by Lord Byron
Bards may sing what they please about Content;
Contented, when translated, means but cloy’d;
And hence arise the woes of sentiment,
Blue devils, and blue-stockings, and romances
Reduced to practice, and perform’d like dances.
LXXX
I do declare, upon an affidavit,
Romances I ne’er read like those I have seen;
Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,
Would some believe that such a tale had been:
But such intent I never had, nor have it;
Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.
LXXXI
“An oyster may be cross’d in love” — and why?
Because he mopeth idly in his shell,
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,
Much as a monk may do within his cell:
And à-propos of monks, their piety
With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell;
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.
LXXXII
O Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,
Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
Thou moral Washington of Africa!
But there’s another little thing, I own,
Which you should perpetrate some summer’s day,
And set the other half of earth to rights;
You have freed the blacks — now pray shut up the whites.
LXXXIII
Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander!
Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;
Teach them that “sauce for goose is sauce for gander,”
And ask them how they like to be in thrall?
Shut up each high heroic salamander,
Who eats fire gratis (since the pay’s but small);
Shut up — no, not the King, but the Pavilion,
Or else ‘t will cost us all another million.
LXXXIV
Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d’appui is found, alas!
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as ‘t was.
LXXXV
Our gentle Adeline had one defect —
Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wreck’d,
Because ‘t is frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an earthquake’s ruin.
LXXXVI
She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move
Our feelings ‘gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble — conjugal, but cold.
LXXXVII
There was no great disparity of years,
Though much in temper; but they never clash’d:
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
Or like the Rhone by Leman’s waters wash’d,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The river from the lake, all bluely dash’d
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.
LXXXVIII
Now when she once had ta’en an interest
In any thing, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best,
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guess’d,
And gather’d as they run like growing water
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impress’d.
LXXXIX
But when it was, she had that lurking demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named —
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,
Whene’er their triumph pales, or star is tamed: —
And ‘t will perplex the casuist in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.
XC
Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo,
It had been firmness; now ‘t is pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?
I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e’er be drawn by man’s capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.
XCI
She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger, —
Her husband’s friend, her own, young, and a stranger,
XCII
She was, or thought she was, his friend — and this
Without the farce of friendship, or romance
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss
Ladies who have studied friendship but in France,
Or Germany, where people purely kiss.
To thus much Adeline would not advance;
But of such friendship as man’s may to man be
She was as capable as woman can be.
XCIII
No doubt the secret influence of the sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex,
And tune the concord to a finer mood.
If free from passion, which all friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.
XCIV
Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term
Is shown through nature’s whole analogies;
And how should the most fierce of all be firm?
Would you have endless lightning in the skies?
Methinks Love’s very title says enough:
How should “the tender passion” e’er be tough?
XCV
Alas! by all experience, seldom yet
(I merely quote what I have heard from many)
Had lovers not some reason to regret
The passion which made Solomon a zany.
I’ve also seen some wives (not to forget
The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.
XCVI
I’ve also seen some female friends (‘t is odd,
But true — as, if expedient, I co
uld prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,
At home, far more than ever yet was Love —
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod
Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,
Despite the snake Society’s loud rattles.
XCVII
Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss’d hereafter, I opine:
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense;
The surest way for ladies and for books
To bait their tender, or their tenter, hooks.
XCVIII
Whether they rode, or walk’d, or studied Spanish
To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish;
Whether their talk was of the kind call’d “small,”
Or serious, are the topics I must banish
To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose, and display
Considerable talent in my way.
XCIX
Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter:
They’ll only make mistakes about the fair,
And Juan too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done, in this epic satire.
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall; but if they do, ‘t will be their ruin.
C
But great things spring from little — Would you think,
That in our youth, as dangerous a passion
As e’er brought man and woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You’ll never guess, I’ll bet you millions, milliards —
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.
CI
‘T is strange — but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their souls’ antipodes.
CII
What “antres vast and deserts idle” then
Would be discover’d in the human soul!
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
With self-love in the centre as their pole!
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in control
Were things but only call’d by their right name,
Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.
DON JUAN: CANTO THE FIFTEENTH
I
Ah! — What should follow slips from my reflection;
Whatever follows ne’ertheless may be
As à-propos of hope or retrospection,
As though the lurking thought had follow’d free.
All present life is but an interjection,
An “Oh!” or “Ah!” of joy or misery,
Or a “Ha! ha!” or “Bah!” — a yawn, or “Pooh!”
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
II
But, more or less, the whole’s a syncopé
Or a singultus — emblems of emotion,
The grand antithesis to great ennui,
Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean, —
That watery outline of eternity,
Or miniature at least, as is my notion,
Which ministers unto the soul’s delight,
In seeing matters which are out of sight.
III
But all are better than the sigh supprest,
Corroding in the cavern of the heart,
Making the countenance a masque of rest,
And turning human nature to an art.
Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best;
Dissimulation always sets apart
A corner for herself; and therefore fiction
Is that which passes with least contradiction.
IV
Ah! who can tell? Or rather, who can not
Remember, without telling, passion’s errors?
The drainer of oblivion, even the sot,
Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors:
What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float,
He cannot sink his tremors or his terrors;
The ruby glass that shakes within his hand
Leaves a sad sediment of Time’s worst sand.
V
And as for love — O love! — We will proceed.
The Lady Adeline Amundeville,
A pretty name as one would wish to read,
Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.
There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
VI
The Lady Adeline, right honourable;
And honour’d, ran a risk of growing less so;
For few of the soft sex are very stable
In their resolves — alas! that I should say so!
They differ as wine differs from its label,
When once decanted; — I presume to guess so,
But will not swear: yet both upon occasion,
Till old, may undergo adulteration.
VII
But Adeline was of the purest vintage,
The unmingled essence of the grape; and yet
Bright as a new napoleon from its mintage,
Or glorious as a diamond richly set;
A page where Time should hesitate to print age,
And for which Nature might forego her debt —
Sole creditor whose process doth involve in ‘t
The luck of finding every body solvent.
VIII
O Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily
Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,
Like a meek tradesman when, approaching palely,
Some splendid debtor he would take by sap:
But oft denied, as patience ‘gins to fail, he
Advances with exasperated rap,
And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome,
On ready money, or “a draft on Ransom.”
IX
Whate’er thou takest, spare a while poor Beauty!
She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey.
What though she now and then may slip from duty,
The more’s the reason why you ought to stay.
Gaunt Gourmand! with whole nations for your booty,
You should be civil in a modest way:
Suppress, then, some slight feminine diseases,
And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases.
X
Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous
Where she was interested (as was said),
Because she was not apt, like some of us,
To like too readily, or too high bred
To show it (points we need not now discuss) —
Would give up artlessly both heart and head
Unto such feelings as seem’d innocent,
For objects worthy of the sentiment.
XI
Some parts of Juan’s history, whi
ch Rumour,
That live gazette, had scatter’d to disfigure,
She had heard; but women hear with more good humour
Such aberrations than we men of rigour:
Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more
Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour;
Because he had, like Alcibiades,
The art of living in all climes with ease.
XII
His manner was perhaps the more seductive,
Because he ne’er seem’d anxious to seduce;
Nothing affected, studied, or constructive
Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse
Of his attractions marr’d the fair perspective,
To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,
And seem to say, “Resist us if you can” —
Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.
XIII
They are wrong — that’s not the way to set about it;
As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.
But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;
In fact, his manner was his own alone;
Sincere he was — at least you could not doubt it,
In listening merely to his voice’s tone.
The devil hath not in all his quiver’s choice
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
XIV
By nature soft, his whole address held off
Suspicion: though not timid, his regard
Was such as rather seem’d to keep aloof,
To shield himself than put you on your guard:
Perhaps ‘t was hardly quite assured enough,
But modesty’s at times its own reward,
Like virtue; and the absence of pretension
Will go much farther than there’s need to mention.
XV
Serene, accomplish’d, cheerful but not loud;
Insinuating without insinuation;
Observant of the foibles of the crowd,
Yet ne’er betraying this in conversation;
Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud,
So as to make them feel he knew his station
And theirs: — without a struggle for priority,
He neither brook’d nor claim’d superiority.
XVI
That is, with men: with women he was what
They pleased to make or take him for; and their
Imagination’s quite enough for that:
So that the outline’s tolerably fair,
They fill the canvas up — and “verbum sat.”
If once their phantasies be brought to bear
Upon an object, whether sad or playful,
They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.
XVII
Adeline, no deep judge of character,
Was apt to add a colouring from her own:
‘T is thus the good will amiably err,
And eke the wise, as has been often shown.