The verge of heaven; and in her large eyes A mixture of sensations might be scann'd, [wrought Of half voluptuousness and half command. CIX. Her form had all the softness of her sex, Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet somehow there was something somewhere wantAs if she rather order'd than was granting.- [ing,, CX. Something imperial, or imperious, threw A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain Was thrown, as 'twere, about the neck of you,And rapture's self will seem almost a pain With aught which looks like despotism in view: Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain We would against them make the flesh obeyThe spirit, in the end, will have its way. CXI. Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet; Her state, (it is the custom of her nation,) A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign She was a sultan's bride, (thank Heaven, not mine!) CXII. "To hear and to obey" had been from birth Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will; Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth; Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood still; Had she but been a Christian, I've a notion Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought; closed: There was no end unto the things she bought, CXIV. Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught Had his instructions where and how to deal: She had no prudence, but he had; and this Explains the garb which Juan took amiss. 1 But to the main point, where we have been tending: I also would suggest the fitting time, And deem'd herself extremely condescending CXVII. And so it was, in proper time and place, But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face, Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing, Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace, And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing: These words went through his soul like Arab spears, So that he spoke not, but burst into tears. CXVIII. She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears, CXIX. And she would have consoled, but knew not how; There might arise some pouting petty care CXX. But nature teaches more than power can spoil, For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation, And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why, CXXI. But tears must stop like all things else; and soon Of one who dared to ask if "he had loved," To gentlemen in any such like case, That is to say-in a meridian clime; With us there is more law given to the case, CXXIV. Juan's was good; and might have been still better CXXV At length, in an imperial way, she laid Her hand on his, and bending on his eyes, Look'd into his for love, where none replies: CXXVI. This was an awkward test, as Juan found, But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride; And seated her all drooping by his side. CXXVII. "Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proof I am not dazzled by this splendid roof; CXXVIII. This was a truth to us extremely trite, Not so to her who ne'er had heard such things; She hardly knew, to such perfection brings Aware of their due royal rights o'er men. CXXIX. Besides, as has been said, she was so fair A kingdom or confusion any where; And also, as may be presumed, she laid Some stress upon those charms which seldom are By the possessors thrown into the shade;She thought hers gave a double "right divine," And half of that opinion's also mine. CXXX. Remember, or (if you cannot) imagine, Ye! who have kept your chastity when young, CXXXVI. A vulgar tempest 'twere to a typhoon To match a common fury with her rage, And yet she did not want to reach the moon, Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page; Her anger pitch'd into a lower tune, Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and ageHer wish was but to "kill, kill, kill," like Lear's, And then her thirst of blood was quench'd in tears. CXXXVII. A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd, While some more desperate dowager has been waging | And then her sex's shame broke in at last, Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung By your refusal, recollect her raging! Suppose, but you already have supposed, Of good examples; pity that so few by To educate-ye youth of Europe-you by! But when you have supposed the few we know, You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow. CXXXII. A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness, Of ladies, who can not have their own way; The love of offspring's nature's general law, This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer CXXXIV. If I said fire flash'd from Gulbeyaz' eyes, So supernatural was her passion's rise; For ne'er till now she knew a check'd desire: Even ye who know what a check'd woman is, (Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this. CXXXV. Her rage was but a minute's, and 'twas well- Like ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle; A sentiment till then in her but weak, It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers. It teaches-Heaven knows only what it teaches, But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches. CXXXIX. Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head; Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence CXL. She thought to stab herself, but then she had So that a poniard pierces if 'tis struck hard: CXLI. Juan was moved: he had made up his mind Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish, And thus heroically stood resign'd, Rather than sin,-except to his own wish: But all his great preparatives for dying Dissolved like snow before a woman crying. CXLII. As through his palms Bob Acres' valor oozed, Just as a friar may accuse his vow, CXLIII. So he began to stammer some excuses; But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter, Just as a languid smile began to flatter CXLIV. Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!" Your slave brings tidings-he hopes not too soon- CXLV "Is it," exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, "as you say? I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning! But bid my women form the milky way. [ing Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warnAnd, Christian! mingle with them as you may, CL. He saw with his own eyes the moon was round 'Tis true, a little troubled here and there, CLI. Except in shape of envoys, who were sent To lodge there when a war broke out, according Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording CLII. He had fifty daughters and four dozens sons, They lived till some bashaw was sent abroad, When she, whose turn it was, wedded at once, Sometimes at six years old-though this seems odd, And as you'd have me pardon your past scorn- 'Tis true; the reason is, that the bashaw Here they were interrupted by a humming [ing-"Must make a present to his sire in law. Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's coming!" CLVII. Is not a thing of that astringent quality, CLVIII. Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause, To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme. The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps. cease. PREFACE ΤΟ CANTOS VI. VII. AND VIII. papers-and the harangue of the coroner in ar With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire: "La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres." "Plus les mœurs sont depravées, plus les expressions devienment mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu." This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the and hypocritical mass which leavens the present following cantos (i. e. the 7th and 8th) are taken English generation, and is the only answer they from a French work, entitled, "Histoire de la Nou- deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of velle Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to blasphemer-which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circum-reformer, &c., are the changes which the hirelings stance of his saving the infant, which was the actual are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young should be welcome to all who recollect on whom volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and memory can never cease to be regarded with and so have been and may be many who dare to reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not Londonderry, but written some time before his de- refutation, nor even triumph: the wretched infidel, Had that person's oligarchy died with him, as he is called, is probably happier in his prison they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am than the proudest of his assailants. With his aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions or wrong-but he has suffered for them, and that of all whom his whole existence was consumed in very suffering for conscience' sake will make more endeavoring to enslave. That he was an amiable proselytes to Deism than the example of heterodox man in private life, may or may not be true; but prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to opwith this the public have nothing to do: and as to pression, or over-pensioned homicides to the imlamenting his death, it will be time enough when pious alliance which insults the world with the Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a name of "Holy!" I have no wish to trample minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as on the dishonored or the dead; but it would be the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in well if the adherents to the classes from whence intellect that ever tyrannized over a country. It is those persons sprung, should abate a little of the the first time, indeed, since the Normans, that Eng-cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing land has been insulted by a minister (at least) who and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, andcould not speak English, and that Parliament per- but enough for the present. mitted to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop. I say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; Of the manner of his death little need be said, but as the legitimates have always the law in their own mouths, let them make except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington the most of it. When Lord Sandwich sald "he did not know the difference between From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genins, or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been almost a universal one: an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If evet of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an man swed his country, Canning can; but will he? I, for one, hope so. elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide-he merely orthodoxy and heterodoxy,"--Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, cut the "carotid artery" (blessings on their learn- my lord, is my dory, and heterodoxy is another's man's doxy." A prelate ing!) and lo! the pageant, and the abbey, and of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham cal "the syllables of dolor yelled forth" by the news-Church of Englandism" |