Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  Follies trick’d out so brightly that they blind: —

  These seals upon her wax made no impression,

  Such was her coldness or her self-possession.

  LVIII

  Juan knew nought of such a character —

  High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée;

  Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere:

  The island girl, bred up by the lone sea,

  More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere,

  Was Nature’s all: Aurora could not be,

  Nor would be thus: — the difference in them

  Was such as lies between a flower and gem.

  LIX

  Having wound up with this sublime comparison,

  Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative,

  And, as my friend Scott says, “I sound my warison;”

  Scott, the superlative of my comparative —

  Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen,

  Serf, lord, man, with such skill as none would share it, if

  There had not been one Shakspeare and Voltaire,

  Of one or both of whom he seems the heir.

  LX

  I say, in my slight way I may proceed

  To play upon the surface of humanity.

  I write the world, nor care if the world read,

  At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.

  My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed

  More foes by this same scroll: when I began it, I

  Thought that it might turn out so — now I know it,

  But still I am, or was, a pretty poet.

  LXI

  The conference or congress (for it ended

  As congresses of late do) of the Lady

  Adeline and Don Juan rather blended

  Some acids with the sweets — for she was heady;

  But, ere the matter could be marr’d or mended,

  The silvery bell rang, not for “dinner ready,”

  But for that hour, call’d half-hour, given to dress,

  Though ladies’ robes seem scant enough for less.

  LXII

  Great things were now to be achieved at table,

  With massy plate for armour, knives and forks

  For weapons; but what Muse since Homer’s able

  (His feasts are not the worst part of his works)

  To draw up in array a single day-bill

  Of modern dinners? where more mystery lurks,

  In soups or sauces, or a sole ragoût,

  Than witches, b—ches, or physicians, brew.

  LXIII

  There was a goodly “soupe à la bonne femme,”

  Though God knows whence it came from; there was, too,

  A turbot for relief of those who cram,

  Relieved with “dindon à la Périgeux;”

  There also was — the sinner that I am!

  How shall I get this gourmand stanza through? —

  “Soupe à la Beauveau,” whose relief was dory,

  Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory.

  LXIV

  But I must crowd all into one grand mess

  Or mass; for should I stretch into detail,

  My Muse would run much more into excess,

  Than when some squeamish people deem her frail.

  But though a bonne vivante, I must confess

  Her stomach’s not her peccant part; this tale

  However doth require some slight refection,

  Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.

  LXV

  Fowls “à la Condé,” slices eke of salmon,

  With “sauces Génevoises,” and haunch of venison;

  Wines too, which might again have slain young Ammon —

  A man like whom I hope we shan’t see many soon;

  They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on,

  Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison;

  And then there was champagne with foaming whirls,

  As white as Cleopatra’s melted pearls.

  LXVI

  Then there was God knows what “à l’Allemande,”

  ”À l’Espagnole,” “timballe,” and “salpicon” —

  With things I can’t withstand or understand,

  Though swallow’d with much zest upon the whole;

  And “entremets” to piddle with at hand,

  Gently to lull down the subsiding soul;

  While great Lucullus’ Robe triumphal muffles

  (There’s fame) — young partridge fillets, deck’d with truffles.

  LXVII

  What are the fillets on the victor’s brow

  To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the arch

  Which nodded to the nation’s spoils below?

  Where the triumphal chariots’ haughty march?

  Gone to where victories must like dinners go.

  Farther I shall not follow the research:

  But oh! ye modern heroes with your cartridges,

  When will your names lend lustre e’en to partridges?

  LXVIII

  Those truffles too are no bad accessaries,

  Follow’d by “petits puits d’amour” — a dish

  Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,

  So every one may dress it to his wish,

  According to the best of dictionaries,

  Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish;

  But even sans confitures, it no less true is,

  There’s pretty picking in those petits puits.

  LXIX

  The mind is lost in mighty contemplation

  Of intellect expanded on two courses;

  And indigestion’s grand multiplication

  Requires arithmetic beyond my forces.

  Who would suppose, from Adam’s simple ration,

  That cookery could have call’d forth such resources,

  As form a science and a nomenclature

  From out the commonest demands of nature?

  LXX

  The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled;

  The diners of celebrity dined well;

  The ladies with more moderation mingled

  In the feast, pecking less than I can tell;

  Also the younger men too: for a springald

  Can’t, like ripe age, in gourmandise excel,

  But thinks less of good eating than the whisper

  (When seated next him) of some pretty lisper.

  LXXI

  Alas! I must leave undescribed the gibier,

  The salmi, the consommé, the purée,

  All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber

  Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull way:

  I must not introduce even a spare rib here,

  ”Bubble and squeak” would spoil my liquid lay:

  But I have dined, and must forego, Alas!

  The chaste description even of a “bécasse;”

  LXXII

  And fruits, and ice, and all that art refines

  From nature for the service of the goût —

  Taste or the gout, — pronounce it as inclines

  Your stomach! Ere you dine, the French will do;

  But after, there are sometimes certain signs

  Which prove plain English truer of the two.

  Hast ever had the gout? I have not had it —

  But I may have, and you too, reader, dread it.

  LXXIII

  The simple olives, best allies of wine,

  Must I pass over in my bill of fare?

  I must, although a favourite plat of mine

  In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, every where:

  On them and bread ‘t was oft my luck to dine,

  The grass my table-cloth, in open-air,

  On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes,

  Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.


  LXXIV

  Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and fowl,

  And vegetables, all in masquerade,

  The guests were placed according to their roll,

  But various as the various meats display’d:

  Don Juan sat next “à l’Espagnole” —

  No damsel, but a dish, as hath been said;

  But so far like a lady, that ‘t was drest

  Superbly, and contain’d a world of zest.

  LXXV

  By some odd chance too, he was placed between

  Aurora and the Lady Adeline —

  A situation difficult, I ween,

  For man therein, with eyes and heart, to dine.

  Also the conference which we have seen

  Was not such as to encourage him to shine;

  For Adeline, addressing few words to him,

  With two transcendent eyes seem’d to look through him.

  LXXVI

  I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears:

  This much is sure, that, out of earshot, things

  Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears,

  Of which I can’t tell whence their knowledge springs.

  Like that same mystic music of the spheres,

  Which no one bears, so loudly though it rings,

  ‘T is wonderful how oft the sex have heard

  Long dialogues — which pass’d without a word!

  LXXVII

  Aurora sat with that indifference

  Which piques a preux chevalier — as it ought:

  Of all offences that’s the worst offence,

  Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought.

  Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence,

  Was not exactly pleased to be so caught;

  Like a good ship entangled among ice,

  And after so much excellent advice.

  LXXVIII

  To his gay nothings, nothing was replied,

  Or something which was nothing, as urbanity

  Required. Aurora scarcely look’d aside,

  Nor even smiled enough for any vanity.

  The devil was in the girl! Could it be pride?

  Or modesty, or absence, or inanity?

  Heaven knows? But Adeline’s malicious eyes

  Sparkled with her successful prophecies,

  LXXIX

  And look’d as much as if to say, “I said it;”

  A kind of triumph I’ll not recommend,

  Because it sometimes, as I have seen or read it,

  Both in the case of lover and of friend,

  Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit,

  To bring what was a jest to a serious end:

  For all men prophesy what is or was,

  And hate those who won’t let them come to pass.

  LXXX

  Juan was drawn thus into some attentions,

  Slight but select, and just enough to express,

  To females of perspicuous comprehensions,

  That he would rather make them more than less.

  Aurora at the last (so history mentions,

  Though probably much less a fact than guess)

  So far relax’d her thoughts from their sweet prison,

  As once or twice to smile, if not to listen.

  LXXXI

  From answering she began to question; this

  With her was rare: and Adeline, who as yet

  Thought her predictions went not much amiss,

  Began to dread she’d thaw to a coquette —

  So very difficult, they say, it is

  To keep extremes from meeting, when once set

  In motion; but she here too much refined —

  Aurora’s spirit was not of that kind.

  LXXXII

  But Juan had a sort of winning way,

  A proud humility, if such there be,

  Which show’d such deference to what females say,

  As if each charming word were a decree.

  His tact, too, temper’d him from grave to gay,

  And taught him when to be reserved or free:

  He had the art of drawing people out,

  Without their seeing what he was about.

  LXXXIII

  Aurora, who in her indifference

  Confounded him in common with the crowd

  Of flatterers, though she deem’d he had more sense

  Than whispering foplings, or than witlings loud —

  Commenced (from such slight things will great commence)

  To feel that flattery which attracts the proud

  Rather by deference than compliment,

  And wins even by a delicate dissent.

  LXXXIV

  And then he had good looks; — that point was carried

  Nem. con. amongst the women, which I grieve

  To say leads oft to crim. con. with the married —

  A case which to the juries we may leave,

  Since with digressions we too long have tarried.

  Now though we know of old that looks deceive,

  And always have done, somehow these good looks

  Make more impression than the best of books.

  LXXXV

  Aurora, who look’d more on books than faces,

  Was very young, although so very sage,

  Admiring more Minerva than the Graces,

  Especially upon a printed page.

  But Virtue’s self, with all her tightest laces,

  Has not the natural stays of strict old age;

  And Socrates, that model of all duty,

  Own’d to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty.

  LXXXVI

  And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic,

  But innocently so, as Socrates;

  And really, if the sage sublime and Attic

  At seventy years had phantasies like these,

  Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic

  Has shown, I know not why they should displease

  In virgins — always in a modest way,

  Observe; for that with me’s a “sine quâ.”

  LXXXVII

  Also observe, that, like the great Lord Coke

  (See Littleton), whene’er I have express’d

  Opinions two, which at first sight may look

  Twin opposites, the second is the best.

  Perhaps I have a third, too, in a nook,

  Or none at all — which seems a sorry jest:

  But if a writer should be quite consistent,

  How could he possibly show things existent?

  LXXXVIII

  If people contradict themselves, can I

  Help contradicting them, and every body,

  Even my veracious self? — But that’s a lie:

  I never did so, never will — how should I?

  He who doubts all things nothing can deny:

  Truth’s fountains may be clear — her streams are muddy,

  And cut through such canals of contradiction,

  That she must often navigate o’er fiction.

  LXXXIX

  Apologue, fable, poesy, and parable,

  Are false, but may be render’d also true,

  By those who sow them in a land that’s arable.

  ’T is wonderful what fable will not do!

  ‘T is said it makes reality more bearable:

  But what’s reality? Who has its clue?

  Philosophy? No: she too much rejects.

  Religion? Yes; but which of all her sects?

  XC

  Some millions must be wrong, that’s pretty clear;

  Perhaps it may turn out that all were right.

  God help us! Since we have need on our career

  To keep our holy beacons always bright,

  ‘T is time that some new prophet should appear,

  Or old indulge man with a second sight.

&
nbsp; Opinions wear out in some thousand years,

  Without a small refreshment from the spheres.

  XCI

  But here again, why will I thus entangle

  Myself with metaphysics? None can hate

  So much as I do any kind of wrangle;

  And yet, such is my folly, or my fate,

  I always knock my head against some angle

  About the present, past, or future state.

  Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian,

  For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian.

  XCII

  But though I am a temperate theologian,

  And also meek as a metaphysician,

  Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan,

  As Eldon on a lunatic commission —

  In politics my duty is to show John

  Bull something of the lower world’s condition.

  It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla,

  To see men let these scoundrel sovereigns break law.

  XCIII

  But politics, and policy, and piety,

  Are topics which I sometimes introduce,

  Not only for the sake of their variety,

  But as subservient to a moral use;

  Because my business is to dress society,

  And stuff with sage that very verdant goose.

  And now, that we may furnish with some matter all

  Tastes, we are going to try the supernatural.

  XCIV

  And now I will give up all argument;

  And positively henceforth no temptation

  Shall “fool me to the top up of my bent:” —

  Yes, I’ll begin a thorough reformation.

  Indeed, I never knew what people meant

  By deeming that my Muse’s conversation

  Was dangerous; — I think she is as harmless

  As some who labour more and yet may charm less.

  XCV

  Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost?

  No; but you have heard — I understand — be dumb!

  And don’t regret the time you may have lost,

  For you have got that pleasure still to come:

  And do not think I mean to sneer at most

  Of these things, or by ridicule benumb

  That source of the sublime and the mysterious: —

  For certain reasons my belief is serious.

  XCVI

  Serious? You laugh; — you may: that will I not;

  My smiles must be sincere or not at all.

  I say I do believe a haunted spot

  Exists — and where? That shall I not recall,

  Because I’d rather it should be forgot,

  ”Shadows the soul of Richard” may appal.

  In short, upon that subject I’ve some qualms very

  Like those of the philosopher of Malmsbury.

  XCVII

  The night (I sing by night — sometimes an owl,

  And now and then a nightingale) is dim,