by Lord Byron
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva’s fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn:
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl —
I wish to heaven they would not look so grim;
The dying embers dwindle in the grate —
I think too that I have sate up too late:
XCVIII
And therefore, though ‘t is by no means my way
To rhyme at noon — when I have other things
To think of, if I ever think — I say
I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,
And prudently postpone, until mid-day,
Treating a topic which, alas! but brings
Shadows; — but you must be in my condition
Before you learn to call this superstition.
XCIX
Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
’Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash’d from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.
DON JUAN: CANTO THE SIXTEENTH
I
The antique Persians taught three useful things,
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings —
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.
II
The cause of this effect, or this defect, —
”For this effect defective comes by cause,” —
Is what I have not leisure to inspect;
But this I must say in my own applause,
Of all the Muses that I recollect,
Whate’er may be her follies or her flaws
In some things, mine’s beyond all contradiction
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.
III
And as she treats all things, and ne’er retreats
From any thing, this epic will contain
A wilderness of the most rare conceits,
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
‘T is true there be some bitters with the sweets,
Yet mix’d so slightly, that you can’t complain,
But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
“De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis.”
IV
But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost —
What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast,
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?
‘T is time to strike such puny doubters dumb as
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.
V
Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin’s or Monmouth Geoffry’s Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority
Is always greatest at a miracle.
But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because ‘t is so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with “quia impossibile.”
VI
And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe: — if ‘t is improbable you must,
And if it is impossible, you shall:
’T is always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely, to recall
Those holier mysteries which the wise and just
Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted,
As all truths must, the more they are disputed:
VII
I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years,
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears;
And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears
‘Gainst such belief, there’s something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.
VIII
The dinner and the soirée too were done,
The supper too discuss’d, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropp’d off one by one —
The song was silent, and the dance expired:
The last thin petticoats were vanish’d, gone
Like fleecy Clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleam’d through the saloon
Than dying tapers — and the peeping moon.
IX
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;
X
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 shell-fish or from cochineal.
So perish every tyrant’s robe piece-meal!
XI
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 exclaim’d, “I’ve lost a day!” Of all
The nights and days most people can remember
(I have had of both, some not to be disdain’d),
I wish they ‘d state how many they have gain’d.
XII
And Juan, on retiring for the night,
Felt restless, and perplex’d, 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 philosophised:
A great resource to all, and ne’er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sigh’d.
XIII
He sigh’d; — the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happen’d 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 — “O thou!”
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.
XIV
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.
XV
Juan felt s
omewhat 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 flash’d and after darken’d in the shade.
XVI
Upon his table or his toilet, — which
Of these is not exactly ascertain’d
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain’d), —
A lamp burn’d high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a Gothic ornament remain’d,
In chisell’d stone and painted glass, and all
That time has left our fathers of their hall.
XVII
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, furnish’d 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.
XVIII
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.
XIX
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.
XX
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.
XXI
It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, array’d
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear’d,
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 pass’d Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.
XXII
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,
Coin’d 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?
XXIII
Once, twice, thrice pass’d, repass’d — 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 tax’d his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.
XXIV
The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow pass’d 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 seem’d to evaporate.
XXV
He stood — how long he knew not, but it seem’d
An age — expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strain’d on the spot where first the figure gleam’d;
Then by degrees recall’d his energies,
And would have pass’d the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
Waking already, and return’d at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.
XXVI
All there was as he left it: still his taper
Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use,
Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour;
He rubb’d 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.”
XXVII
This savour’d 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, couch’d 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.
XXVIII
He woke betimes; and, as may be supposed,
Ponder’d upon his visitant or vision,
And whether it ought not to be disclosed,
At risk of being quizz’d for superstition.
The more he thought, the more his mind was posed:
In the mean time, his valet, whose precision
Was great, because his master brook’d no less,
Knock’d to inform him it was time to dress.
XXIX
He dress’d; 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 curb’d to their usual cut,
His very neckcloth’s Gordian knot was tied
Almost an hair’s breadth too much on one side.
XXX
And when he walk’d down into the saloon,
He sate him pensive o’er a dish of tea,
Which he perhaps had not discover’d soon,
Had it not happen’d 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.
XXXI
She look’d, and saw him pale, and turn’d as pale
Herself; then hastily look’d down, and mutter’d
Something, but what’s not stated in my tale.
Lord Henry said his muffin was ill butter’d;
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke play’d with her veil,
A
nd look’d at Juan hard, but nothing utter’d.
Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes
Survey’d him with a kind of calm surprise.
XXXII
But seeing him all cold and silent still,
And everybody wondering more or less,
Fair Adeline enquired, “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.”
XXXIII
“Quite well; yes, — no.” — These answers were mysterious,
And yet his looks appear’d to sanction both,
However they might savour of delirious;
Something like illness of a sudden growth
Weigh’d on his spirit, though by no means serious:
But for the rest, as he himself seem’d loth
To state the case, it might be ta’en for granted
It was not the physician that he wanted.
XXXIV
Lord Henry, who had now discuss’d his chocolate,
Also the muffin whereof he complain’d,
Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate,
At which he marvell’d, since it had not rain’d;
Then ask’d her Grace what news were of the duke of late?
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pain’d
With some slight, light, hereditary twinges
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.
XXXV
Then Henry turn’d to Juan, and address’d
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.
XXXVI
“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 and 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.
XXXVII
“The last time was — “ — “I pray,” said Adeline —
(Who watch’d the changes of Don Juan’s brow,
And from its context thought she could divine
Connexions stronger then he chose to avow
With this same legend) — “if you but design
To jest, you’ll choose some other theme just now,