159] [Compare The Prisoner of Chillon, line 78, ibid., p. 16.]

[bu] Holding her sweet breath o'er his cheek and mouth, As o'er a bed of roses, etc.--[MS.]

[160] [Vide post, Canto XVI. stanza lxxxvi. line 6, p. 598, note 1.]

{130}[bv] For without heart Love is not quite so good; Ceres is commissary to our bellies, And Love, which also much depends on food: While Bacchus will provide with wine and jellies-- Oysters and eggs are also living food.--[MS.]

[bw] He was her own, her Ocean lover, cast To be her soul's first idol, and its last.--[MS.]

{131}[bx] And saw the sunset and the rising moon.--[MS.]

{132}[161] [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.]

[162] [Compare stanza prefixed to Dedication, vide ante, p. 2.]

[163] [Compare--

"Yes! thy Sherbet to-night will sweetly flow, See how it sparkles in its vase of snow!"

Corsair, Canto I. lines 427, 428, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 242.]

[by] A pleasure naught but drunkenness can bring: For not the blest sherbet all chilled with snow. Nor the full sparkle of the desert-spring, Nor wine in all the purple of its glow.--[MS.]

{134}[bz] Spread like an Ocean, varied, vast, and bright.--[MS.]

[ca] ---- I'm sure they never reckoned; And being joined--like swarming bees they clung, And mixed until the very pleasure stung.

or,

And one was innocent, but both too young, Their hearts the flowers, etc.--[MS.]

{135}[cb] In all the burning tongues the Passions teach They had no further feeling, hope, nor care Save one, and that was Love.--[MS. erased.]

{136}[cc] _Pillowed upon her beating heart--which panted With the sweet memory of all it granted_.--[MS.]

{138}[cd] Some drown themselves, some in the vices grovel.--[MS.]

[164] [Lady Caroline Lamb's Glenarvon was published in 1816. For Byron's farewell letter of dismissal, which Lady Caroline embodied in her novel (vol. iii. chap. ix.), see Letters, 1898, ii. 135, note 1. According to Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 274), Madame de Staël catechized Byron with regard to the relation of the story to fact.]

{139}[ce] In their sweet feelings holily united, By Solitude (soft parson) they were wed.--[MS.]

[165] [Titus forebore to marry "Incesta" Berenice (see Juv., Sat. 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.]

[166] [Cæsar's third wife, Pompeia, was suspected of infidelity with Clodius (see Langhorne's Plutarch, 1838, p. 498); Pompey's third wife, Mucia, intrigued with Cæsar (vide ibid., p. 447); Mahomet's favourite wife, Ayesha, on one occasion incurred suspicion; Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, was notoriously profligate (see Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, iii. 432, 102).]

{140}[167] [Compare Sardanapalus, act i. sc. 2, line 252, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 23, note 1.]

{141}[cf] --of ticklish dust.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

{142}[168] ["Mr. Hobhouse is at it again about indelicacy. There is no indelicacy. If he wants that, 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, Letters, 1900, iv. 295.]

[cg] Two hundred stanzas reckoned as before.--[MS.]

CANTO THE THIRD.[169]

I.

HAIL, Muse! et cetera.--We left Juan sleeping, Pillowed upon a fair and happy breast, And watched by eyes that never yet knew weeping, And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest To feel the poison through her spirit creeping, Or know who rested there, a foe to rest, Had soiled the current of her sinless years, And turned her pure heart's purest blood to tears!

II.

Oh, Love! what is it in this world of ours Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh? As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breast--but place to die-- Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.

III.

In her first passion Woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is Love, Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over, And fits her loosely--like an easy glove,[ch] As you may find, whene'er you like to prove her: One man alone at first her heart can move; She then prefers him in the plural number, Not finding that the additions much encumber.

IV.

I know not if the fault be men's or theirs; But one thing's pretty sure; a woman planted (Unless at once she plunge for life in prayers)-- After a decent time must be gallanted; Although, no doubt, her first of love affairs Is that to which her heart is wholly granted; Yet there are some, they say, who have had none, But those who have ne'er end with only one.[170]

V.

'T is melancholy, and a fearful sign Of human frailty, folly, also crime, That Love and Marriage rarely can combine, Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from Love, like vinegar from wine-- A sad, sour, sober beverage--by Time Is sharpened from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savour.

VI.

There's something of antipathy, as 't were, Between their present and their future state; A kind of flattery that's hardly fair Is used until the truth arrives too late-- Yet what can people do, except despair? The same things change their names at such a rate; For instance--Passion in a lover's glorious, But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.

VII.

Men grow ashamed of being so very fond; They sometimes also get a little tired (But that, of course, is rare), and then despond: The same things cannot always be admired, Yet 't is "so nominated in the bond,"[171] That both are tied till one shall have expired. Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorning Our days, and put one's servants into mourning.

VIII.

There's doubtless something in domestic doings Which forms, in fact, true Love's antithesis; Romances paint at full length people's wooings, But only give a bust of marriages; For no one cares for matrimonial cooings, There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss: Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?[ci]

IX.

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage; The future states of both are left to faith, For authors fear description might disparage The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath, And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage; So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready, They say no more of Death or of the Lady.[172]

X.

The only two that in my recollection, Have sung of Heaven and Hell, or marriage, are Dante[173] and Milton,[174] and of both the affection Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar Of fault or temper ruined the connection (Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar); But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.

XI.

Some persons say that Dante meant Theology By Beatrice, and not a mistress--I, Although my opinion may require apology, Deem this a commentator's phantasy, Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he Decided thus, and showed good reason why; I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics Meant to personify the Mathematics.[175]

XII.

Haidée and Juan were not married, but The fault was theirs, not mine: it is not fair, Chaste reader, then, in any way to put The blame on me, unless you wish they were; Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut The book which treats of this erroneous pair, Before the consequences grow too awful; 'T is dangerous to read of loves unlawful.

XIII.

Yet they were happy,--happy in the illicit Indulgence of their innocent desires; But more imprudent grown with every visit, Haidée forgot the island was her Sire's; When we have what we like 't is hard to miss it, At least in the beginning, ere one tires; Thus she came often, not a moment losing, Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.

XIV.

Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a Prime Minister but change His title, and 't is nothing but taxation; But he, more modest, took an humbler range Of Life, and in an honester vocation Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey,[cj] And merely practised as a sea-attorney.

XV.

The good old gentleman had been detained By winds and waves, and some important captures; And, in the hope of more, at sea remained, Although a squall or two had damped his raptures, By swamping one of the prizes; he had chained His prisoners, dividing them like chapters In numbered lots; they all had cuffs and collars, And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.

XVI.

Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan, Among his friends the Mainots; some he sold To his Tunis correspondents, save one man Tossed overboard unsaleable (being old); The rest--save here and there some richer one, Reserved for future ransom--in the hold, Were linked alike, as, for the common people, he Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.

XVII.

The merchandise was served in the same way, Pieced out for different marts in the Levant, Except some certain portions of the prey, Light classic articles of female want, French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, teapot, tray,[ck] Guitars and castanets from Alicant, All which selected from the spoil he gathers, Robbed for his daughter by the best of fathers.

XVIII.

A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,[176] Two parrots, with a Persian cat and kittens, He chose from several animals he saw-- A terrier, too, which once had been a Briton's, Who dying on the coast of Ithaca, The peasants gave the poor dumb thing a pittance: These to secure in this strong blowing weather, He caged in one huge hamper altogether.

XIX.

Then, having settled his marine affairs, Despatching single cruisers here and there, His vessel having need of some repairs, He shaped his course to where his daughter fair Continued still her hospitable cares; But that part of the coast being shoal and bare, And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile, His port lay on the other side o' the isle.

XX.

And there he went ashore without delay, Having no custom-house nor quarantine To ask him awkward questions on the way, About the time and place where he had been: He left his ship to be hove down next day, With orders to the people to careen; So that all hands were busy beyond measure, In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treasure.

XXI.

Arriving at the summit of a hill Which overlooked the white walls of his home, He stopped.--What singular emotions fill Their bosoms who have been induced to roam! With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill-- With love for many, and with fears for some; All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost, And bring our hearts back to their starting-post.

XXII.

The approach of home to husbands and to sires, After long travelling by land or water, Most naturally some small doubt inspires-- A female family's a serious matter, (None trusts the sex more, or so much admires-- But they hate flattery, so I never flatter); Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

XXIII.

An honest gentleman at his return May not have the good fortune of Ulysses; Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn, Or show the same dislike to suitors' kisses; The odds are that he finds a handsome urn To his memory--and two or three young misses Born to some friend, who holds his wife and riches-- And that his Argus[177]--bites him by the breeches.

XXIV.

If single, probably his plighted Fair Has in his absence wedded some rich miser; But all the better, for the happy pair May quarrel, and, the lady growing wiser, He may resume his amatory care As cavalier servente, or despise her; And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one, Writes odes on the Inconstancy of Woman.

XXV.

And oh! ye gentlemen who have already Some chaste liaison of the kind--I mean An honest friendship with a married lady-- The only thing of this sort ever seen To last--of all connections the most steady, And the true Hymen, (the first's but a screen)-- Yet, for all that, keep not too long away-- I've known the absent wronged four times a day.[cl]

XXVI.

Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had Much less experience of dry land than Ocean, On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad; But not knowing metaphysics, had no notion Of the true reason of his not being sad, Or that of any other strong emotion; He loved his child, and would have wept the loss of her, But knew the cause no more than a philosopher.

XXVII.

He saw his white walls shining in the sun, His garden trees all shadowy and green; He heard his rivulet's light bubbling run, The distant dog-bark; and perceived between The umbrage of the wood, so cool and dun, The moving figures, and the sparkling sheen Of arms (in the East all arm)--and various dyes Of coloured garbs, as bright as butterflies.

XXVIII.

And as the spot where they appear he nears, Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling, He hears--alas! no music of the spheres, But an unhallowed, earthly sound of fiddling! A melody which made him doubt his ears, The cause being past his guessing or unriddling; A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after-- A most unoriental roar of laughter.

XXIX.

And still more nearly to the place advancing, Descending rather quickly the declivity, Through the waved branches o'er the greensward glancing, 'Midst other indications of festivity, Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing Like Dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance[178] so martial, To which the Levantines are very partial.

XXX.

And further on a troop of Grecian girls,[179] The first and tallest her white kerchief waving, Were strung together like a row of pearls, Linked hand in hand, and dancing; each too having Down her white neck long floating auburn curls-- (The least of which would set ten poets raving);[cm] Their leader sang--and bounded to her song With choral step and voice the virgin throng.

XXXI.

And here, assembled cross-legged round their trays, Small social parties just begun to dine; Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze, And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine, And sherbet cooling in the porous vase; Above them their dessert grew on its vine;-- The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er, Dropped in their laps, scarce plucked, their mellow store.

XXXII.

A band of children, round a snow-white ram,[180] There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers; While peaceful as if still an unweaned lamb, The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers His sober head, majestically tame, Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers His brow, as if in act to butt, and then Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.

XXXIII.

Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses, Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks, Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses, The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks, The innocence which happy childhood blesses, Made quite a picture of these little Greeks; So that the philosophical beholder Sighed for their sakes--that they should e'er grow older.

XXXIV.

Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales To a sedate grey circle of old smokers, Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails, Of rocks bewitched that open to the knockers, Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, Transformed their lords to beasts (but that's a fact).

XXXV.

Here was no lack of innocent diversion For the imagination or the senses, Song, dance, wine, music, stories from the Persian, All pretty pastimes in which no offence is; But Lambro saw all these things with aversion, Perceiving in his absence such expenses, Dreading that climax of all human ills, The inflammation of his weekly bills.

XXXVI.

Ah! what is man? what perils still environ[181] The happiest mortals even after dinner! A day of gold from out an age of iron Is all that Life allows the luckiest sinner; Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's a Siren, That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner; Lambro's reception at his people's banquet Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket.

XXXVII.

He--being a man who seldom used a word Too much, and wishing gladly to surprise (In general he surprised men with the sword) His daughter--had not sent before to advise Of his arrival, so that no one stirred; And long he paused to re-assure his eyes, In fact much more astonished than delighted, To find so much good company invited.

XXXVIII.

He did not know (alas! how men will lie) That a report (especially the Greeks) Avouched his death (such people never die), And put his house in mourning several weeks,-- But now their eyes and also lips were dry; The bloom, too, had returned to Haidée's cheeks: Her tears, too, being returned into their fount, She now kept house upon her own account.

XXXIX.

Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and fiddling, Which turned the isle into a place of pleasure; The servants all were getting drunk or idling, A life which made them happy beyond measure. Her father's hospitality seemed middling, Compared with what Haidée did with his treasure; 'T was wonderful how things went on improving, While she had not one hour to spare from loving.[cn]

XL.

Perhaps you think, in stumbling on this feast, He flew into a passion, and in fact There was no mighty reason to be pleased; Perhaps you prophesy some sudden act, The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the least, To teach his people to be more exact, And that, proceeding at a very high rate, He showed the royal penchants of a pirate.

XLI.

You're wrong.--He was the mildest mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat; With such true breeding of a gentleman, You never could divine his real thought; No courtier could, and scarcely woman can Gird more deceit within a petticoat; Pity he loved adventurous life's variety, He was so great a loss to good society.

XLII.

Advancing to the nearest dinner tray, Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest, With a peculiar smile, which, by the way, Boded no good, whatever it expressed, He asked the meaning of this holiday; The vinous Greek to whom he had addressed His question, much too merry to divine The questioner, filled up a glass of wine,

XLIII.

And without turning his facetious head, Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air, Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said, "Talking's dry work, I have no time to spare." A second hiccuped, "Our old Master's dead, You'd better ask our Mistress who's his heir." "Our Mistress!" quoth a third: "Our Mistress!--pooh!-- You mean our Master--not the old, but new."

XLIV.

These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom They thus addressed--and Lambro's visage fell-- And o'er his eye a momentary gloom Passed, but he strove quite courteously to quell The expression, and endeavouring to resume His smile, requested one of them to tell The name and quality of his new patron, Who seemed to have turned Haidée into a matron.

XLV.

"I know not," quoth the fellow, "who or what He is, nor whence he came--and little care; But this I know, that this roast capon's fat, And that good wine ne'er washed down better fare; And if you are not satisfied with that, Direct your questions to my neighbour there; He'll answer all for better or for worse, For none likes more to hear himself converse."[182]

XLVI.

I said that Lambro was a man of patience, And certainly he showed the best of breeding, Which scarce even France, the Paragon of nations, E'er saw her most polite of sons exceeding; He bore these sneers against his near relations, His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding, The insults, too, of every servile glutton, Who all the time was eating up his mutton.

XLVII.

Now in a person used to much command-- To bid men come, and go, and come again-- To see his orders done, too, out of hand-- Whether the word was death, or but the chain-- It may seem strange to find his manners bland; Yet such things are, which I cannot explain, Though, doubtless, he who can command himself Is good to govern--almost as a Guelf.

XLVIII.

Not that he was not sometimes rash or so, But never in his real and serious mood; Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow, He lay coiled like the Boa in the wood; With him it never was a word and blow, His angry word once o'er, he shed no blood, But in his silence there was much to rue, And his one blow left little work for two.

XLIX.

He asked no further questions, and proceeded On to the house, but by a private way, So that the few who met him hardly heeded, So little they expected him that day; If love paternal in his bosom pleaded For Haidée's sake, is more than I can say, But certainly to one deemed dead returning, This revel seemed a curious mode of mourning.

L.

If all the dead could now return to life, (Which God forbid!) or some, or a great many, For instance, if a husband or his wife[co] (Nuptial examples are as good as any), No doubt whate'er might be their former strife, The present weather would be much more rainy-- Tears shed into the grave of the connection Would share most probably its resurrection.

LI.

He entered in the house no more his home, A thing to human feelings the most trying, And harder for the heart to overcome, Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying; To find our hearthstone turned into a tomb, And round its once warm precincts palely lying The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief, Beyond a single gentleman's belief.

LII.

He entered in the house--his home no more, For without hearts there is no home;--and felt The solitude of passing his own door Without a welcome: there he long had dwelt, There his few peaceful days Time had swept o'er, There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt Over the innocence of that sweet child, His only shrine of feelings undefiled.

LIII.

He was a man of a strange temperament, Of mild demeanour though of savage mood, Moderate in all his habits, and content With temperance in pleasure, as in food, Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meant For something better, if not wholly good; His Country's wrongs and his despair to save her Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.

LIV.

The love of power, and rapid gain of gold, The hardness by long habitude produced, The dangerous life in which he had grown old, The mercy he had granted oft abused, The sights he was accustomed to behold, The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised, Had cost his enemies a long repentance, And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance.

LV.

But something of the spirit of old Greece Flashed o'er his soul a few heroic rays, Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece His predecessors in the Colchian days; 'T is true he had no ardent love for peace-- Alas! his country showed no path to praise: Hate to the world and war with every nation He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.

LVI.

Still o'er his mind the influence of the clime Shed its Ionian elegance, which showed Its power unconsciously full many a time,-- A taste seen in the choice of his abode, A love of music and of scenes sublime, A pleasure in the gentle stream that flowed Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers, Bedewed his spirit in his calmer hours.

LVII.

But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed On that belovéd daughter; she had been The only thing which kept his heart unclosed Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen, A lonely pure affection unopposed: There wanted but the loss of this to wean His feelings from all milk of human kindness, And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.[cp]

LVIII.

The cubless tigress in her jungle raging Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock; The Ocean when its yeasty war is waging Is awful to the vessel near the rock; But violent things will sooner bear assuaging, Their fury being spent by its own shock, Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire[cq] Of a strong human heart, and in a Sire.

LIX.

It is a hard although a common case To find our children running restive--they In whom our brightest days we would retrace, Our little selves re-formed in finer clay, Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company--the gout or stone.

LX.

Yet a fine family is a fine thing (Provided they don't come in after dinner); 'T is beautiful to see a matron bring Her children up (if nursing them don't thin her); Like cherubs round an altar-piece they cling To the fire-side (a sight to touch a sinner). A lady with her daughters or her nieces Shine like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces.

LXI.

Old Lambro passed unseen a private gate, And stood within his hall at eventide; Meantime the lady and her lover sate At wassail in their beauty and their pride: An ivory inlaid table spread with state Before them, and fair slaves on every side;[183] Gems, gold, and silver, formed the service mostly, Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.

LXII.

The dinner made about a hundred dishes; Lamb and pistachio nuts--in short, all meats, And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fishes Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets, Dressed to a Sybarite's most pampered wishes; The beverage was various sherbets Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice, Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best for use.

LXIII.

These were ranged round, each in its crystal ewer, And fruits, and date-bread loaves closed the repast, And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure, In small fine China cups, came in at last; Gold cups of filigree, made to secure The hand from burning, underneath them placed; Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boiled Up with the coffee, which (I think) they spoiled.

LXIV.

The hangings of the room were tapestry, made Of velvet panels, each of different hue, And thick with damask flowers of silk inlaid; And round them ran a yellow border too; The upper border, richly wrought, displayed, Embroidered delicately o'er with blue, Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters, From poets, or the moralists their betters.

LXV.

These Oriental writings on the wall, Quite common in those countries, are a kind Of monitors adapted to recall, Like skulls at Memphian banquets, to the mind, The words which shook Belshazzar in his hall, And took his kingdom from him: You will find, Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.

LXVI.

A Beauty at the season's close grown hectic, A Genius who has drunk himself to death, A Rake turned methodistic, or Eclectic--[184] (For that's the name they like to pray beneath)--[cr] But most, an Alderman struck apoplectic, Are things that really take away the breath,-- And show that late hours, wine, and love are able To do not much less damage than the table.

LXVII.

Haidée and Juan carpeted their feet On crimson satin, bordered with pale blue; Their sofa occupied three parts complete Of the apartment--and appeared quite new; The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet) Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew A sun embossed in gold, whose rays of tissue, Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.[cs]

LXVIII.

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain, Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain, Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats, And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, that gain Their bread as ministers and favourites (that's To say, by degradation) mingled there As plentiful as in a court, or fair.

LXIX.

There was no want of lofty mirrors, and The tables, most of ebony inlaid With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand, Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made, Fretted with gold or silver:--by command The greater part of these were ready spread With viands and sherbets in ice--and wine-- Kept for all comers at all hours to dine.

LXX.

Of all the dresses I select Haidée's: She wore two jelicks--one was of pale yellow; Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise-- 'Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow: With buttons formed of pearls as large as peas, All gold and crimson shone her jelick's fellow, And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her, Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flowed round her.

LXXI.

One large gold bracelet clasped each lovely arm, Lockless--so pliable from the pure gold That the hand stretched and shut it without harm, The limb which it adorned its only mould; So beautiful--its very shape would charm, And clinging, as if loath to lose its hold, The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin That e'er by precious metal was held in.[185]

LXXII.

Around, as Princess of her father's land, A like gold bar above her instep rolled[186] Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand; Her hair was starred with gems; her veil's fine fold Below her breast was fastened with a band Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told; Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furled About the prettiest ankle in the world.

LXXIII.

Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel Flowed like an Alpine torrent which the sun Dyes with his morning light,--and would conceal Her person[187] if allowed at large to run, And still they seemed resentfully to feel The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr caught began To offer his young pinion as her fan.

LXXIV.

Round her she made an atmosphere of life,[188] The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, They were so soft and beautiful, and rife With all we can imagine of the skies, And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife-- Too pure even for the purest human ties; Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel.[189]

LXXV.

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged (It is the country's custom, but in vain), For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed, The glossy rebels mocked the jetty stain, And in their native beauty stood avenged: Her nails were touched with henna; but, again, The power of Art was turned to nothing, for They could not look more rosy than before.

LXXVI.

The henna should be deeply dyed to make The skin relieved appear more fairly fair; She had no need of this, day ne'er will break On mountain tops more heavenly white than her: The eye might doubt if it were well awake, She was so like a vision; I might err, But Shakespeare also says, 't is very silly "To gild refinéd gold, or paint the lily."[190]

LXXVII.

Juan had on a shawl of black and gold, But a white baracan, and so transparent The sparkling gems beneath you might behold, Like small stars through the milky way apparent; His turban, furled in many a graceful fold, An emerald aigrette, with Haidée's hair in 't, Surmounted as its clasp--a glowing crescent, Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.

LXXVIII.

And now they were diverted by their suite, Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet, Which made their new establishment complete; The last was of great fame, and liked to show it; His verses rarely wanted their due feet-- And for his theme--he seldom sung below it, He being paid to satirise or flatter, As the Psalm says, "inditing a good matter."

LXXIX.

He praised the present, and abused the past, Reversing the good custom of old days, An Eastern anti-jacobin at last He turned, preferring pudding to no praise-- For some few years his lot had been o'ercast By his seeming independent in his lays, But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha-- With truth like Southey, and with verse[191] like Crashaw.[ct]

LXXX.

He was a man who had seen many changes, And always changed as true as any needle; His Polar Star being one which rather ranges, And not the fixed--he knew the way to wheedle: So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges; And being fluent (save indeed when fee'd ill), He lied with such a fervour of intention-- There was no doubt he earned his laureate pension.

LXXXI.

But he had genius,--when a turncoat has it, The Vates irritabilis[192] takes care That without notice few full moons shall pass it; Even good men like to make the public stare:-- But to my subject--let me see--what was it?-- Oh!--the third canto--and the pretty pair-- Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode Of living in their insular abode.

LXXXII.

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but, no less,[cu] In company a very pleasant fellow, Had been the favourite of full many a mess Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;[cv] And though his meaning they could rarely guess, Yet still they deigned to hiccup or to bellow The glorious meed of popular applause, Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause.[cw]

LXXXIII.

But now being lifted into high society, And having picked up several odds and ends Of free thoughts in his travels for variety, He deemed, being in a lone isle, among friends, That, without any danger of a riot, he Might for long lying make himself amends; And, singing as he sung in his warm youth, Agree to a short armistice with Truth.

LXXXIV.

He had travelled 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks, And knew the self-loves of the different nations; And having lived with people of all ranks, Had something ready upon most occasions-- Which got him a few presents and some thanks. He varied with some skill his adulations; To "do at Rome as Romans do,"[193] a piece Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.

LXXXV.

Thus, usually, when he was asked to sing, He gave the different nations something national; 'T was all the same to him--"God save the King," Or "Ça ira," according to the fashion all: His Muse made increment of anything, From the high lyric down to the low rational;[cx][194] If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?

LXXXVI.

In France, for instance, he would write a chanson; In England a six canto quarto tale; In Spain he'd make a ballad or romance on The last war--much the same in Portugal; In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on Would be old Goethe's--(see what says De Staël);[195] In Italy he'd ape the "Trecentisti;" In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye:[196]

1.

The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of War and Peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their Sun, is set.

2.

The Scian and the Teian muse, The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your Sires' "Islands of the Blest."[197]

3.

The mountains look on Marathon--[cy] And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave.

4.[198]

A King sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;--all were his! He counted them at break of day-- And, when the Sun set, where were they?

5.

And where are they? and where art thou, My Country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now-- The heroic bosom beats no more![cz] And must thy Lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

6.

'T is something, in the dearth of Fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush--for Greece a tear.

7.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?--Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ!

8.

What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no;--the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise,--we come, we come!" 'T is but the living who are dumb.

9.

In vain--in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call-- How answers each bold Bacchanal!

10.

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,[199] Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave-- Think ye he meant them for a slave?

11.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! We will not think of themes like these! It made Anacreon's song divine: He served--but served Polycrates--[200] A Tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen.

12.

The Tyrant of the Chersonese Was Freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind.

13.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore, Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heracleidan blood might own.[da]

14.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks--[201] They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords, and native ranks, The only hope of courage dwells; But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, Would break your shield, however broad.

15.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade-- I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

16.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,[202] Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-- Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

LXXXVII.

Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much worse: His strain displayed some feeling--right or wrong; And feeling,[203] in a poet, is the source Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colours--like the hands of dyers.

LXXXVIII.

But words are things,[204] and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; 'T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper--even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his!

LXXXIX.

And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, His station, generation, even his nation, Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank In chronological commemoration, Some dull MS. Oblivion long has sank, Or graven stone found in a barrack's station In digging the foundation of a closet,[db] May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.

XC.

And Glory long has made the sages smile; 'T is something, nothing, words, illusion, wind-- Depending more upon the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind: Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:[205] The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe.[206]

XCI.

Milton's the Prince of poets--so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine: An independent being in his day-- Learned, pious, temperate in love and wine; But, his life falling into Johnson's way, We're told this great High Priest of all the Nine Was whipped at college--a harsh sire--odd spouse, For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.[207]

XCII.

All these are, certes, entertaining facts, Like Shakespeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's bribes; Like Titus' youth, and Cæsar's earliest acts;[208] Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);[209] Like Cromwell's pranks;[210]--but although Truth exacts These amiable descriptions from the scribes, As most essential to their Hero's story, They do not much contribute to his glory.

XCIII.

All are not moralists, like Southey, when He prated to the world of "Pantisocracy;"[211] Or Wordsworth unexcised,[212] unhired, who then Seasoned his pedlar poems with Democracy;[dc] Or Coleridge[213] long before his flighty pen Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;[dd] When he and Southey, following the same path, Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).[214]

XCIV.

Such names at present cut a convict figure, The very Botany Bay in moral geography; Their loyal treason, renegado rigour, Are good manure for their more bare biography; Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger Than any since the birthday of typography; A drowsy, frowzy poem, called the "Excursion," Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

XCV.

He there builds up a formidable dyke Between his own and others' intellect; But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like Joanna Southcote's Shiloh[215] and her sect, Are things which in this century don't strike The public mind,--so few are the elect; And the new births of both their stale Virginities Have proved but Dropsies, taken for Divinities.

XCVI.

But let me to my story: I must own, If I have any fault, it is digression, Leaving my people to proceed alone, While I soliloquize beyond expression: But these are my addresses from the throne, Which put off business to the ensuing session: Forgetting each omission is a loss to The world, not quite so great as Ariosto.

XCVII.

I know that what our neighbours call "longueurs," (We've not so good a word, but have the thing, In that complete perfection which insures An epic from Bob Southey every spring--) Form not the true temptation which allures The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring Some fine examples of the Epopée, To prove its grand ingredient is Ennui.[216]

XCVIII.

We learn from Horace, "Homer sometimes sleeps;"[217] We feel without him,--Wordsworth sometimes wakes,-- To show with what complacency he creeps, With his dear "Waggoners," around his lakes.[218] He wishes for "a boat" to sail the deeps-- Of Ocean?--No, of air; and then he makes Another outcry for "a little boat," And drivels seas to set it well afloat.[219]

XCIX.

If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain, And Pegasus runs restive in his "Waggon," Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain? Or pray Medea for a single dragon?[220] Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain, He feared his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

C.

"Pedlars," and "Boats," and "Waggons!" Oh! ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? That trash of such sort not alone evades Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades Of sense and song above your graves may hiss-- The "little boatman" and his Peter Bell Can sneer at him who drew "Achitophel!"[221]

CI.

T' our tale.--The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired; The Arab lore and Poet's song were done, And every sound of revelry expired; The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of Twilight's sky admired;-- Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

CII.

Ave Maria! blesséd be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth--so beautiful and soft-- While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,[de] Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

CIII.

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 't is the hour of Love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove-- What though 't is but a pictured image?--strike-- That painting is no idol,--'t is too like.

CIV.

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print[df]--that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into Heaven the shortest way; My altars are the mountains and the Ocean, Earth--air--stars,[222]--all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the Soul.

CV.

Sweet Hour of Twilight!--in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er, To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,[223] Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee![224]

CVI.

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And Vesper bell's that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true lover,--shadowed my mind's eye.[225]

CVII.

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things--[226] Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

CVIII.

Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;[227] Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely Nothing dies but Something mourns!

CIX.

When Nero perished by the justest doom Which ever the Destroyer yet destroyed, Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, Of nations freed, and the world overjoyed, Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb:[228] Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void Of feeling for some kindness done, when Power Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

CX.

But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero, Or any such like sovereign buffoons,[dg] To do with the transactions of my hero, More than such madmen's fellow man--the moon's? Sure my invention must be down at zero, And I grown one of many "Wooden Spoons" Of verse, (the name with which we Cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees).

CXI.

I feel this tediousness will never do-- T' is being too epic, and I must cut down (In copying) this long canto into two; They'll never find it out, unless I own The fact, excepting some experienced few; And then as an improvement 't will be shown: I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is From Aristotle passim.--See ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗΣ[Greek: POIÊTIKÊS].[229]

FOOTNOTES:

[169] [November 30, 1819. Copied in 1820 (MS.D.). Moore (Life, 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 Letters, 1900, iv. 375. The date on the MS. may refer to the first fair copy.]

{144}[ch] And fits her like a stocking or a glove.--[MS. D.]

[170] ["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."--Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.

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."--Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 552.]

{145}[171] [Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, line 254.]

[ci] Had Petrarch's passion led to Petrarch's wedding, How many sonnets had ensued the bedding?--[MS.]

[172] [The Ballad of "Death and the Lady" was printed in a small volume, entitled A Guide to Heaven, 1736, 12mo. It is mentioned in The Vicar of Wakefield (chap. xvii.), Works of Oliver Goldsmith, 1854, i. 369. See Old English Popular Music, by William Chappell, F.S.A., 1893, ii. 170, 171.]

{146}[173] [See The Prophecy of Dante, Canto I. lines 172-174, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 253, note 1.]

[174] Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first month. If she had not, what would John Milton have done?

[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."--The Life of Milton (by Thomas Newton, D.D.), Paradise Regained, ed. (Baskerville), 1758, pp. xvii., xviii.]

[175] ["Yesterday a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She is a poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician."--Journal November 30, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 357.]

{147}[cj] Displayed much more of nerve, perhaps, of wit, Than any of the parodies of Pitt.--[MS.]

{148}[ck] ---- toothpicks, a bidet.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

"Dr. Murray--As you are squeamish you may put 'teapot, tray,' in case the other piece of feminine furniture frightens you.--B."

[176] [For Byron's menagerie, see Werner, act i. sc. 1, line 216, Poetical Works, 1902, v. 348, note 1.]

{149}[177] ["But as for canine recollections ... I had one (half a wolf 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, Letters, 1899, iii. 171, 172. Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto I. Song, stanza ix., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 30.]

{150}[cl] Yet for all that don't stay away too long, A sofa, like a bed, may come by wrong.--[MS.] I've known the friend betrayed----.--[MS. D.]

{151}[178] [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" (Dict. of Ant.). Dodwell (Tour through Greece, 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 (Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 166, 167) of the Albanian war-dance at Loutráki.]

[179] ["Their manner of dancing is certainly the same that Diana is sung 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, Letters, etc., 1816, p. 138. The "kerchief-waving" dance is the Romaika. See The Waltz, line 125, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 492, note 1. See, too, Voyage Pittoresque ... by the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, 1782, vol. i. Planche 33.]

[cm] That would have set Tom Moore, though married, raving.--[MS.]

{152}[180] ["Upon the whole, I think the part of Don Juan 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."--Table Talk of S.T. Coleridge, June 7, 1824.]

{153}[181] [Compare Hudibras, Part I. canto iii. lines 1, 2--

"Ay me! what perils do environ The man that meddles with cold iron!"

Byron's friend, C.S. Matthews, shouted these lines, con intenzione, 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.)]

{154}[cn] All had been open, heart, and open house, Ever since Juan served her for a spouse.--[MS.]

{155}[182]

["Rispose allor Margutte: a dirtel tosto, Io non credo più al nero ch' all' azzurro; Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogli arrosto, E credo alcuna volta anche nel burro; Nella cervogia, e quando io n' ho nel mosto, E molto più nell' aspro che il mangurro; Ma sopra tutto nel buon vino ho fede, E credo che sia salvo chi gli crede."

Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, Canto XVIII. stanza cxv.]

{157}[co] For instance, if a first or second wife.--[MS.]

{159}[cp] And send him forth like Samson strong in blindness.--[MS. D.] And make him Samson-like--more fierce with blindness.--[MS. M.]

[cq] Not so the single, deep, and wordless ire, Of a strong human heart--.--[MS.]

{160}[183] ["Almost all Don Juan is real life, either my own, or from people I knew. By the way, much of the description of the furniture, in Canto Third, is taken from Tully's Tripoli (pray note this), and the rest from my own observation. Remember, I never meant to conceal this at all, and have only not stated it, because Don Juan had no preface, nor name to it."--Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 346.

The first edition of "Tully's Tripoli" is entitled 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, 1816, 410. The book is in the form of letters (so says the Preface) written by the Consul's sister. The description of Haidée's dress 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 these "notes" was the Consul's sister, 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 jileck, 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."

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...."

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."

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...."

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."]

{162}[184] ["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?"--Eclectic Review (Lord Byron's Mazeppa), August, 1819, vol. xii. p. 150.]

[cr] For that's the name they like to cant beneath.--[MS.]

{163}[cs] The upholsterer's "fiat lux" had bade to issue.--[MS.]

{164}[185] 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. [Vide ante, p. 160, note 1.]

[186] 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. [Vide ibid.]

[187] 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.

[188] [Compare--

"Yet there was round thee such a dawn Of Light ne'er seen before, As Fancy never could have drawn, And never can restore."

Song by Rev. C. Wolfe (1791-1823).

Compare, too--

"She was a form of Life and Light That, seen, became a part of sight."

The Giaour, lines 1127, 1128.]

{165}[189]

[" ... but Psyche owns no lord-- She walks a goddess from above; All saw, all praised her, all adored, But no one ever dared to love."

The Golden Ass of Apuleius; in English verse, entitled Cupid and Psyche, by Hudson Gurney, 1799.]

[190] [King John, act iv. sc. 2, line 11.]

{166}[191] ["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 In Memoriam--

"Angels (they say) brought the famed Chappel there; And bore the sacred Load in Triumph through the air:-- 'T is surer much they brought thee there, and They, And Thou, their charge, went singing all the way."

The Works, etc., 1668, pp. 29, 30.]

[ct] Believed like Southey--and perused like Crashaw.--[MS.]

{167}[192] [The second chapter of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is on the "supposed irritability of men of genius." Ed. 1847, i. 29.]

[cu] Their poet a sad Southey.--[MS. D.]

[cv] Of rogues--.--[MS. D.]

[cw] Of which the causers never know the cause.--[MS. D.]

{168}[193] [Vide St. August. Epist., xxxvi., cap. xiv., "Ille [Ambrosius, Mediolanensis Episcopus] adjecit; Quando hic sum, non jejuno sabbato; quando Romae sum, jejuno sabbato."--Migne's Patrologiæ Cursus, 1845, xxxiii. 151.]

[cx] From the high lyrical to the low rational.--[MS.D.]

[194] [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.]

[195] ["Goethe pourroit représenter la littérature allemande toute entière."--De L'Allemagne, par Mme. la Baronne de Staël-Holstein, 1818, i. 227.]

[196] [The poet is not "a sad Southey," but is sketched from memory. "Lord Byron," writes Finlay (History of Greece, 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 Don Juan. 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), Letters, 1901, vi. 320, note 1.)]

{169}[197] The Μακάρων νῆσοι [Greek: Maka/rôn nê~soi] [Hesiod, Works and Days, line 169] of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cape de Verd Islands, or the Canaries.

[cy] _Euboea looks on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea, etc._--[MS.]

[198] [See Æschylus, Persæ, 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.]

{170}[cz] The Heroic heart awakes no more.--[MS. D.]

{171}[199] [For "that most ancient military dance, the Pyrrhica," see Travels, by E.D. Clarke, 1814, part ii. sect. 11, p. 641; and for specimens of "Cadmean characters," vide ibid., p. 593.]

[200] [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.]

[da] Which Hercules might deem his own.--[MS.]

{172}[201] [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 English will sell you to Ali." --"Parga," Edinburgh Review, October, 1819. vol. 32, pp. 263-293. Here, perhaps, the "Franks" are the Russians. Compare--

"Greeks only should free Greece, Not the barbarian with his masque of peace."

The Age of Bronze, lines 298, 299, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 557, note 1.]

[202]

Γενοίμαν, ἵν' ὑλᾶεν ἔπεστι πόν- [Greek: Genoi/man, i(/n' y(la~en e)/pesti po/n-] του πρόβλημ' ἁλίκλυστον, ἄ- [Greek: tou pro/blêm' a(li/klyston, a)/-] κραν ὑπὸ πλάκα Σουνίου, κ.τ.λ. [Greek: kran y(po\ pla/ka Souni/ou, k.t.l.]

Sophocles, Ajax, lines 1190-1192.]

{173}[203] [Compare--

"What poets feel not, when they make, A pleasure in creating, The world, in its turn, will not take Pleasure in contemplating."

Matthew Arnold (Motto to Poems, 1869, vol. i. Fly-leaf).]

[204] [For this "sentence," see Journal, November 16, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 320, note 1; see, too, letter to Rogers, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 89, note 1.]

[db] In digging drains for a new water-closet.--[MS.]

[205] [For Edmund Hoyle (1672-1769), see English Bards, etc., lines 966-968, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 372, note 4.]

{174}[206] [William Coxe (1747-1828), Archdeacon of Wilts, a voluminous historian and biographer, published Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough, in 1817-1819.]

[207] [See Life of Milton, Works of Samuel Johnson, 1825, vii. pp. 67, 68, 80, et vide ante, p. 146, note 2.]

[208] [According to Suetonius, the youthful Titus amused himself by copying handwriting, and boasted that he could have made a first-rate falsarius. 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.]

[209] [James Currie, M.D. (1756-1805), published, anonymously, the Works of Robert Burns, with an account of his Life, etc., in 1800.]

[210] ["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 Apple-Dragon, 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.--Flagellum, by James Heath, 1663, p. 5. See, too, for his "name of a Royster" at Cambridge, A Short View of the Late Troubles in England, by Sir William Dugdale, 1681, p. 459.]

{175}[211] [In The Friend, 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 Letter to William Smith, Esq. (1817), (Essays Moral and Political, 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 "Pantisocracy" is not mentioned. It occurs, perhaps, for the first time in print, in George Dyer's biographical sketch of Southey, which he contributed to Public Characters of 1799-1800, 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 Literary Life (Edin. Rev., August, 1817, vol. xxviii. p. 501), Jeffrey speaks of "the Pantisocratic or Lake School."]

[212] [Wordsworth was "hired," but not, like Burns, "excised." Hazlitt (Lectures on the English Poets, 1870, p. 174) is responsible for the epithet: "Mr. Wordsworth might have shown the incompatibility between the Muse and the Excise," etc.]

[dc] Confined his pedlar poems to democracy.--[MS.]

[213] [Coleridge began his poetical contributions to the Morning Post in January, 1798; his poetical articles in 1800.]

[dd] Flourished its sophistry for aristocracy.--[MS.]

[214] [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 (Letters, 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."]

{176}[215] [For Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), see Letters, 1899, iii. 128-130, note 2.]

[216] [Here follows, in the original MS.--

"Time has approved Ennui to be the best Of friends, and opiate draughts; your love and wine, Which shake so much the human brain and breast, Must end in languor;--men must sleep like swine: The happy lover and the welcome guest Both sink at last into a swoon divine; Full of deep raptures and of bumpers, they Are somewhat sick and sorry the next day."]

{177}[217] ["Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."--Hor., Epist. Ad Pisones, line 359.]

[218] [Wordsworth's Benjamin the Waggoner, 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.]

[219]

["There's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon; But through the clouds I'll never float Until I have a little Boat, Shaped like the crescent-moon."

Wordsworth's Peter Bell, stanza i.]

[220] [For Medea's escape from the wrath of Jason, "Titaniacis ablata draconibus," see Ovid., Met., vii. 398.]

[221] [In his "Essay, Supplementary to the Preface," to his "Poems" of 1815, Wordsworth, commenting on a passage on Night in Dryden's Indian Emperor, 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 Achitophel." In a letter to Sir Walter Scott (November 7, 1805), then engaged on his great edition of Dryden's Works, 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 essentially poetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind, with an excellent ear" (Life of Wordsworth, by W. Knight, 1889, ii. 26-29). Scott may have remarked on Wordsworth's estimate of Dryden in conversation with Byron.]

{178}[de] While swung the signal from the sacred tower.--[MS.]

{179}[df] Are not these pretty stanzas?--some folks say-- Downright in print--.--[MS.]

[222] [Compare Coleridge's Lines to Nature, which were published in the Morning Herald, in 1815, but must have been unknown to Byron--

"So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be."]

[223] ["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 labour, and in the twentieth year of his age, the Emperor of the West ... retired to ... the walls and morasses of Ravenna."--Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, ii. 244, 245.]

[224] ["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.]

{180}[225] [If the Pineta of Ravenna, bois funèbre, 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--

"Because she deem'd I well deserved to die, And made a merit of her cruelty, ... Mine is the ungrateful maid by heaven design'd: Mercy she would not give, nor mercy shall she find."

"By her example warn'd, the rest beware; More easy, less imperious, were the fair; And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd For one fair female, lost him half the kind."

Dryden's Theodore and Honoria (sub fine).]

[226]

Εσπερε παντα φερεις [Greek: Espere panta phereis] Φερεις οινον--φερεις αιγα, [Greek: Phereis oinon--phereis aiga,] Φερεις ματερι παιδα. [Greek: Phereis materi paida.]

Fragment of Sappho.

[Ϝέσπερε, πάντα φέρων, ὅσα φαίνολις ἐσκέδασ' αὔως· [Greek: We/spere, pa/nta phe/rôn, o(/sa phai/nolis e)ske/das' au)/ôs] Φέρεις οἴν φέρεις αἶγα, Φέρεις ἄπυ ματέρι παῖδα. [Greek: Phe/reis oi)/n phe/reis ai~)ga, Phe/reis a)/py mate/ri pai~da.]

Sappho, Memoir, Text, by Henry Thornton Wharton, 1895, p. 136.

"Evening, all things thou bringest Which dawn spread apart from each other; The lamb and the kid thou bringest, Thou bringest the boy to his mother."

J.A. Symonds.

Compare Tennyson's Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After--"Hesper, whom the poet call'd the Bringer home of all good things."]

{181}[227]

"Era già l'ora che volge il disio Ai naviganti, e intenerisce il cuore; Lo di ch' han detto ai dolci amici addio; E che lo nuovo peregrin' damore Punge, se ode squilla di lontano, Che paia il giorno pianger che si more."

Dante's Purgatory, canto viii., lines 1-6.

This last line is the first of Gray's Elegy, taken by him without acknowledgment.

[228] See Suetonius for this fact.

["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."--De XII. Cæs., lib. vi. cap. lvii.]

[dg] _But I'm digressing--what on earth have Nero And Wordsworth--both poetical buffoons, etc._--[MS.]

{182}[229] [See De Poeticâ, cap. xxiv. See, too, the Preface to Dryden's "Dedication" of the Æneis (Works 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 (Letters, 1891, v. 284), in which he quotes Aristotle as quoted in Johnson's Life of Dryden.]

CANTO THE FOURTH.

I.

NOTHING so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end; For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being Pride,[230] which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are.

II.

But Time, which brings all beings to their level, And sharp Adversity, will teach at last Man,--and, as we would hope,--perhaps the Devil, That neither of their intellects are vast: While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, We know not this--the blood flows on too fast; But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply on each past emotion.[231]

III.

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, And wished that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere Fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf,"[232] and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

IV.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep, 'T is that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, for we must steep[dh] Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,[di] Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep: Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

V.

Some have accused me of a strange design Against the creed and morals of the land, And trace it in this poem every line: I don't pretend that I quite understand My own meaning when I would be very fine; But the fact is that I have nothing planned, Unless it were to be a moment merry-- A novel word in my vocabulary.

VI.

To the kind reader of our sober clime This way of writing will appear exotic; Pulci[233] was sire of the half-serious rhyme,[dj] Who sang when Chivalry was more quixotic, And revelled in the fancies of the time, True Knights, chaste Dames, huge Giants, Kings despotic; But all these, save the last, being obsolete, I chose a modern subject as more meet.

VII.

How I have treated it, I do not know; Perhaps no better than they have treated me, Who have imputed such designs as show Not what they saw, but what they wished to see: But if it gives them pleasure, be it so; This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free: Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear, And tells me to resume my story here.[234]

VIII.

Young Juan and his lady-love were left To their own hearts' most sweet society; Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms; he Sighed to behold them of their hours bereft, Though foe to Love; and yet they could not be Meant to grow old, but die in happy Spring, Before one charm or hope had taken wing.

IX.

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail; The blank grey was not made to blast their hair, But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail, They were all summer; lightning might assail And shiver them to ashes, but to trail A long and snake-like life of dull decay Was not for them--they had too little clay.

X.

They were alone once more; for them to be Thus was another Eden; they were never Weary, unless when separate: the tree Cut from its forest root of years--the river Dammed from its fountain--the child from the knee And breast maternal weaned at once for ever,-- Would wither less than these two torn apart;[dk] Alas! there is no instinct like the Heart--

XI.

The Heart--which may be broken: happy they! Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould, The precious porcelain of human clay, Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold The long year linked with heavy day on day, And all which must be borne, and never told; While Life's strange principle will often lie Deepest in those who long the most to die.

XII.

"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore,[235] And many deaths do they escape by this: The death of friends, and that which slays even more-- The death of Friendship, Love, Youth, all that is, Except mere breath; and since the silent shore Awaits at last even those who longest miss The old Archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave[236] Which men weep over may be meant to save.

XIII.

Haidée and Juan thought not of the dead-- The Heavens, and Earth, and Air, seemed made for them: They found no fault with Time, save that he fled; They saw not in themselves aught to condemn: Each was the other's mirror, and but read Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem. And knew such brightness was but the reflection Of their exchanging glances of affection.