Don Juan
Page 38
Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small?
With or without thee all things at a stand
Are or would be, thou sea of life’s dry land!
57
Catherine, who was the grand epitome
Of that great cause of war or peace or what
You please (it causes all the things which be,
So you may take your choice of this or that) –
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see
The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat
Victory; and pausing as she saw him kneel
With his dispatch, forgot to break the seal.
58
Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor
Forgetting quite the woman (which composed
At least three parts of this great whole) she tore
The letter open with an air which posed
The court, that watched each look her visage wore,
Until a royal smile at length disclosed
Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.
59
Great joy was hers, or rather joys. The first
Was a ta’en city – thirty thousand slain.
Glory and triumph o’er her aspect burst,
As an East Indian sunrise on the main.
These quenched a moment her ambition’s thirst;
So Arab deserts drink in summer’s rain.
In vain! As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash Ambition’s hands.
60
Her next amusement was more fanciful;
She smiled at mad Suwarrow’s rhymes, who threw
Into a Russian couplet rather dull
The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew.
Her third was feminine enough to annul
The shudder which runs naturally through
Our veins, when things called sovereigns think it best
To kill, and generals turn it into jest.
61
The two first feelings ran their course complete
And lighted first her eye and then her mouth.
The whole court looked immediately most sweet,
Like flowers well watered after a long drouth.
But when on the Lieutenant at her feet
Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on youth
Almost as much as on a new dispatch,
Glanced mildly, all the world was on the watch.
62
Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent
When wroth; while pleased, she was as fine a figure
As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent
Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.
She could repay each amatory look you lent
With interest, and in turn was wont with rigour
To exact of Cupid’s bills the full amount
At sight, nor would permit you to discount.
63
With her the latter, though at times convenient,
Was not so necessary; for they tell
That she was handsome and though fierce looked lenient
And always used her favourites too well.
If once beyond her boudoir’s precincts in ye went,
Your ‘fortune’ was in a fair way ‘to swell
A man’, as Giles says, for though she would widow all
Nations, she liked man as an individual.
64
What a strange thing is man, and what a stranger
Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head,
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her! Whether wed
Or widow, maid or mother, she can change her
Mind like the wind. Whatever she has said
Or done is light to what she’ll say or do –
The oldest thing on record and yet new.
65
Oh Catherine! (For of all interjections
To thee both oh! and ah! belong of right
In love and war.) How odd are the connexions
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!
Just now yours were cut out in different sections:
First Ismail’s capture caught your fancy quite;
Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious hatch;
And thirdly, he who brought you the dispatch.
66
Shakespeare talks of ‘the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill’;
And some such visions crossed Her Majesty,
While her young herald knelt before her still.
’Tis very true the hill seemed rather high
For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill
Smoothed even the Simplon’s steep, and by God’s blessing,
With youth and health all kisses are ‘heaven-kissing’.
67
Her Majesty looked down, the youth looked up,
And so they fell in love. She with his face,
His grace, his God-knows-what; for Cupid’s cup
With the first draught intoxicates apace,
A quintessential laudanum or black drop,
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base
Expedient of full bumpers, for the eye
In love drinks all life’s fountains (save tears) dry.
68
He, on the other hand, if not in love,
Fell into that no less imperious passion,
Self-love, which, when some sort of thing above
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,
Or duchess, princess, empress ‘deigns to prove’
(’Tis Pope’s phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,
For one especial person out of many
Makes us believe ourselves as good as any.
69
Besides, he was of that delighted age
Which makes all female ages equal, when
We don’t much care with whom we may engage,
As bold as Daniel in the lion’s den,
So that we can our native sun assuage
In the next ocean, which may flow just then
To make a twilight in, just as Sol’s heat is
Quenched in the lap of the salt sea or Thetis.
70
And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),
Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,
Because each lover looked a sort of king,
Made up upon an amatory pattern,
A royal husband in all save the ring,
Which being the damnedest part of matrimony
Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey.
71
And when you add to this, her womanhood
In its meridian, her blue eyes, or grey
(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good
Or better, as the best examples say;
Napoleon’s, Mary’s, Queen of Scotland, should
Lend to that colour a transcendent ray,
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,
Too wise to look through optics black or blue.),
72
Her sweet smile and her then majestic figure,
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,
Her preference of a boy to men much bigger
(Fellows whom Messalina’s self would pension),
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,
With other extras, which we need not mention –
All these or any one of these explain
Enough to make a stripling very vain.
73
And that’s enough, for love is vanity,
Selfish in its beginning as its end,
Except where’tis a mere insanity,
A maddening spirit which would strive to blend
Itself with beau
ty’s frail inanity,
On which the passion’s self seems to depend.
And hence some heathenish philosophers
Make love the mainspring of the universe.
74
Besides Platonic love, besides the love
Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving
Of faithful pairs (I needs must rhyme with dove,
That good old steamboat which keeps verses moving
‘Gainst reason. Reason ne’er was hand and glove
With rhyme, but always leant less to improving
The sound than sense.) – besides all these pretences
To love, there are those things which words name senses,
75
Those movements, those improvements in our bodies
Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits to mix with a goddess,
For such all women are at first no doubt.
How beautiful that moment, and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our sensations! What a curious way
The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!
76
The noblest kind of love is love platonical,
To end or to begin with. The next grand
Is that which may be christened love canonical,
Because the clergy take the thing in hand.
The third sort to be noted in our chronicle
As flourishing in every Christian land
Is when chaste matrons to their other ties
Add what may be called marriage in disguise.
77
Well, we won’t analyze; our story must
Tell for itself. The Sovereign was smitten,
Juan much flattered by her love or lust.
I cannot stop to alter words once written,
And the two are so mixed with human dust
That he who names one both perchance may hit on.
But in such matters Russia’s mighty Empress
Behaved no better than a common sempstress.
78
The whole court melted into one wide whisper,
And all lips were applied unto all ears.
The elder ladies’ wrinkles curled much crisper
As they beheld. The younger cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper
Smiled as she talked the matter o’er; but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army who stood by.
79
All the ambassadors of all the powers
Inquired who was this very new young man,
Who promised to be great in some few hours,
Which is full soon (though life is but a span).
Already they beheld the silver showers
Of roubles rain, as fast as specie can,
Upon his cabinet, besides the presents
Of several ribbons and some thousand peasants.
80
Catherine was generous; all such ladies are.
Love, that great opener of the heart and all
The ways that lead there, be they near or far,
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small –
Love (though she had a cursèd taste for war
And was not the best wife, unless we call
Such Clytemnestra; though perhaps’tis better
That one should the than two drag on the fetter) –
81
Love had made Catherine make each lover’s fortune;
Unlike our own half chaste Elizabeth,
Whose avarice all disbursements did importune
(If history, the grand liar, ever saith
The truth), and though grief her old age might shorten,
Because she put a favourite to death,
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation
And stinginess disgrace her sex and station.
82
But when the levee rose, and all was bustle
In the dissolving circle, all the nations’
Ambassadors began as ‘twere to hustle
Round the young man with their congratulations.
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle
Of gentle dames, among whose recreations
It is to speculate on handsome faces,
Especially when such lead to high places.
83
Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,
A general object of attention, made
His answers with a very graceful bow
As if born for the ministerial trade.
Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow
Nature had written ‘gentleman’. He said
Little, but to the purpose; and his manner
Flung hovering graces o’er him like a banner.
84
An order from Her Majesty consigned
Our young Lieutenant to the genial care
Of those in office. All the world looked kind
(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,
Which youth would not act ill to keep in mind),
As also did Miss Protasoff then there,
Named from her mystic office I’Eprouveuse,
A term inexplicable to the Muse.
85
With her then, as in humble duty bound,
Juan retired, and so will I, until
My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.
We have just lit on a ‘heaven-kissing hill’,
So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,
And all my fancies whirling like a mill,
Which is a signal to my nerves and brain
To take a quiet ride in some green lane.
Canto X
1
When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation –
’Tis said (for I’ll not answer above ground
For any sage’s creed or calculation) –
A mode of proving that the earth turned round
In a most natural whirl called gravitation;
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.
2
Man fell with apples and with apples rose,
If this be true; for we must deem the mode
In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose
Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road
A thing to counterbalance human woes.
For ever since immortal man hath glowed
With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon
Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.
3
And wherefore this exordium? Why just now,
In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,
My bosom underwent a glorious glow,
And my internal spirit cut a caper.
And though so much inferior, as I know,
To those who by the dint of glass and vapour
Discover stars and sail in the wind’s eye,
I wish to do as much by poesy.
4
In the wind’s eye I have sailed and sail, but for
The stars, I own my telescope is dim.
But at the least I have shunned the common shore,
And leaving land far out of sight, would skim
The ocean of eternity. The roar
Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,
But still seaworthy skiff, and she may float
Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.
5
We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom
Of favouritism, but not yet in the blush;
And far be it from my Muses to presume
(For I have more than one Muse at a push)
To follow him beyond the drawing room.
It is enough that fortune found him flush
Of youth and vigour, beauty, and
those things
Which for an instant clip enjoyment’s wings.
6
But soon they grow again and leave their nest.
‘Oh!’ saith the Psalmist, ‘that I had a dove’s
Pinions to flee away and be at rest!’
And who that recollects young years and loves –
Though hoary now and with a withering breast
And palsied fancy, which no longer roves
Beyond its dimmed eye’s sphere – but would much rather
Sigh like his son than cough like his grandfather?
7
But sighs subside and tears (even widows’) shrink,
Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow
So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,
Which threatens inundations deep and yellow.
Such difference doth a few months make. You’d think
Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow.
No more it doth; its ploughs but change their boys,
Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.
8
But coughs will come when sighs depart, and now
And then before sighs cease, for oft the one
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow
Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the sun
Of life reach ten o’clock. And while a glow,
Hectic and brief as summer’s day nigh done,
O’erspreads the cheek, which seems too pure for clay,
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die – how happy they!
9
But Juan was not meant to die so soon.
We left him in the focus of such glory
As may be won by favour of the moon
Or ladies’ fancies – rather transitory
Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,
Because December, with his breath so hoary,
Must come? Much rather should he court the ray
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.
10
Besides, he had some qualities which fix
Middle-aged ladies even more than young.
The former know what’s what; while new-fledged chicks
Know little more of love than what is sung
In rhymes or dreamt (for fancy will play tricks)
In visions of those skies from whence love sprung.
Some reckon women by their suns or years;
I rather think the moon should date the dears.
11
And why? Because she’s changeable and chaste.
I know no other reason, whatsoe’er
Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,
May choose to tax me with, which is not fair
Nor flattering to ‘their temper or their taste’,
As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air.
However, I forgive him and I trust
He will forgive himself – if not, I must.
12
Old enemies who have become new friends
Should so continue.’Tis a point of honour,