Selected Poems
Page 60
He left this Adriatic Ariadne.
XXIX
225
And Laura waited long, and wept a little,
And thought of wearing weeds, as well she might;
She almost lost all appetite for victual,
And could not sleep with ease alone at night;
She deem’d the window-frames and shutters brittle
230
Against a daring housebreaker or sprite,
And so she thought it prudent to connect her
With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect her.
XXX
She chose, (and what is there they will not choose,
If only you will but oppose their choice?)
235
Till Beppo should return from his long cruise,
And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice,
A man some women like, and yet abuse –
A coxcomb was he by the public voice;
A Count of wealth, they said, as well as quality,
240
And in his pleasures of great liberality.
XXXI
And then he was a Count, and then he knew
Music, and dancing, fiddling, French and Tuscan;
The last not easy, be it known to you,
For few Italians speak the right Etruscan.
245
He was a critic upon operas, too,
And knew all niceties of the sock and buskin;
And no Venetian audience could endure a
Song, scene, or air, when he cried ‘seccatura!’
XXXII
His ‘bravo’ was decisive, for that sound
250
Hush’d ‘Academie’ sigh’d in silent awe;
The fiddlers trembled as he look’d around,
For fear of some false note’s detected flaw.
The ‘prima donna’s’ tuneful heart would bound,
Dreading the deep damnation of his ‘bah!’
255
Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto,
Wish’d him five fathom under the Rialto.
XXXIII
He patronised the Improvisatori,
Nay, could himself extemporise some stanzas,
Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell a story,
260
Sold pictures, and was skilful in the dance as
Italians can be, though in this their glory
Must surely yield the palm to that which France has;
In short, he was a perfect cavaliero,
And to his very valet seem’d a hero.
XXXIV
265
Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous;
So that no sort of female could complain,
Although they’re now and then a little clamorous,
He never put the pretty souls in pain;
His heart was one of those which most enamour us,
270
Wax to receive, and marble to retain.
He was a lover of the good old school,
Who still become more constant as they cool.
XXXV
No wonder such accomplishments should turn
A female head, however sage and steady –
275
With scarce a hope that Beppo could return,
In law he was almost as good as dead, he
Nor sent, nor wrote, nor show’d the least concern,
And she had waited several years already;
And really if a man won’t let us know
280
That he’s alive, he’s dead, or should be so.
XXXVI
Besides, within the Alps, to every woman,
(Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin,)
’Tis, I may say, permitted to have two men;
I can’t tell who first brought the custom in,
285
But ‘Cavalier Serventes’ are quite common,
And no one notices nor cares a pin;
And we may call this (not to say the worst)
A second marriage which corrupts the first.
XXXVII
The word was formerly a ‘Cicisbeo, ‘
290
But that is now grown vulgar and indecent;
The Spaniards call the person a ‘Cortejo,’1
For the same mode subsists in Spain, though recent;
In short it reaches from the Po to Teio,
And may perhaps at last be o’er the sea sent.
295
But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses!
Or what becomes of damage and divorces?
XXXVIII
However, I still think, with all due deference
To the fair single part of the Creation,
That married ladies should preserve the preference
300
In téte-á-téte or general conversation –
And this I say without peculiar reference
To England, France, or any other nation –
Because they know the world, and are at ease,
And being natural, naturally please.
XXXIX
305
’Tis true, your budding Miss is very charming,
But shy and awkward at first coming out,
So much alarm’d, that she is quite alarming,
All Giggle, Blush; half Pertness, and half Pout
And glancing at Mamma, for fear there’s harm in
310
What you, she, it, or they, may be about,
The Nursery still lisps out in all they utter –
Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.
XL
But ‘Cavalier Servente’ is the phrase
Used in politest circles to express
315
This supernumerary slave, who stays
Close to the lady as a part of dress,
Her word the only law which he obeys.
His is no sinecure, as you may guess;
Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call,
320
And carries fan and tippet, gloves and shawl.
XLI
With all its sinful doings, I must say,
That Italy’s a pleasant place to me,
Who love to see the Sun shine every day,
And vines (not nail’d to walls) from tree to tree
325
Festoon’d, much like the back scene of a play,
Or melodrame, which people flock to see,
When the first act is ended by a dance
In vineyards copied from the south of France.
XLII
I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,
330
Without being forced to bid my groom be sure
My cloak is round his middle strapp’d about,
Because the skies are not the most secure;
I know too that, if stopp’d upon my route,
Where the green alleys windingly allure,
335
Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way, –
In England ’twould be dung, dust, or a dray.
XLIII
I also like to dine on becaficas,
To see the Sun set, sure he’ll rise to-morrow,
Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as
340
A drunken man’s dead eye in maudlin sorrow,
But with all Heaven t’himself; that day will break as
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow
That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers
Where reeking London’s smoky caldron simmers.
XLIV
345
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,
350
That not a single accent see
ms uncouth,
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,
Which we’re obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.
XLV
I like the women too (forgive my folly),
From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,
355
And large black eyes that flash on you a volley
Of rays that say a thousand things at once,
To the high dama’s brow, more melancholy,
But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance,
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
360
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
XLVI
Eve of the land which still is Paradise!
Italian beauty! didst thou not inspire
Raphael,1 who died in thy embrace, and vies
With all we know of Heaven, or can desire,
365
In what he hath bequeath’d us? – in what guise,
Though flashing from the fervour of the lyre,
Would words describe thy past and present glow,
While yet Canova can create below?2
XLVII
‘England! with all thy faults I love thee still, ‘
370
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;
I like the government (but that is not it);
I like the freedom of the press and quill;
I like the Habeas Corpus (when we’ve got it);
375
I like a parliamentary debate,
Particularly when ’tis not too late;
XLVIII
I like the taxes, when they’re not too many;
I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;
380
Have no objection to a pot of beer;
I like the weather, when it is not rainy,
That is, I like two months of every year.
And so God save the Regent, Church, and King!
Which means that I like all and every thing.
XLIX
385
Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,
Poor’s rate, Reform, my own, the nation’s debt,
Our little riots just to show we are free men,
Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette,
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,
390
All these I can forgive, and those forget,
And greatly venerate our recent glories,
And wish they were not owing to the Tories.
L
But to my tale of Laura, – for I find
Digression is a sin, that by degrees
395
Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind,
And, therefore, may the reader too displease –
The gentle reader, who may wax unkind,
And caring little for the author’s ease,
Insist on knowing what he means, a hard
400
And hapless situation for a bard.
LI
Oh that I had the art of easy writing
What should be easy reading! could I scale
Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing
Those pretty poems never known to fail,
405
How quickly would I print (the world delighting)
A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale;
And sell you, mix’d with western sentimentalism,
Some samples of the finest Orientalism.
LII
But I am but a nameless sort of person,
410
(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)
And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,
The first that Walker’s Lexicon unravels,
And when I can’t find that, I put a worse on,
Not caring as I ought for critics’ cavils;
415
I’ve half a mind to tumble down to prose,
But verse is more in fashion – so here goes.
LIII
The Count and Laura made their new arrangement,
Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do,
For half a dozen years without estrangement;
420
They had their little differences, too;
Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant:
In such affairs there probably are few
Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble,
From sinners of high station to the rabble.
LIV
425
But, on the whole, they were a happy pair,
As happy as unlawful love could make them;
The gentleman was fond, the lady fair,
Their chains so slight, ’twas not worth while to break them:
The world beheld them with indulgent air;
430
The pious only wish’d ‘the devil take them!’
He took them not; he very often waits,
And leaves old sinners to be young ones’ baits.
LV
But they were young: Oh! what without our youth
Would love be! What would youth be without love!
435
Youth lends it joy, and sweetness, vigour, truth,
Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above;
But, languishing with years, it grows uncouth –
One of few things experience don’t improve,
Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows
440
Are always so preposterously jealous.
LVI
It was the Carnival, as I have said
Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so
Laura the usual preparations made,
Which you do when your mind’s made up to go
445
Tonight to Mrs. Boehm’s masquerade,
Spectator, or partaker in the show;
The only difference known between the cases
Is – here, we have six weeks of ‘varnish’d faces.’
LVII
Laura, when dress’d, was (as I sang before)
450
A pretty woman as was ever seen,
Fresh as the Angel o’er a new inn door,
Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,
With all the fashions which the last month wore,
Colour’d, and silver paper leaved between
455
That and the title-page, for fear the press
Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.
LVIII
They went to the Ridotto; – ’tis a hall
Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;
Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,
460
But that’s of no importance to my strain;
’Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,
Excepting that it can’t be spoilt by rain:
The company is ‘mix’d’ (the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they’re below your notice);
LIX
465
For a ‘mix’d company’ implies that, save
Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more,
Whom you may bow to without looking grave,
The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore
Of public places, where they basely brave
470
The fashionable stare of twenty score
Of well-bred persons, call’d ‘the World;’ but I,
Although I know them, really don’t know why.
LX
This is the case in England; at least was
During the dynasty of Dandies, now
475
Perchance succeeded by some other class
Of imitated imitators: – how
Irreparably soon decline, alas!
The demagogues of fashion: all below
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br /> Is frail; how easily the world is lost
480
By love, or war, and now and then by frost!
LXI
Crush’d was Napoleon by the northern Thor,
Who knock’d his army down with icy hammer,
Stopp’d by the elements, like a whaler, or
A blundering novice in his new French grammar;
485
Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war,
And as for Fortune – but I dare not d—n her,
Because, were I to ponder to infinity,
The more I should believe in her divinity.
LXII
She rules the present, past, and all to be yet,
490
She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage;
I cannot say that she’s done much for me yet;
Not that I mean her bounties to disparage,
We’ve not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet
How much she’ll make amends for past miscarriage;
495
Meantime the goddess I’ll no more importune,
Unless to thank her when she’s made my fortune.
LXIII
To turn, – and to return; – the devil take it!
This story slips for ever through my fingers,
Because, just as the stanza likes to make it,
500
It needs must be – and so it rather lingers;
This form of verse began, I can’t well break it,
But must keep time and tune like public singers;
But if I once get through my present measure,
I’ll take another when I’m next at leisure.
LXIV
505
They went to the Ridotto (’tis a place
To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,
Just to divert my thoughts a little space,
Because I’m rather hippish, and may borrow
Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face
510
May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow
Slackens its pace sometimes, I’ll make, or find,
Something shall leave it half an hour behind.)
LXV
Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,
Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips:
515
To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;
To some she curtsies, and to some she dips,
Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow’d,
Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips;
She then surveys, condemns, but pities still
520
Her dearest friends for being dress’d so ill.
LXVI
One has false curls, another too much paint,
A third – where did she buy that frightful turban?
A fourth’s so pale she fears she’s going to faint,
A fifth’s look’s vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban,
525
A sixth’s white silk has got a yellow taint,
A seventh’s thin muslin surely will be her bane,
And lo! an eighth appears, – ‘I’ll see no more!’