Is that whatever bar the reason rears
’Gainst such belief, there’s something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.
8
The dinner and the soirée too were done,
The supper too discussed, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropped off one by one,
The song was silent and the dance expired.
The last thin petticoats were vanished, gone
Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleamed through the saloon
Than dying tapers and the peeping moon.
9
The evaporation of a joyous day
Is like the last glass of champagne without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay,
Or like a system coupled with a doubt,
Or like a soda bottle when its spray
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out,
Or like a billow left by storms behind
Without the animation of the wind,
10
Or like an opiate which brings troubled rest
Or none, or like – like nothing that I know
Except itself. Such is the human breast,
A thing of which similitudes can show
No real likeness. Like the old Tyrian vest
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,
If from a shellfish or from cochineal.
So perish every tyrant’s robe piecemeal.
11
But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
Undressing is a woe. Our robe-de-chambre
May sit like that of Nessus and recall
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.
Titus exclaimed, ‘I’ve lost a day!’ Of all
The nights and days most people can remember
(I have had of both, some not to be disdained),
I wish they’d state how many they have gained.
12
And Juan on retiring for the night,
Felt restless and perplexed and compromised.
He thought Aurora Raby’s eyes more bright
Than Adeline (such is advice) advised.
If he had known exactly his own plight,
He probably would have philosophized,
A great resource to all and ne’er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sighed.
13
He sighed; the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited, and now
It happened luckily, the chaste orb shone
As clear as such a climate will allow,
And Juan’s mind was in the proper tone
To hail her with the apostrophe, ‘Oh thou!’
Of amatory egotism the tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.
14
But lover, poet, or astronomer,
Shepherd or swain, whoever may behold,
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her.
Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);
Deep secrets to her rolling light are told.
The ocean’s tides and mortals’ brains she sways
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.
15
Juan felt somewhat pensive and disposed
For contemplation rather than his pillow.
The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
Let in the rippling sound of the lake’s billow
With all the mystery by midnight caused.
Below his window waved (of course) a willow,
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flashed and after darkened in the shade.
16
Upon his table or his toilet – which
Of these is not exactly ascertained
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained) –
A lamp burnt high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a Gothic ornament remained
In chiselled stone and painted glass and all
That time has left our fathers of their hall.
17
Then as the night was clear though cold, he threw
His chamber door wide open and went forth
Into a gallery of a sombre hue,
Long, furnished with old pictures of great worth,
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,
As doubtless should be people of high birth.
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.
18
The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon, and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps, voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.
19
And the pale smile of beauties in the grave,
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams,
Glimmer on high. Their buried locks still wave
Along the canvas, their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.
A picture is the past; even ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.
20
As Juan mused on mutability
Or on his mistress – terms synonymous –
No sound except the echo of his sigh
Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.
21
It was no mouse, but lo! a monk arrayed
In cowl and beads and dusky garb appeared,
Now in the moonlight and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made.
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly, and as he passed Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.
22
Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
But thought like most men there was nothing in’t
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coined from surviving superstition’s mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
And did he see this? Or was it a vapour?
23
Once, twice, thrice passed, repassed the thing of air
Or earth beneath or heaven or t’other place,
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
Yet could not speak or move, but on its base
As stands a statue, stood. He felt his hair
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;
He taxed his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.
24
The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow passed away, but where? The hall
Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
To think his vanishing unnatural.
Doors there were many, through which by the laws
Of physics bodies whether short or tall
Might come or go; but Juan could not state
Through which the spectre seemed to evapor
ate.
25
He stood, how long he knew not, but it seemed
An age, expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strained on the spot where first the figure gleamed,
Then by degrees recalled his energies
And would have passed the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake. He was, he did surmise,
Waking already and returned at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.
26
All there was as he left it; still his taper
Burnt, and not blue as modest tapers use,
Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour.
He rubbed his eyes, and they did not refuse
Their office. He took up an old newspaper;
The paper was right easy to peruse.
He read an article the king attacking
And a long eulogy of patent blacking.
27
This savoured of this world, but his hand shook.
He shut his door and after having read
A paragraph, I think about Horne Tooke,
Undrest and rather slowly went to bed.
There couched all snugly on his pillow’s nook,
With what he had seen his phantasy he fed
And though it was no opiate, slumber crept
Upon him by degrees and so he slept.
28
He woke betimes and as may be supposed,
Pondered upon his visitant or vision
And whether it ought not to be disclosed
At risk of being quizzed for superstition.
The more he thought, the more his mind was posed.
In the meantime, his valet, whose precision
Was great, because his master brooked no less,
Knocked to inform him it was time to dress.
29
He dressed, and like young people, he was wont
To take some trouble with his toilet, but
This morning rather spent less time upon’t.
Aside his very mirror soon was put,
His curls fell negligently o’er his front,
His clothes were not curbed to their usual cut,
His very neckcloth’s Gordian knot was tied
Almost an hair’s breadth too much on one side.
30
And when he walked down into the saloon,
He sate him pensive o’er a dish of tea,
Which he perhaps had not discovered soon,
Had it not happened scalding hot to be,
Which made him have recourse unto his spoon.
So much distrait he was that all could see
That something was the matter – Adeline
The first, but what she could not well divine.
31
She looked and saw him pale and turned as pale
Herself, then hastily looked down and muttered
Something, but what’s not stated in my tale.
Lord Henry said his muffin was ill buttered.
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke played with her veil
And looked at Juan hard, but nothing uttered.
Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes
Surveyed him with a kind of calm surprise.
32
But seeing him all cold and silent still,
And everybody wondering more or less,
Fair Adeline inquired if he were ill.
He started and said, ‘Yes – no – rather – yes.’
The family physician had great skill
And being present now began to express
His readiness to feel his pulse and tell
The cause, but Juan said he was quite well.
33
‘Quite well, yes – no.’ These answers were mysterious,
And yet his looks appeared to sanction both,
However they might savour of delirious.
Something like illness of a sudden growth
Weighed on his spirit, though by no means serious.
But for the rest, as he himself seemed loath
To state the case, it might be ta’en for granted
It was not the physician that he wanted.
34
Lord Henry, who had now discussed his chocolate,
Also the muffin whereof he complained,
Said Juan had not got his usual look elate,
At which he marvelled since it had not rained,
Then asked her Grace what news were of the Duke of late.
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pained
With some slight, light, hereditary twinges
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.
35
Then Henry turned to Juan and addressed
A few words of condolence on his state.
‘You look, ’ quoth he, ‘as if you had had your rest
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late.’
‘What friar?’ said Juan, and he did his best
To put the question with an air sedate
Or careless, but the effort was not valid
To hinder him from growing still more pallid.
36
‘Oh, have you never heard of the Black Friar,
The spirit of these walls?’ ‘In truth not I.’
‘Why fame – but fame you know’s sometimes a liar –
Tells an odd story, of which by the by.
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The Friar of late has not been oft perceived.
37
‘The last time was – ’ ‘I pray, ’ said Adeline
(Who watched the changes of Don Juan’s brow,
And from its context thought she could divine
Connexions stronger than he chose to avow
With this same legend), ‘if you but design
To jest, you’ll choose some other theme just now,
Because the present tale has oft been told
And is not much improved by growing old.’
38
‘Jest!’ quoth Milor, ‘why, Adeline, you know
That we ourselves – ’twas in the honeymoon –
Saw – ’ ‘Well, no matter, ‘twas so long ago.
But, come, I’ll set your story to a tune.’
Graceful as Dian when she draws her bow,
She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon
As touched, and plaintively began to play
The air of ‘’Twas a Friar of Orders Grey’.
39
‘But add the words, ’ cried Henry, ‘which you made;
For Adeline is half a poetess, ’
Turning round to the rest, he smiling said.
Of course the others could not but express
In courtesy their wish to see displayed
By one three talents, for there were no less.
The voice, the words, the harper’s skill at once
Could hardly be united by a dunce.
40
After some fascinating hesitation –
The charming of these charmers who seem bound,
I can’t tell why, to this dissimulation –
Fair Adeline with eyes fixed on the ground
At first, then kindling into animation,
Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound
And sang with much simplicity, a merit
Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it.
1
Beware! beware of the Black Friar!
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey
And expelled the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.
2
Th
ough he came in his might with King Henry’s right
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand and torch to light
Their walls if they said nay,
A monk remained, unchased, unchained,
And he did not seem formed of clay,
For he’s seen in the porch and he’s seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.
3
And whether for good or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say,
But still to the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage bed of their lords, ’tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve,
And ’tis held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes, but not to grieve.
4
When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face;
’Tis shadowed by his cowl.
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between
And they seem of a parted soul.
5
But beware! beware of the Black Friar!
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church’s heir
Whoever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night.
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar’s right.
6
Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he’ll say nought to you.
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o’er the grass the dew.
Then gramercy for the Black Friar!
Heaven sain him, fair or foul,
And whatsoe’er may be his prayer,
Let ours be for his soul.
41
The lady’s voice ceased and the thrilling wires
Died from the touch that kindled them to sound.
And the pause followed, which when song expires,
Pervades a moment those who listen round.
And then of course the circle much admires
Nor less applauds as in politeness bound
The tones, the feeling, and the execution
To the performer’s diffident confusion.
42
Fair Adeline, though in a careless way,
As if she rated such accomplishment
As the mere pastime of an idle day
Pursued an instant for her own content,
Would now and then as ’twere without display,
Yet with display in fact, at times relent
To such performances with haughty smile
To show she could, if it were worth her while.
43
Now this (but we will whisper it aside)
Was (pardon the pedantic illustration)
Trampling on Plato’s pride with greater pride,
As did the Cynic on some like occasion,
Don Juan Page 53