And I know nothing which could make amends
For a return to hatred. I would shun her
Like garlic, howsoever she extends
Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.
Old flames, new wives become our bitterest foes;
Converted foes should scorn to join with those.
13
This were the worst desertion. Renegados,
Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,
Would scarcely join again the reformados,
Whom he forsook to fill the laureate’s sty.
And honest men from Iceland to Barbados,
Whether in Caledon or Italy,
Should not veer round with every breath nor seize,
To pain, the moment when you cease to please.
14
The lawyer and the critic but behold
The baser sides of literature and life,
And nought remains unseen, but much untold,
By those who scour those double vales of strife.
While common men grow ignorantly old,
The lawyer’s brief is like the surgeon’s knife,
Dissecting the whole inside of a question
And with it all the process of digestion.
15
A legal broom’s a moral chimney sweeper,
And that’s the reason he himself’s so dirty.
The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper
Than can be hid by altering his shirt. He
Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper;
At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty
In all their habits. Not so you, I own;
As Caesar wore his robe, you wear your gown.
16
And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below),
Are over. Here’s a health to Auld Lang Syne!
I do not know you and may never know
Your face, but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.
17
And when I use the phrase of ‘Auld Lang Syne’,
’Tis not addressed to you, the more’s the pity
For me, for I would rather take my wine
With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.
But somehow – it may seem a schoolboy’s whine,
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty –
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,
18
As Auld Lang Syne brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie’s Brig’s black wall,
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo’s offspring. Floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine;
I care not –’tis a glimpse of Auld Lang Syne.
19
And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be owned was sensitive and surly.
Yet’tis in vain such sallies to permit;
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early.
I ‘scotched, not killed’, the Scotchman in my blood
And love the land of ‘mountain and of flood’.
20
Don Juan, who was real or ideal –
For both are much the same, since what men think
Exists when the once thinkers are less real
Than what they thought, for mind can never sink
And’gainst the body makes a strong appeal;
And yet’tis very puzzling on the brink
Of what is called eternity to stare
And know no more of what is here than there –
21
Don Juan grew a very polished Russian.
How we won’t mention, why we need not say.
Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion
Of any slight temptation in their way,
But his just now were spread as is a cushion
Smoothed for a monarch’s seat of honour. Gay
Damsels and dances, revels, ready money
Made ice seem paradise, and winter sunny.
22
The favour of the Empress was agreeable;
And though the duty waxed a little hard,
Young people at his time of life should be able
To come off handsomely in that regard.
He now was growing up like a green tree, able
For love, war, or ambition, which reward
Their luckier votaries, till old age’s tedium
Make some prefer the circulating medium.
23
About this time, as might have been anticipated,
Seduced by youth and dangerous examples,
Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated,
Which is a sad thing and not only tramples
On our fresh feelings, but – as being participated
With all kinds of incorrigible samples
Of frail humanity – must make us selfish
And shut our souls up in us like a shellfish.
24
This we pass over. We will also pass
The usual progress of intrigues between
Unequal matches, such as are, alas,
A young Lieutenant’s with a not old Queen,
But one who is not so youthful as she was
In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.
Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter,
And wrinkles (the damned democrats) won’t flatter.
25
And Death – the sovereign’s sovereign, though the great
Gracchus of all mortality, who levels
With his agrarian laws, the high estate
Of him who feasts and fights and roars and revels
To one small grass-grown patch (which must await
Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils
Who never had a foot of land till now –
Death’s a reformer, all men must allow.
26
He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry
Of waste and haste and glare and gloss and glitter
In this gay clime of bearskins black and furry –
Which (though I hate to say a thing that’s bitter)
Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry,
Through all the ‘purple and fine linen’, fitter
For Babylon’s than Russia’s royal harlot,
And neutralize her outward show of scarlet.
27
And this same state we won’t describe. We could
Perhaps from hearsay or from recollection;
But getting nigh grim Dante’s ‘obscure wood’,
That horrid equinox, that hateful section
Of human years, that halfway house, that rude
Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circumspection
Life’s sad post-horses o’er the dreary frontier
Of age, and looking back to youth, give one tear –
28
I won’t describe, that is, if I can help
Description; and I won’t reflect, that is,
If I can stave off thought, which, as a whelp
Clings to its teat, sticks to me through the abyss
Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp
Holds by the rock; or as a lover’s kiss
Drains its first draught of lips. But as I said,
I won’t philosophize and will be read.
29
Juan, instead of courting courts, was c
ourted,
A thing which happens rarely. This he owed
Much to his youth and much to his reported
Valour, much also to the blood he showed
Like a racehorse, much to each dress he sported,
Which set the beauty off in which he glowed,
As purple clouds befringe the sun, but most
He owed to an old woman and his post.
30
He wrote to Spain, and all his near relations,
Perceiving he was in a handsome way
Of getting on himself and finding stations
For cousins also, answered the same day.
Several prepared themselves for emigrations,
And, eating ices, were o’erheard to say
That with the addition of a slight pelisse,
Madrid’s and Moscow’s climes were of a piece.
31
His mother, Donna Inez, finding too
That in the lieu of drawing on his banker,
Where his assets were waxing rather few,
He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,
Replied that she was glad to see him through
Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker,
As the sole sign of man’s being in his senses
Is learning to reduce his past expenses.
32
She also recommended him to God
And no less to God’s Son as well as Mother,
Warned him against Greek worship, which looks odd
In Catholic eyes, but told him too to smother
Outward dislike, which don’t look well abroad,
Informed him that he had a little brother,
Born in a second wedlock, and above
All praised the Empress’s maternal love.
33
She could not too much give her approbation
Unto an Empress who preferred young men,
Whose age and what was better still, whose nation
And climate stopped all scandal (now and then).
At home it might have given her some vexation,
But where thermometers sunk down to ten
Or five or one or zero, she could never
Believe that virtue thawed before the river.
34
Oh for a forty-parson-power to chaunt
Thy praise, hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn
Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,
Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim!
Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,
Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,
Drew quiet consolation through its hint,
When she no more could read the pious print.
35
She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul,
But went to heaven in as sincere a way
As anybody on the elected roll,
Which portions out upon the judgement day
Heaven’s freeholds in a sort of doomsday scroll,
Such as the conqueror William did repay
His knights with, lotting others’ properties
Into some sixty thousand new knights’ fees.
36
I can’t complain, whose ancestors are there –
Erneis, Radulphus. Eight-and-forty manors
(If that my memory doth not greatly err)
Were their reward for following Billy’s banners.
And though I can’t help thinking ‘twas scarce fair
To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners,
Yet as they founded churches with the produce,
You’ll deem no doubt they put it to a good use.
37
The gentle Juan flourished, though at times
He felt like other plants called sensitive,
Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes,
Save such as Southey can afford to give.
Perhaps he longed in bitter frosts for climes
In which the Neva’s ice would cease to live
Before May Day. Perhaps despite his duty,
In royalty’s vast arms he sighed for beauty.
38
Perhaps – but sans perhaps, we need not seek
For causes young or old. The cankerworm
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek,
As well as further drain the withered form.
Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week
His bills in, and however we may storm,
They must be paid. Though six days smoothly run,
The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.
39
I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick.
The Empress was alarmed, and her physician
(The same who physicked Peter) found the tick
Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition
Which augured of the dead, however quick
Itself, and showed a feverish disposition,
At which the whole court was extremely troubled,
The Sovereign shocked, and all his medicines doubled.
40
Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:
Some said he had been poisoned by Potemkin;
Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;
Some said ‘twas a concoction of the humours,
Which with the blood too readily will claim kin;
Others again were ready to maintain,
‘’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.’
41
But here is one prescription out of many:
‘Sodae-sulphat. 3. vi. 3. s. mannae optim.
Aq. fervent. F. 3. ifs. 3ij. tinct. sennae
Haustus.’ (And here the surgeon came and cupped him.)
‘R. pulv. com. gr. iij. ipecacuanhae’
(With more beside, if Juan had not stopped ‘em).
‘Bolus potassae sulphuret. sumendus,
Et haustus ter in die capiendus.’
42
This is the way physicians mend or end us,
Secundum artem. But although we sneer
In health, when ill we call them to attend us
Without the least propensity to jeer.
While that hiatus maxime deflendus
To be filled up by spade or mattock’s near,
Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,
We tease mild Baillie or soft Abernethy.
43
Juan demurred at this first notice to
Quit; and though Death had threatened an ejection,
His youth and constitution bore him through
And sent the doctors in a new direction.
But still his state was delicate; the hue
Of health but flickered with a faint reflection
Along his wasted cheek and seemed to gravel
The faculty, who said that he must travel.
44
The climate was too cold they said for him,
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion
Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,
Who did not like at first to lose her minion;
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim
And drooping like an eagle’s with dipt pinion,
She then resolved to send him on a mission,
But in a style becoming his condition.
45
There was just then a kind of a discussion,
A sort of treaty or negotiation
Between the British cabinet and Russian,
Maintained with all the due prevarication,
With which great states such things are apt to push on –
Something about the Baltic’s navigation,
Hides, train oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,
Which Britons deem their uti possidetis.
46
So Catherine, who had a handsome way
Of fitting out her favourites, conferred<
br />
This secret charge on Juan to display
At once her royal splendour and reward
His services. He kissed hands the next day,
Received instructions how to play his card,
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,
Which showed what great discernment was the donor’s.
47
But she was lucky, and luck’s all. Your queens
Are generally prosperous in reigning,
Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means.
But to continue. Though her years were waning,
Her climacteric teased her like her teens;
And though her dignity brooked no complaining,
So much did Juan’s setting off distress her,
She could not find at first a fit successor.
48
But Time the comforter will come at last;
And four-and-twenty hours and twice that number
Of candidates requesting to be placed
Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber.
Not that she meant to fix again in haste,
Nor did she find the quantity encumber,
But always choosing with deliberation,
Kept the place open for their emulation.
49
While this high post of honour’s in abeyance,
For one or two days, reader, we request
You’ll mount with our young hero the conveyance
Which wafted him from Petersburgh. The best
Barouche, which had the glory to display once
The fair Tsarina’s autocratic crest
(When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris),
Was given to her favourite and now bore his.
50
A bulldog and a bullfinch and an ermine,
All private favourites of Don Juan, for
(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)
He had a kind of inclination or
Weakness for what most people deem mere vermin –
Live animals. An old maid of threescore
For cats and birds more penchant ne’er displayed,
Although he was not old nor even a maid.
51
The animals aforesaid occupied
Their station. There were valets, secretaries
In other vehicles, but at his side
Sat little Leila, who survived the parries
He made’gainst Cossack sabres in the wide
Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies
Her note, she don’t forget the infant girl
Whom he preserved – a pure and living pearl.
52
Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile
And with that gentle, serious character,
As rare in living beings as a fossil
Man midst thy mouldy mammoths, grand Cuvier!
Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle
With this o’erwhelming world, where all must err,
But she was yet but ten years old and therefore
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