by Lord Byron
What are we? and whence came we? what shall be
Our ultimate existence? what’s our present?
Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.
LXIV
There was deep silence in the chamber: dim
And distant from each other burn’d the lights,
And slumber hover’d o’er each lovely limb
Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,
They should have walk’d there in their sprightliest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.
LXV
Many and beautiful lay those around,
Like flowers of different hue, and dime, and root,
In some exotic garden sometimes found,
With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,
And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath,
And lips apart, which show’d the pearls beneath.
LXVI
One with her flush’d cheek laid on her white arm,
And raven ringlets gather’d in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;
And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud
The moon breaks, half unveil’d each further charm,
As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.
LXVII
This is no bull, although it sounds so; for
’T was night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.
A third’s all pallid aspect offer’d more
The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray’d
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore
Belovéd and deplored; while slowly stray’d
(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges
The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes’ dark fringes.
LXVIII
A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,
Lay in a breathless, hush’d, and stony sleep;
White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill,
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,
Or Lot’s wife done in salt, — or what you will; —
My similes are gather’d in a heap,
So pick and choose — perhaps you’ll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.
LXIX
And lo! a fifth appears; — and what is she?
A lady of a “certain age,” which means
Certainly agéd — what her years might be
I know not, never counting past their teens;
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,
As ere that awful period intervenes
Which lays both men and women on the shelf,
To meditate upon their sins and self.
LXX
But all this time how slept, or dream’d, Dudù?
With strict inquiry I could ne’er discover,
And scorn to add a syllable untrue;
But ere the middle watch was hardly over,
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,
And phantoms hover’d, or might seem to hover,
To those who like their company, about
The apartment, on a sudden she scream’d out:
LXXI
And that so loudly, that upstarted all
The Oda, in a general commotion:
Matron and maids, and those whom you may call
Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean,
One on the other, throughout the whole hall,
All trembling, wondering, without the least notion
More than I have myself of what could make
The calm Dudù so turbulently wake.
LXXII
But wide awake she was, and round her bed,
With floating draperies and with flying hair,
With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread,
And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare,
And bright as any meteor ever bred
By the North Pole, — they sought her cause of care,
For she seem’d agitated, flush’d, and frighten’d,
Her eye dilated and her colour heighten’d.
LXXIII
But what was strange — and a strong proof how great
A blessing is sound sleep — Juanna lay
As fast as ever husband by his mate
In holy matrimony snores away.
Not all the clamour broke her happy state
Of slumber, ere they shook her, — so they say
At least, — and then she, too, unclosed her eyes,
And yawn’d a good deal with discreet surprise.
LXXIV
And now commenced a strict investigation,
Which, as all spoke at once and more than once,
Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce
To answer in a very clear oration.
Dudù had never pass’d for wanting sense,
But, being “no orator as Brutus is,”
Could not at first expound what was amiss.
LXXV
At length she said, that in a slumber sound
She dream’d a dream, of walking in a wood —
A “wood obscure,” like that where Dante found
Himself in at the age when all grow good;
Life’s half-way house, where dames with virtue crown’d
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude;
And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits,
And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;
LXXVI
And in the midst a golden apple grew, —
A most prodigious pippin, — but it hung
Rather too high and distant; that she threw
Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung
Stones and whatever she could pick up, to
Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung
To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,
But always at a most provoking height; —
LXXVII
That on a sudden, when she least had hope,
It fell down of its own accord before
Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop
And pick it up, and bite it to the core;
That just as her young lip began to ope
Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,
A bee flew out and stung her to the heart,
And so — she awoke with a great scream and start.
LXXVIII
All this she told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams.
I’ve known some odd ones which seem’d really plann’d
Prophetically, or that which one deems
A “strange coincidence,” to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days.
LXXIX
The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,
Began, as is the consequence of fear,
To scold a little at the false alarm
That broke for nothing on their sleeping car.
The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm
Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,
And chafed at poor Dudù, who only sigh’d,
And said that she was sorry she had cried.
LXXX
“I’ve heard of stor
ies of a cock and bull;
But visions of an apple and a bee,
To take us from our natural rest, and pull
The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,
Would make us think the moon is at its full.
You surely are unwell, child! we must see,
To-morrow, what his Highness’s physician
Will say to this hysteric of a vision.
LXXXI
“And poor Juanna, too — the child’s first night
Within these walls to be broke in upon
With such a clamour! I had thought it right
That the young stranger should not lie alone,
And, as the quietest of all, she might
With you, Dudù, a good night’s rest have known;
But now I must transfer her to the charge
Of Lolah — though her couch is not so large.”
LXXXII
Lolah’s eyes sparkled at the proposition;
But poor Dudù, with large drops in her own,
Resulting from the scolding or the vision,
Implored that present pardon might be shown
For this first fault, and that on no condition
(She added in a soft and piteous tone)
Juanna should be taken from her, and
Her future dreams should all be kept in hand.
LXXXIII
She promised never more to have a dream,
At least to dream so loudly as just now;
She wonder’d at herself how she could scream —
’T was foolish, nervous, as she must allow,
A fond hallucination, and a theme
For laughter — but she felt her spirits low,
And begg’d they would excuse her; she’d get over
This weakness in a few hours, and recover.
LXXXIV
And here Juanna kindly interposed,
And said she felt herself extremely well
Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed
When all around rang like a tocsin bell:
She did not find herself the least disposed
To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell
Apart from one who had no sin to show,
Save that of dreaming once “mal-à-propos.”
LXXXV
As thus Juanna spoke, Dudù turn’d round
And hid her face within Juanna’s breast:
Her neck alone was seen, but that was found
The colour of a budding rose’s crest.
I can’t tell why she blush’d, nor can expound
The mystery of this rupture of their rest;
All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late.
LXXXVI
And so good night to them, — or, if you will,
Good morrow — for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,
And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.
LXXXVII
With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale
As passion rises, with its bosom worn,
Array’d herself with mantle, gem, and veil.
The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,
Which fable places in her breast of wail,
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.
LXXXVIII
And that’s the moral of this composition,
If people would but see its real drift; —
But that they will not do without suspicion,
Because all gentle readers have the gift
Of closing ‘gainst the light their orbs of vision;
While gentle writers also love to lift
Their voices ‘gainst each other, which is natural,
The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.
LXXXIX
Rose the sultana from a bed of splendour,
Softer than the soft Sybarite’s, who cried
Aloud because his feelings were too tender
To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side, —
So beautiful that art could little mend her,
Though pale with conflicts between love and pride; —
So agitated was she with her error,
She did not even look into the mirror.
XC
Also arose about the self-same time,
Perhaps a little later, her great lord,
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,
And of a wife by whom he was abhorr’d;
A thing of much less import in that clime —
At least to those of incomes which afford
The filling up their whole connubial cargo —
Than where two wives are under an embargo.
XCI
He did not think much on the matter, nor
Indeed on any other: as a man
He liked to have a handsome paramour
At hand, as one may like to have a fan,
And therefore of Circassians had good store,
As an amusement after the Divan;
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,
Had made him lately bask in his bride’s beauty.
XCII
And now he rose; and after due ablutions
Exacted by the customs of the East,
And prayers and other pious evolutions,
He drank six cups of coffee at the least,
And then withdrew to hear about the Russians,
Whose victories had recently increased
In Catherine’s reign, whom glory still adores,
As greatest of all sovereigns and w—s.
XCIII
But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander!
Her son’s son, let not this last phrase offend
Thine ear, if it should reach — and now rhymes wander
Almost as far as Petersburgh and lend
A dreadful impulse to each loud meander
Of murmuring Liberty’s wide waves, which blend
Their roar even with the Baltic’s — so you be
Your father’s son, ‘t is quite enough for me.
XCIV
To call men love-begotten or proclaim
Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon,
That hater of mankind, would be a shame,
A libel, or whate’er you please to rhyme on:
But people’s ancestors are history’s game;
And if one lady’s slip could leave a crime on
All generations, I should like to know
What pedigree the best would have to show?
XCV
Had Catherine and the sultan understood
Their own true interests, which kings rarely know
Until ‘t is taught by lessons rather rude,
There was a way to end their strife, although
Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good,
Without the aid of prince or plenipo:
She to dismiss her guards and he his haram,
And for their other matters, meet and share ‘em.
XCVI
But as it was, his Highness had to hold
His daily council upon ways and means
How to encounter with this martial scold,
This modern Amazon and queen of queans;
And the perplexity could not be told
Of all the pillars of the state, which leans
Sometimes a little heavy on the backs
Of those who cannot lay on a new tax.
/>
XCVII
Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone,
Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place
For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone,
And rich with all contrivances which grace
Those gay recesses: — many a precious stone
Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase
Of porcelain held in the fetter’d flowers,
Those captive soothers of a captive’s hours.
XCVIII
Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble,
Vied with each other on this costly spot;
And singing birds without were heard to warble;
And the stain’d glass which lighted this fair grot
Varied each ray; — but all descriptions garble
The true effect, and so we had better not
Be too minute; an outline is the best, —
A lively reader’s fancy does the rest.
XCIX
And here she summon’d Baba, and required
Don Juan at his hands, and information
Of what had pass’d since all the slaves retired,
And whether he had occupied their station;
If matters had been managed as desired,
And his disguise with due consideration
Kept up; and above all, the where and how
He had pass’d the night, was what she wish’d to know.
C
Baba, with some embarrassment, replied
To this long catechism of questions, ask’d
More easily than answer’d, — that he had tried
His best to obey in what he had been task’d;
But there seem’d something that he wish’d to hide,
Which hesitation more betray’d than mask’d;
He scratch’d his ear, the infallible resource
To which embarrass’d people have recourse.
CI
Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience,
Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed;
She liked quick answers in all conversations;
And when she saw him stumbling like a steed
In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones;
And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed,
Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle,
And her proud brow’s blue veins to swell and darkle.
CII
When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew
To bode him no great good, he deprecated
Her anger, and beseech’d she’d hear him through —
He could not help the thing which he related:
Then out it came at length, that to Dudù
Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated;
But not by Baba’s fault, he said, and swore on
The holy camel’s hump, besides the Koran.
CIII
The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom
The discipline of the whole haram bore,