Don Juan
Page 22
He will forgive us–yes–it must be–yes.
Oh dearest father, in this agony
Of pleasure and of pain, even while I kiss
Thy garment’s hem with transport, can it be
That doubt should mingle with my filial joy?
Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy.’
39
High and inscrutable the old man stood,
Calm in his voice and calm within his eye,
Not always signs with him of calmest mood.
He looked upon her, but gave no reply,
Then turned to Juan, in whose cheek the blood
Oft came and went, as there resolved to die.
In arms, at least, he stood in act to spring
On the first foe whom Lambro’s call might bring.
40
‘Young man, your sword,’ so Lambro once more said.
Juan replied, ‘Not while this arm is free.’
The old man’s cheek grew pale, but not with dread,
And drawing from his belt a pistol, he
Replied, ‘Your blood be then on your own head,’
Then looked close at the flint, as if to see
’Twas fresh–for he had lately used the lock–
And next proceeded quietly to cock.
41
It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
A moment more will bring the sight to bear
Upon your person, twelve yards off or so,
A gentlemanly distance, not too near,
If you have got a former friend for foe,
But after being fired at once or twice,
The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
42
Lambro presented, and one instant more
Had stopped this canto and Don Juan’s breath,
When Haidée threw herself her boy before,
Stern as her sire. ‘On me,’ she cried, ‘let death
Descend, the fault is mine. This fatal shore
He found, but sought not. I have pledged my faith.
I love him, I will die with him. I knew
Your nature’s firmness–know your daughter’s too.’
43
A minute past, and she had been all tears
And tenderness and infancy, but now
She stood as one who championed human fears.
Pale, statue-like, and stern, she wooed the blow;
And tall beyond her sex and their compeers,
She drew up to her height, as if to show
A fairer mark, and with a fixed eye scanned
Her father’s face, but never stopped his hand.
44
He gazed on her, and she on him.’Twas strange
How like they looked. The expression was the same,
Serenely savage, with a little change
In the large dark eye’s mutual-darted flame,
For she too was as one who could avenge,
If cause should be – a lioness, though tame.
Her father’s blood before her father’s face
Boiled up and proved her truly of his race.
45
I said they were alike, their features and
Their stature differing but in sex and years;
Even to the delicacy of their hand
There was resemblance, such as true blood wears.
And now to see them, thus divided, stand
In fixed ferocity, when joyous tears
And sweet sensations should have welcomed both,
Show what the passions are in their full growth.
46
The father paused a moment, then withdrew
His weapon and replaced it, but stood still,
And looking on her, as to look her through,
‘Not I,’ he said, ‘have sought this stranger’s ill;
Not I have made this desolation. Few
Would bear such outrage and forbear to kill,
But I must do my duty. How thou hast
Done thine, the present vouches for the past.
47
‘Let him disarm, or by my father’s head,
His own shall roll before you like a ball.’
He raised his whistle, as the word he said,
And blew. Another answered to the call,
And rushing in disorderly, though led,
And armed from boot to turban, one and all,
Some twenty of his train came rank on rank.
He gave the word, ‘Arrest or slay the Frank.’
48
Then with a sudden movement, he withdrew
His daughter, while compressed within his clasp.
’Twixt her and Juan interposed the crew.
In vain she struggled in her father’s grasp;
His arms were like a serpent’s coil. Then flew
Upon their prey, as darts an angry asp,
The file of pirates, save the foremost, who
Had fallen with his right shoulder half cut through.
49
The second had his cheek laid open, but
The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took
The blows upon his cutlass, and then put
His own well in, so well ere you could look
His man was floored and helpless at his foot
With the blood running like a little brook
From two smart sabre gashes, deep and red –
One on the arm, the other on the head.
50
And then they bound him where he fell and bore
Juan from the apartment. With a sign
Old Lambro bade them take him to the shore,
Where lay some ships which were to sail at nine.
They laid him in a boat and plied the oar
Until they reached some galliots, placed in line.
On board of one of these and under hatches
They stowed him with strict orders to the watches.
51
The world is full of strange vicissitudes,
And here was one exceedingly unpleasant:
A gentleman so rich in the world’s goods,
Handsome and young, enjoying all the present,
Just at the very time when he least broods
On such a thing is suddenly to sea sent,
Wounded and chained, so that he cannot move,
And all because a lady fell in love.
52
Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic,
Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea,
Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic;
For if my pure libations exceed three,
I feel my heart become so sympathetic
That I must have recourse to black Bohea.
’Tis pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious,
53
Unless when qualified with thee, cognac,
Sweet naiad of the Phlegethontic rill!
Ah, why the liver wilt thou thus attack
And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?
I would take refuge in weak punch, but rack
(In each sense of the word), whene’er I fill
My mild and midnight beakers to the brim,
Wakes me next morning with its synonym.
54
I leave Don Juan for the present, safe,
Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded.
Yet could his corporal pangs amount to half
Of those with which his Haidée’s bosom bounded!
She was not one to weep and rave and chafe
And then give way, subdued because surrounded.
Her mother was a Moorish maid from Fez,
Where all is Eden, or a wilderness.
55
There the large olive rains its amber store
In marble fonts; there grain and flower and fruit
Gush from the ear
th until the land runs o’er;
But there too many a poison-tree has root,
And midnight listens to the lion’s roar,
And long, long deserts scorch the camel’s foot
Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan.
And as the soil is, so the heart of man.
56
Afric is all the sun’s, and as her earth
Her human clay is kindled. Full of power
For good or evil, burning from its birth,
The Moorish blood partakes the planet’s hour,
And like the soil beneath it will bring forth.
Beauty and love were Haidée’s mother’s dower,
But her large dark eye showed deep passion’s force,
Though sleeping like a lion near a source.
57
Her daughter, tempered with a milder ray –
Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair,
Till slowly charged with thunder they display
Terror to earth and tempest to the air –
Had held till now her soft and milky way,
But overwrought with passion and despair,
The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,
Even as the simoom sweeps the blasted plains.
58
The last sight which she saw was Juan’s gore,
And he himself o’ermastered and cut down;
His blood was running on the very floor
Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own.
Thus much she viewed an instant and no more;
Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan.
On her sire’s arm, which until now scarce held
Her writhing, fell she like a cedar felled.
59
A vein had burst, and her sweet lips’ pure dyes
Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o’er;
And her head drooped as when the lily lies
O’ercharged with rain. Her summoned handmaids bore
Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes.
Of herbs and cordials they produced their store,
But she defied all means they could employ,
Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy.
60
Days lay she in that state unchanged; though chill
With nothing livid, still her lips were red.
She had no pulse, but death seemed absent still.
No hideous sign proclaimed her surely dead;
Corruption came not in each mind to kill
All hope. To look upon her sweet face bred
New thoughts of life, for it seemed full of soul;
She had so much, earth could not claim the whole.
61
The ruling passion, such as marble shows
When exquisitely chiselled, still lay there,
But fixed as marble’s unchanged aspect throws
O’er the fair Venus, but forever fair,
O’er the Laocoon’s all eternal throes,
And ever-dying Gladiator’s air.
Their energy like life forms all their fame,
Yet looks not life, for they are still the same.
62
She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake,
Rather the dead, for life seemed something new,
A strange sensation which she must partake
Perforce, since whatsoever met her view
Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache
Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still true
Brought back the sense of pain without the cause,
For, for a while, the Furies made a pause.
63
She looked on many a face with vacant eye,
On many a token without knowing what;
She saw them watch her without asking why,
And recked not who around her pillow sat.
Not speechless though she spoke not; not a sigh
Relieved her thoughts. Dull silence and quick chat
Were tried in vain by those who served; she gave
No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.
64
Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;
Her father watched, she turned her eyes away.
She recognized no being and no spot
However dear or cherished in their day.
They changed from room to room, but all forgot;
Gentle, but without memory she lay.
At length those eyes, which they would fain be weaning
Back to old thoughts, waxed full of fearful meaning.
65
And then a slave bethought her of a harp;
The harper came and tuned his instrument.
At the first notes, irregular and sharp,
On him her flashing eyes a moment bent,
Then to the wall she turned as if to warp
Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent,
And he begun a long low island song
Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong.
66
Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall
In time to his old tune. He changed the theme
And sung of love. The fierce name struck through all
Her recollection; on her flashed the dream
Of what she was and is, if ye could call
To be so being. In a gushing stream
The tears rushed forth from her o’erclouded brain,
Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.
67
Short solace, vain relief! Thought came too quick
And whirled her brain to madness. She arose
As one who ne’er had dwelt among the sick
And flew at all she met, as on her foes.
But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
Although her paroxysm drew towards its close;
Hers was a frenzy which disdained to rave,
Even when they smote her in the hope to save.
68
Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of sense.
Nothing could make her meet her father’s face,
Though on all other things with looks intense
She gazed, but none she ever could retrace.
Food she refused and raiment; no pretence
Availed for either. Neither change of place
Nor time nor skill nor remedy could give her
Senses to sleep – the power seemed gone forever.
69
Twelve days and nights she withered thus. At last
Without a groan or sigh or glance to show
A parting pang, the spirit from her past.
And they who watched her nearest could not know
The very instant, till the change that cast
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,
Glazed o’er her eyes, the beautiful, the black.
Oh to possess such lustre – and then lack!
70
She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle of life, which might
Have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin,
But closed its little being without light
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie withered with one blight.
In vain the dews of heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.
71
Thus lived, thus died she. Never more on her
Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth. Her days and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful, such as had not stayed
Long with her destiny. But she sleeps well
By the seashore, whereon she loved to dwell.
72
That isle is now all desolate and bare,
Its dwel
lings down, its tenants past away;
None but her own and father’s grave is there,
And nothing outward tells of human clay.
Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair;
No stone is there to show, no tongue to say
What was. No dirge, except the hollow sea’s,
Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.
73
But many a Greek maid in a loving song
Sighs o’er her name; and many an islander
With her sire’s story makes the night less long.
Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her.
If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong;
A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape. Let none think to fly the danger,
For soon or late Love is his own avenger.
74
But let me change this theme, which grows too sad,
And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf.
I don’t much like describing people mad,
For fear of seeming rather touched myself.
Besides I’ve no more on this head to add;
And as my Muse is a capricious elf,
We’ll put about and try another tack
With Juan, left half-killed some stanzas back.
75
Wounded and fettered, ‘cabined, cribbed, confined’,
Some days and nights elapsed before that he
Could altogether call the past to mind;
And when he did, he found himself at sea,
Sailing six knots an hour before the wind.
The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee;
Another time he might have liked to see’em,
But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigeum.
76
There on the green and village-cotted hill is
(Flanked by the Hellespont and by the sea)
Entombed the bravest of the brave, Achilles;
They say so (Bryant says the contrary).
And further downward, tall and towering still, is
The tumulus – of whom? Heaven knows;’t may be
Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus,
All heroes who if living still would slay us.
77
High barrows without marble or a name,
A vast, untilled, and mountain-skirted plain,
And Ida in the distance, still the same,
And old Scamander (if’tis he) remain.
The situation seems still formed for fame.
A hundred thousand men might fight again
With ease; but where I sought for Ilion’s walls,
The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls,
78
Troops of untended horses, here and there
Some little hamlets with new names uncouth,
Some shepherds (unlike Paris) led to stare
A moment at the European youth,
Whom to the spot their schoolboy feelings bear,
A Turk with beads in hand and pipe in mouth,