Don Juan
Page 40
Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.
53
Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.
I cannot tell exactly what it was;
He was not yet quite old enough to prove
Parental feelings, and the other class,
Called brotherly affection, could not move
His bosom, for he never had a sister.
Ah, if he had, how much he would have missed her!
54
And still less was it sensual, for besides
That he was not an ancient debauchee
(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins’ salt tides,
As acids rouse a dormant alkali),
Although (’twill happen as our planet guides)
His youth was not the chastest that might be,
There was the purest platonism at bottom
Of all his feelings – only he forgot’em.
55
Just now there was no peril of temptation;
He loved the infant orphan he had saved,
As patriots (now and then) may love a nation.
His pride too felt that she was not enslaved,
Owing to him, as also her salvation
Through his means and the church’s might be paved.
But one thing’s odd, which here must be inserted:
The little Turk refused to be converted.
56
’Twas strange enough she should retain the impression
Through such a scene of change and dread and slaughter.
But though three bishops told her the transgression,
She showed a great dislike to holy water.
She also had no passion for confession;
Perhaps she had nothing to confess. No matter,
Whate’er the cause, the church made little of it.
She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet.
57
In fact the only Christian she could bear
Was Juan, whom she seemed to have selected
In place of what her home and friends once were.
He naturally loved what he protected,
And thus they formed a rather curious pair,
A guardian green in years, a ward connected
In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender,
And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender.
58
They journeyed on through Poland and through Warsaw,
Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron,
Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw
Which gave her dukes the graceless name of Biron.
’Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw
Who marched to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren,
To lose by one month’s frost some twenty years
Of conquest and his guard of grenadiers.
59
Let not this seem an anticlimax. ‘Oh
My Guard! my Old Guard!’ exclaimed that god of clay.
Think of the Thunderer’s falling down below
Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!
Alas, that glory should be chilled by snow!
But should we wish to warm us on our way
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko’s name
Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla’s flame.
60
From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper,
And Königsberg the capital, whose vaunt,
Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper,
Has lately been the great Professor Kant.
Juan, who cared not a tobacco stopper
About philosophy, pursued his jaunt
To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions
Have princes who spur more than their postilions.
61
And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like,
Until he reached the castellated Rhine.
Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike
All phantasies, not even excepting mine.
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line
Between the present and past worlds and hover
Upon their airy confine, half-seas-over.
62
But Juan posted on through Mannheim, Bonn,
Which Drachenfels frowns over like a spectre
Of the good feudal times forever gone,
On which I have not time just now to lecture.
From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne,
A city which presents to the inspector
Eleven thousand maidenheads of bone,
The greatest number flesh hath ever known.
63
From thence to Holland’s Hague and Helvoetsluys,
That water land of Dutchmen and of ditches,
Where juniper expresses its best juice,
The poor man’s sparkling substitute for riches.
Senates and sages have condemned its use;
But to deny the mob a cordial, which is
Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel
Good government has left them, seems but cruel.
64
Here he embarked and with a flowing sail
Went bounding for the island of the free,
Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale.
High dashed the spray, the bows dipped in the sea,
And seasick passengers turned somewhat pale,
But Juan, seasoned as he well might be
By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs
Which passed or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs.
65
At length they rose, like a white wall along
The blue sea’s border; and Don Juan felt –
What even young strangers feel a little strong
At the first sight of Albion’s chalky belt –
A kind of pride that he should be among
Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt
Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole
And made the very billows pay them toll.
66
I’ve no great cause to love that spot of earth,
Which holds what might have been the noblest nation;
But though I owe it little but my birth,
I feel a mixed regret and veneration
For its decaying fame and former worth.
Seven years (the usual term of transportation)
Of absence lay one’s old resentments level,
When a man’s country’s going to the devil.
67
Alas, could she but fully, truly, know
How her great name is now throughout abhorred,
How eager all the earth is for the blow
Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword,
How all the nations deem her their worst foe,
That worse than worst of foes, the once adored
False friend, who held out freedom to mankind,
And now would chain them, to the very mind,
68
Would she be proud or boast herself the free,
Who is but first of slaves? The nations are
In prison, but the jailor – what is he?
No less a victim to the bolt and bar.
Is the poor privilege to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? He’s as far
From the enjoyment of the earth and air
Who watches o’er the chain, as they who wear.
69
Don Juan now saw Albion’s earliest beauties:
Thy cliffs, dear Dover, harbour and hotel,
Thy customhouse with all its delicate duties,
Thy waiters running mucks at every bell,
Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties
To those who upon land or water dwell,
And last, not least, to strangers uninstructe
d,
Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted.
70
Juan, though careless, young, and magnifique,
And rich in roubles, diamonds, cash, and credit,
Who did not limit much his bills per week,
Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it
(His maggior duomo, a smart, subtle Greek,
Before him summed the awful scroll and read it).
But doubtless as the air, though seldom sunny,
Is free, the respiration’s worth the money.
71
On with the horses! Off to Canterbury!
Tramp, tramp o’er pebble, and splash, splash through puddle.
Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!
Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle
Along the road as if they went to bury
Their fare, and also pause besides to fuddle
With schnapps – sad dogs! whom ‘hundsfot’ or ‘verfluter’
Affect no more than lightning a conductor.
72
Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits,
Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry,
As going at full speed; no matter where its
Direction be, so’tis but in a hurry
And merely for the sake of its own merits,
For the less cause there is for all this flurry,
The greater is the pleasure in arriving
At the great end of travel – which is driving.
73
They saw at Canterbury the cathedral;
Black Edward’s helm and Becket’s bloody stone
Were pointed out as usual by the bedral
In the same quaint, uninterested tone.
There’s glory again for you, gentle reader. All
Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone,
Half-solved into those sodas or magnesias,
Which form that bitter draught, the human species.
74
The effect on Juan was of course sublime.
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw
The casque, which never stooped except to time.
Even the bold churchman’s tomb excited awe,
Who died in the then great attempt to climb
O’er kings, who now at least must talk of law,
Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed
And asked why such a structure had been raised.
75
And being told it was ‘God’s house’, she said
He was well lodged, but only wondered how
He suffered infidels in his homestead,
The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low
His holy temples in the lands which bred
The true believers; and her infant brow
Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign
A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.
76
On, on! through meadows, managed like a garden,
A paradise of hops and high production;
For after years of travel by a bard in
Countries of greater heat but lesser suction,
A green field is a sight which makes him pardon
The absence of that more sublime construction,
Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices,
Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices.
77
And when I think upon a pot of beer –
But I won’t weep – and so drive on, postilions!
As the smart boys spurred fast in their career,
Juan admired these highways of free millions,
A country in all senses the most dear
To foreigner or native, save some silly ones,
Who ‘kick against the pricks’ just at this juncture
And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.
78
What a delightful thing’s a turnpike road!
So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving
The earth as scarce the eagle in the broad
Air can accomplish with his wide wings waving.
Had such been cut in Phaeton’s time, the god
Had told his son to satisfy his craving
With the York mail; but onward as we roll,
Surgit amari aliquid – the toll!
79
Alas, how deeply painful is all payment.
Take lives, take wives, take aught except men’s purses.
As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,
Such is the shortest way to general curses.
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant
On that sweet ore which everybody nurses.
Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it,
But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket.
80
So said the Florentine; ye monarchs, hearken
To your instructor. Juan now was borne,
Just as the day began to wane and darken,
O’er the high hill which looks with pride or scorn
Towards the great city. Ye who have a spark in
Your veins of Cockney spirit smile or mourn,
According as you take things well or ill.
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter’s Hill.
81
The sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from
A half-unquenched volcano, o’er a space
Which well beseemed the ‘devil’s drawing room’,
As some have qualified that wondrous place.
But Juan felt, though not approaching home,
As one who, though he were not of the race,
Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother,
Who butchered half the earth and bullied t’other.
82
A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts, a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea coal canopy,
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool’s head – and there is London town!
83
But Juan saw not this. Each wreath of smoke
Appeared to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchemic furnace, from whence broke
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper).
The gloomy clouds, which o’er it as a yoke
Are bowed and put the sun out like a taper,
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.
84
He paused, and so will I, as doth a crew
Before they give their broadside. By and by,
My gentle countrymen, we will renew
Our old acquaintance, and at least I’ll try
To tell you truths you will not take as true,
Because they are so. A male Mrs Fry,
With a soft besom will I sweep your halls
And brush a web or two from off the walls.
85
Oh Mrs Fry, why go to Newgate? Why
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin
With Carlton or with other houses? Try
Your hand at hardened and imperial sin.
To mend the people’s an absurdity,
A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,
Unless you make their betters better. Fie!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs Fry.
86
Teach them the decencies of good threescore;
Cure them of tours, hussar and Highland dresses.
Tell them that youth once gone returns no more,
That hired huzzas redeem no land’s distresses.
Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore,
Too dull even for the dullest of excesses,
The witless Fa
lstaff of a hoary Hal,
A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.
87
Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late
On life’s worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated,
To set up vain pretences of being great,
’Tis not so to be good; and be it stated,
The worthiest kings have ever loved least state.
And tell them – but you won’t, and I have prated
Just now enough, but by and by I’ll prattle
Like Roland’s horn in Roncesvalles’ battle.
Canto XI
1
When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter
And proved it, ‘twas no matter what he said.
They say his system’tis in vain to batter,
Too subtle for the airiest human head;
And yet who can believe it! I would shatter
Gladly all matters down to stone or lead
Or adamant to find the world a spirit
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.
2
What a sublime discovery ‘twas to make the
Universe universal egotism!
That all’s ideal – all ourselves. I’ll stake the
World (be it what you will) that that’s no schism.
Oh doubt (if thou be’st doubt, for which some take thee,
But which I doubt extremely), thou sole prism
Of the truth’s rays, spoil not my draught of spirit,
Heaven’s brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.
3
For ever and anon comes indigestion
(Not the most ‘dainty Ariel’) and perplexes
Our soarings with another sort of question.
And that which after all my spirit vexes
Is that I find no spot where man can rest eye on
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,
Of being, stars, and this unriddled wonder,
The world, which at the worst’s a glorious blunder,
4
If it be chance, or if it be according
To the old Text, still better. Lest it should
Turn out so, we’ll say nothing’gainst the wording,
As several people think such hazards rude.
They’re right; our days are too brief for affording
Space to dispute what no one ever could
Decide, and everybody one day will
Know very clearly – or at least lie still.
5
And therefore will I leave off metaphysical
Discussion, which is neither here nor there.
If I agree that what is, is; then this I call
Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair.
The truth is, I’ve grown lately rather phthisical.
I don’t know what the reason is – the air
Perhaps; but as I suffer from the shocks
Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.
6
The first attack at once proved the Divinity,
But that I never doubted, nor the devil;