Don Juan: Canto the Third
Hail, Muse! et cetera.—We left Juan sleeping,
Pillow’d upon a fair and happy breast,
And watch’d 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 soil’d the current of her sinless years,
And turn’d her pure heart’s purest blood to tears!
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.
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,
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.
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.
'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 sharpen’d from its high celestial flavour
Down to a very homely household savour.
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.
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,'
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.
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?
All tragedies are finish’d 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.
The only two that in my recollection
Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, are
Dante and Milton, and of both the affection
Was hapless in their nuptials, for some bar
Of fault or temper ruin’d 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.
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 fantasy,
Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge he
Decided thus, and show’d good reason why;
I think that Dante’s more abstruse ecstatics
Meant to personify the mathematics.
Haidee 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.
Yet they were happy,- happy in the illicit
Indulgence of their innocent desires;
But more imprudent grown with every visit,
Haidee 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.
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,
And merely practised as a sea-attorney.
The good old gentleman had been detain’d
By winds and waves, and some important captures;
And, in the hope of more, at sea remain’d,
Although a squall or two had damp’d his raptures,
By swamping one of the prizes; he had chain’d
His prisoners, dividing them like chapters
In number’d lots; they all had cuffs and collars,
And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.
Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan,
Among his friends the Mainots; some he sold
To his Tunis correspondents, save one man
Toss’d overboard unsaleable (being old);
The rest– save here and there some richer one,
Reserved for future ransom– in the hold
Were link’d alike, as for the common people he
Had a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.
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,
Guitars and castanets from Alicant,
All which selected from the spoil he gathers,
Robb’d for his daughter by the best of fathers.
A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,
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.
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.
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.
Arriving at the summit of a hill
Which overlook’d the white walls of his home,
He stopp’d.- 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.
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.
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—bites him by the breeches.
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,
Write odes on the Inconstancy of Woman.
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 wrong’d four times a day.
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.
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 colour’d garbs, as bright as butterflies.
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 unhallow’d, 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.
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 so martial,
To which the Levantines are very partial.
And further on a group of Grecian girls,
The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,
Were strung together like a row of pearls,
Link’d 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);
Their leader sang– and bounded to her song,
With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.
And here, assembled cross-legg’d 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
Dropp’d in their laps, scarce pluck’d, their mellow store.
A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers;
While peaceful as if still an unwean’d 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.
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
Sigh’d for their sakes– that they should e’er grow older.
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 bewitch’d that open to the knockers,
Of magic ladies who, by one sole act,
Transform’d their lords to beasts (but that 's a fact).
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.
Ah! what is man? what perils still environ
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.
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 stirr’d;
And long he paused to re-assure his eyes
In fact much more astonish’d than delighted,
To find so much good company invited.
He did not know (alas! how men will lie)
That a report (especially the Greeks)
Avouch’d 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 return’d to Haidee’s cheeks,
Her tears, too, being return’d into their fount,
She now kept house upon her own account.
Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and fiddling,
Which turn’d 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 seem’d middling,
Compared with what Haidee did with his treasure;
'T was wonderful how things went on improving,
While she had not one hour to spare from loving.
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 show’d the royal penchants of a pirate.
You 're wrong.- He was the mildest manner’d 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.
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 express’d,
He ask’d the meaning of this holiday;
The vinous Greek to whom he had address’d
His question, much too merry to divine
The questioner, fill’d up a glass of wine,
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 hiccup’d, ‘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.’
These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom
They thus address’d– and Lambro’s visage fell–
And o’er his eye a momentary gloom
Pass’d, 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 seem’d to have turn’d Haidee into a matron.
‘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 wash’d 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.’
I said that Lambro was a man of patience,
And certainly he show’d 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.
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 can not explain,
Though doubtless he who can command himself
Is good to govern– almost as a Guelf.
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 coil’d 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.
He ask’d 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 Haidee’s sake, is more than I can say,
But certainly to one deem’d dead, returning,
This revel seem’d a curious mode of mourning.
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
(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.
He enter’d 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 turn’d 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.
He enter’d 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.
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.
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 accustom’d 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.
But something of the spirit of old Greece
Flash’d 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 show’d no path to praise:
Hate to the world and war with every nation
He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.
Still o’er his mind the influence of the clime
Shed its Ionian elegance, which show’d
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 flow’d
Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,
Bedew’d his spirit in his calmer hours.
But whatsoe’er he had of love reposed
On that beloved 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.
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
Of a strong human heart, and in a sire.
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-form’d 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.
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
Shines like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces.
Old Lambro pass’d 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;
Gems, gold, and silver, form’d the service mostly,
Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.
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,
Drest to a Sybarite’s most pamper’d wishes;
The beverage was various sherbets
Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice,
Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best for use.
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 boil’d
Up with the coffee, which (I think) they spoil’d.
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, display’d,
Embroider’d delicately o’er with blue,
Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters,
From poets, or the moralists their betters.
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.
A beauty at the season’s close grown hectic,
A genius who has drunk himself to death,
A rake turn’d methodistic, or Eclectic
(For that 's the name they like to pray beneath)–
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.
Haidee and Juan carpeted their feet
On crimson satin, border’d with pale blue;
Their sofa occupied three parts complete
Of the apartment– and appear’d quite new;
The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet)
Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew
A sun emboss’d in gold, whose rays of tissue,
Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.
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.
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.
Of all the dresses I select Haidee’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 form’d 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, flow’d round her.
One large gold bracelet clasp’d each lovely arm,
Lockless– so pliable from the pure gold
That the hand stretch’d and shut it without harm,
The limb which it adorn’d 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.
Around, as princess of her father’s land,
A like gold bar above her instep roll’d
Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand;
Her hair was starr’d with gems; her veil’s fine fold
Below her breast was fasten’d with a band
Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told;
Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furl’d
About the prettiest ankle in the world.
Her hair’s long auburn waves down to her heel
Flow’d like an Alpine torrent which the sun
Dyes with his morning light,- and would conceal
Her person if allow’d at large to run,
And still they seem 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.
Round her she made an atmosphere of life,
The very air seem’d 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.
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 mock’d the jetty stain,
And in their native beauty stood avenged:
Her nails were touch’d with henna; but again
The power of art was turn’d to nothing, for
They could not look more rosy than before.
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 Shakspeare also says, ‘t is very silly
’To gild refined gold, or paint the lily’
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, furl’d in many a graceful fold,
An emerald aigrette with Haidee’s hair in ‘t
Surmounted as its clasp– a glowing crescent,
Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.
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 satirize or flatter,
As the psalm says, ’inditing a good matter.'
He praised the present, and abused the past,
Reversing the good custom of old days,
An Eastern anti-jacobin at last
He turn’d, 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 like Crashaw.
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 fix’d– 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 earn’d his laureate pension.
But he had genius,- when a turncoat has it,
The 'Vates irritabilis’ 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.
Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less
In company a very pleasant fellow,
Had been the favourite of full many a mess
Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;
And though his meaning they could rarely guess,
Yet still they deign’d to hiccup or to bellow
The glorious meed of popular applause,
Of which the first ne’er knows the second cause.
But now being lifted into high society,
And having pick’d up several odds and ends
Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,
He deem’d, 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.
He had travell’d ‘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,' a piece
Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.
Thus, usually, when he was ask’d to sing,
He gave the different nations something national;
‘T was all the same to him– ’God save the king,'
Or ‘Ca ira,’ according to the fashion all:
His muse made increment of any thing,
From the high lyric down to the low rational:
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?
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 Stael);
In Italy he ‘d ape the ’Trecentisti;'
In Greece, he sing some sort of hymn like this t’ ye:
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
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.
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.’
The mountains look on Marathon–
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
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?
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!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
'T is something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link’d among a fetter’d 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.
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 Thermopylae!
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.
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!
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
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?
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—
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
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.
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.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks–
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.
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
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
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!
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 display’d some feeling– right or wrong;
And feeling, in a poet, is the source
Of others’ feeling; but they are such liars,
And take all colours– like the hands of dyers.
But words are things, 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.
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,
May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.
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:
The present century was growing blind
To the great Marlborough’s skill in giving knocks,
Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe.
Milton 's the prince of poets– so we say;
A little heavy, but no less divine:
An independent being in his day–
Learn’d, 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 whipt at college– a harsh sire– odd spouse,
For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.
All these are, certes, entertaining facts,
Like Shakspeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes;
Like Titus’ youth, and Caesar’s earliest acts;
Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);
Like Cromwell’s pranks;- 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.
All are not moralists, like Southey, when
He prated to the world of ‘Pantisocracy;’
Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then
Season’d his pedlar poems with democracy;
Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen
Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;
When he and Southey, following the same path,
Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).
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, call’d the ‘Excursion.’
Writ in a manner which is my aversion.
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, 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.
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.
I know that what our neighbours call 'longueurs’
(We 've not so good a word, but have the thing
In that complete perfection which ensures
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 epopee,
To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.
We learn from Horace, ’Homer sometimes sleeps;'
We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes,-
To show with what complacency he creeps,
With his dear ‘Waggoners,’ around his lakes.
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.
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?
Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,
He fear’d 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?
‘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’!
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!
Ave Maria! blessed 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,
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem’d stirr’d with prayer.
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.
Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,
In nameless print– 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,- all that springs from the great Whole,
Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.
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 flow’d o’er,
To where the last Caesarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio’s lore
And Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!
The shrill cicadas, 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 learn’d from this example not to fly
From a true lover,- shadow’d my mind’s eye.
Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things–
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o’erlabour’d steer;
Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate’er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gather’d round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring’st the child, too, to the mother’s breast.
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;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!
When Nero perish’d by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy’d,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,
Of nations freed, and the world overjoy’d,
Some hands unseen strew’d flowers upon his tomb:
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.
But I 'm digressing; what on earth has Nero,
Or any such like sovereign buffoons,
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).
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 poietikes.
