<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116820" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Beppo</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout<br>All countries of the Catholic persuasion,<br>Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,<br>The people take their fill of recreation,<br>And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,<br>However high their rank, or low their station,<br>With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,<br>And other things which may be had for asking.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> II.<br>The moment night with dusky mantle covers<br>The skies (and the more duskily the better),<br>The time less liked by husbands than by lovers<br>Begins, and prudery flings aside her fetter;<br>And gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,<br>Giggling with all the gallants who beset her;<br>And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming,<br>Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> III.<br>And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,<br>Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews,<br>And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical,<br>Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos;<br>All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,<br>All people, as their fancies hit, may choose,<br>But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, —<br>Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IV.<br>You'd better walk about begirt with briars,<br>Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on<br>A single stitch reflecting upon friars,<br>Although you swore it only was in fun;<br>They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires<br>Of Phlegethon with every mother's son,<br>Nor say one mass to cool the caldron's bubble<br>That boil'd your bones, unless you paid them double.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> V.<br>But saving this, you may put on whate'er<br>You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak.<br>Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair,<br>Would rig you out in seriousness or joke;<br>And even in Italy such places are,<br>With prettier name in softer accents spoke,<br>For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on<br>No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VI.<br>This feast is named the Carnival, which being<br>Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh:"<br>So call'd, because the name and thing agreeing,<br>Through Lent they live on fish, both salt and fresh.<br>But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,<br>Is more than I can tell, although I guess<br>'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,<br>In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VII.<br>And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes,<br>And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts,<br>To live for forty days on ill-dress'd fishes,<br>Because they have no sauces to their stews;<br>A thing which causes many "poohs" and "pishes,"<br>And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse),<br>From travellers accustom'd from a boy<br>To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VIII.<br>And therefore humbly I would recommend<br>"The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross<br>The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend,<br>Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross<br>(Or if set out beforehand, these may send<br>By any means least liable to loss)<br>Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey,<br>Or by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IX.<br>That is to say, if your religion's Roman,<br>And you at Rome would do as Romans do,<br>According to the proverb, — although no man<br>If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you<br>If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman,<br>Would rather dine in sin on a ragout —<br>Dine and be d—d! I don't mean to be coarse,<br>But that's the penalty, to say no worse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> X.<br>Of all the places where the Carnival<br>Was most facetious in the days of yore,<br>For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,<br>And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more<br>Than I have time to tell now, or at all,<br>Venice the bell from every city bore, —<br>And at the moment when I fix my story,<br>That sea-born city was in all her glory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XI.<br>They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians,<br>Black-eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet expressions still;<br>Such as of old were copied from the Grecians,<br>In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill;<br>And like so many Venuses of Titian's<br>(The best's at Florence — see it, if ye will),<br>They look when leaning over the balcony,<br>Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XII.<br>Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best;<br>And when you to Manfrini's palace go,<br>That picture (howsoever fine the rest)<br>Is loveliest to my mind of all the show;<br>It may perhaps be also to your zest,<br>And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so:<br>'Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife,<br>And self; but such a woman! love in life!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIII.<br>Love in full life and length, not love ideal,<br>No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,<br>But something better still, so very real,<br>That the sweet model must have been the same;<br>A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal,<br>Were 't not impossible, besides a shame:<br>The face recalls some face, as't were with pain,<br>You once have seen, but ne'er will see again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIV.<br>One of those forms which flit by us, when we<br>Are young, and fix our eyes on every face;<br>And, oh! the loveliness at times we see<br>In momentary gliding, the soft grace,<br>The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree,<br>In many a nameless being we retrace,<br>whose course, and home we knew not, nor shall know,<br>Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XV.<br>I said that like a picture by Giorgione<br>Venetian women were, and so they are,<br>Particularly seen from a balcony<br>(For beauty's sometimes best set off afar),<br>And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,<br>They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar;<br>And truth to say, they're mostly very pretty,<br>And rather like to show it, more's the pity!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVI.<br>For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,<br>Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter,<br>Which flies on wings of light-heel'd Mercuries,<br>Who do such things because they know no better;<br>And then, God knows what mischief may arise,<br>When love links two young people in one fetter,<br>Vile assignations, and adulterous beds,<br>Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVII.<br>Shakespeare described the sex in Desdemona<br>As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,<br>And to this day from Venice to Verona<br>Such matters may be probably the same,<br>Except that since those times was never known a<br>Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame<br>To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,<br>Because she had a "cavalier servente."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVIII.<br>Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)<br>Is of a fair complexion altogether,<br>Not like that sooty devil of Othello's,<br>Which smothers women in a bed of feather,<br>But worthier of these much more jolly fellows,<br>When weary of the matrimonial tether<br>His head for such a wife no mortal bothers,<br>But takes at once another, or another's.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIX.<br>Didst ever see a Gondola? For fear<br>You should not, I'll describe it you exactly:<br>"Tis a long cover'd boat that's common here,<br>Carved at the prow, build lightly, but compactly,<br>Row'd by two rowers, each call'd "Gondolier,"<br>It glides along the water looking blackly,<br>Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,<br>Where none can make out what you say or do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XX.<br>And up and down the long canals they go,<br>And under the Rialto shoot along,<br>By night and day, all paces, swift or slow,<br>And round the theatres, a sable throng,<br>They wait in their dusk livery of woe, —<br>But not to them do woeful things belong,<br>For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,<br>Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXI.<br>But to my story. — 'Twas some years ago,<br>It may be thirty, forty, more or less,<br>The Carnival was at its height, and so<br>Were all kinds of buffoonery and dress;<br>A certain lady went to see the show,<br>Her real name I know not, nor can guess,<br>And so we'll call her Laura, if you please,<br>Because it slips into my verse with ease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXII.<br>She was not old, nor young, nor at the years<br>Which certain people call a "certain age,"<br>Which yet the most uncertain age appears,<br>Because I never heard, nor could engage<br>A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears,<br>To name, define by speech, or write on page,<br>The period meant precisely by that word, —<br>Which surely is exceedingly absurd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIII.<br>Laura was blooming still, had made the best<br>Of time, and time return'd the compliment,<br>She look'd extremely well where'er she went;<br>A pretty woman is a welcome guest,<br>And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent;<br>Indeed, she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter<br>Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIV.<br>She was a married woman; 'tis convenient,<br>Because in Christian countries 'tis a rule<br>To view their little slips with eyes more lenient;<br>Whereas if single ladies play the fool<br>(Unless within the period intervenient<br>A well-times wedding makes the scandal cool),<br>I don't know how they ever can get over it,<br>Except they manage never to discover it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXV.<br>Her husband sail'd upon the Adriatic,<br>And made some voyages, too, in other seas,<br>And when he lay in quarantine for pratique<br>(A forty days' precaution 'gainst disease),<br>His wife would mount, at times, her highest attic,<br>For thence she could discern the ship with ease;<br>He was a merchant trading to Aleppo,<br>His name Giuseppe, call'd more briefly, Beppo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVI.<br>He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard,<br>Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure;<br>Though colour'd, as it were, within a tan-yard,<br>He was a person both of sense and vigour —<br>A better seaman never yet did man yard;<br>And she, although her manners show'd no rigour,<br>Was deem'd a woman of the strictest principle,<br>So much as to be thought almost invincible.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVII.<br>But several years elapsed since they had met;<br>Some people thought the ship was lost, and some<br>That he had somehow blunder'd into debt,<br>And did not like the thought of steering home;<br>And there were several offer'd any bet,<br>Or that he would, or that he would not come;<br>For most men (till by losing render'd sager)<br>Will back their own opinions with a wager.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVIII.<br>'Tis said that their last parting was pathetic,<br>As partings often are, or ought to be,<br>And their presentiment was quite prophetic,<br>That they should never more each other see,<br>(A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic,<br>Which I have known occur in two or three,)<br>When kneeling on the shore upon her sad knee<br>He left this Adriatic Ariadne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIX.<br>And Laura waited long, and wept a little,<br>And thought of wearing weeds, as well she might;<br>She almost lost all appetite for victual,<br>And could not sleep with ease along at night;<br>She deem'd the window-frames and shutters brittle<br>Against a daring housebreaker or sprite,<br>And so she thought it prudent to connect her.<br>With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXX.<br>She chose, (and what is there they will not choose,<br>If only you will but oppose their choice?)<br>Till Beppo should return from his long cruise,<br>And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice,<br>A man some women like, and yet abuse —<br>A coxcomb was he by the public voice;<br>A Count of wealth, they said, as well as quality,<br>And in his pleasures of great liberality.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXI.<br>And then he was A Count, and then he knew<br>Music, and dancing, fiddling, French and Tuscan;<br>The last not easy, be it known to you.<br>For few Italians speak the right Etruscan.<br>He was a critic upon operas, too,<br>And knew all niceties of the sock and buskin;<br>And no Venetian audience could endure a<br>Song, scene, or air, when he cried "seccatura!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXII.<br>His "bravo" was decisive, for that sound<br>Hush'd "Academie" sigh'd in silent awe;<br>The fiddlers trembled as he look'd around,<br>For fear of some false note's detected flaw;<br>The "prima donna's" tuneful heart would bound,<br>Dreading the deep damnation of his "bah!"<br>Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto,<br>Wish'd him five fathom under the Rialto.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIII.<br>He patronised the Improvisatori,<br>Nay, could himself extemporise some stanzas,<br>Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell a story,<br>Sold pictures, and was skilful in the dance as<br>Italians can be, though in this their glory<br>Must surely yield the palm to that which France has;<br>In short, he was a perfect cavaliero,<br>And to his very valet seem'd a hero.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIV.<br>Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous;<br>So that no sort of female could complain,<br>Although they're now and then a little clamourous,<br>He never put the pretty souls in pain;<br>His heart was one of those which most enamour us,<br>Wax to receive, and marble to retain:<br>He was a lover of the good old school,<br>Who still become more constant as they cool.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXV.<br>No wonder such accomplishments should turn<br>A female head, however sage and steady —<br>With scarce a hope that Beppo could return,<br>In law he was almost as good as dead, he<br>Nor sent, nor wrote, nor show'd the least concern,<br>And she had waited several years already;<br>And really if a man won't let us know<br>That he's alive, he's dead, or should be so.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVI.<br>Besides, within the Alps, to every woman,<br>(Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin,)<br>'Tis, I may say, permitted to have two men;<br>I can't tell who first brought the custom in,<br>But "Cavalier Serventes" are quite common,<br>And no one notices nor cares a pin;<br>And we may call this (not to say the worst)<br>A second marriage which corrupts the first.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVII.<br>The word was formerly a "Cicisbeo,"<br>But that is now grown vulgar and indecent;<br>The Spaniards call the person a "Cortejo,"<br>For the same mode subsists in Spain, though recent;<br>In short, it reaches from the Po to Teio,<br>And may perhaps at last be o'er the sea sent:<br>But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses!<br>Or what becomes of damage and divorces?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVIII.<br>However, I still think, with all due deference<br>To the fair single part of the creation,<br>That married ladies should preserve the preference<br>In tête-à-tête or general conversation —<br>And this I say without peculiar reference<br>To England, France, or any other nation —<br>Because they know the world, and are at ease,<br>And being natural, naturally please.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIX.<br>"Tis true, your budding Miss is very charming,<br>But shy and awkward at first coming out,<br>So much alarm'd, that she is quite alarming,<br>All Giggle, Blush; half Pertness, and half-Pout;<br>And glancing at Mamma, for fear there's harm in<br>What you, she, it, or they, may be about,<br>The nursery still lisps out in all they utter —<br>Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XL.<br>But "Cavalier Servente" is the phrase<br>Used in politest circles to express<br>This supernumerary slave, who stays<br>Close to the lady as a part of dress,<br>Her word the only law which he obeys.<br>His is no sinecure, as you may guess;<br>Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call,<br>And carries fan and tippet, gloves and shawl.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLI.<br>With all its sinful doings, I must say,<br>That Italy's a pleasant place to me,<br>Who love to see the Sun shine every day,<br>And vines (not nail'd to walls) from tree to tree<br>Festoon'd, much like the back scene of a play,<br>Or melodrame, which people flock to see,<br>When the first act is ended by a dance<br>In vineyards copied from the south of France.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLII.<br>I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,<br>Without being forced to bid my groom be sure<br>My cloak is round his middle strapp'd about,<br>Because the skies are not the most secure;<br>I know too that, if stopp'd upon my route,<br>Where the green alleys windingly allure,<br>Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way, —<br>In England 't would be dung, dust, or a dray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIII.<br>I also like to dine on becaficas,<br>To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise tomorrow,<br>Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as<br>A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow,<br>But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as<br>Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow<br>That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers<br>Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIV.<br>I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,<br>Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,<br>And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,<br>With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,<br>And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,<br>That not a single accent seems uncouth,<br>Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,<br>Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLV.<br>I like the women too (forgive my folly),<br>From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,<br>And large black eyes that flash on you a volley<br>Of rays that say a thousand things at once,<br>To the high dama's brow, more melancholy,<br>But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance,<br>Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,<br>Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVI.<br>Eve of the land which still is Paradise!<br>Italian beauty! didst thou not inspire<br>Raphael, who died in thy embrace, and vies<br>With all we know of Heaven, or can desire,<br>In what he hath bequeath'd us? — in what guise,<br>Though flashing from the fervour of the lyre,<br>Would words describe thy past and present glow,<br>While yet Canova can create below?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVII.<br>"England! with all thy faults I love thee still,"<br>I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;<br>I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;<br>I like the government (but that is not it);<br>I like the freedom of the press and quill;<br>I like the Hapeas Corpus (when we've got it);<br>I like a parliamentary debate,<br>Particularly when 'tis not too late;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVIII.<br>I like the taxes, when they're not too many;<br>I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;<br>I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;<br>Have no objection to a pot of beer;<br>I like the weather, when it is not rainy,<br>That is, I like two months of every year,<br>And so God save the Regent, Church, and King!<br>Which means that I like all and everything.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIX.<br>Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,<br>Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the nation's debt,<br>Our little riots just to show we are free men,<br>Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette,<br>Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,<br>All these I can forgive, and those forget,<br>And greatly venerate our recent glories,<br>And wish they were not owing to the Tories.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> L.<br>But to my tale of Laura, — for I find<br>Digression is a sin, that by degrees<br>Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind,<br>And, therefore, may the reader too displease —<br>The gentle reader, who may wax unkind,<br>And caring little for the author's ease,<br>Insist on knowing what he means, a hard<br>And hapless situation for a bard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LI.<br>Oh that I had the art of easy writing<br>What should be easy reading! could I scale<br>Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing<br>Those pretty poems never known to fail,<br>How quickly would I print (the world delighting)<br>A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale;<br>And sell you, mix'd with western sentimentalism,<br>Some samples of the finest Orientalism!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LII.<br>But I am but a nameless sort of person,<br>(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)<br>And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,<br>The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels,<br>And when I can't find that, I put a worse on,<br>Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils;<br>I've half a mind to tumble down to prose,<br>But verse is more in fashion — so here goes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIII.<br>The Count and Laura made their new arrangement,<br>Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do,<br>For half a dozen years without estrangement;<br>They had their little differences, too;<br>Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant;<br>In such affairs there probably are few<br>Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble,<br>From sinners of high station to the rabble.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIV.<br>But on the whole, they were a happy pair,<br>As happy as unlawful love could make them;<br>The gentleman was fond, the lady fair,<br>Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to break them;<br>The world beheld them with indulgent air;<br>The pious only wish'd "the devil take them!"<br>He took them not; he very often waits,<br>And leaves old sinners to be young ones' baits.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LV.<br>But they were young: Oh! what without our youth<br>Would love be! What would youth be without love!<br>Youth lends it joy, and sweetness, vigour, truth,<br>Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above;<br>But, languishing with years, it grows uncouth —<br>One of few things experience don't improve,<br>Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows<br>Are always so preposterously jealous.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVI.<br>It was the Carnival, as I have said<br>Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so<br>Laura the usual preparations made,<br>Which you do when your mind's made up to go<br>To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,<br>Spectator, or partaker in the show;<br>The only difference known between the cases<br>Is — here, we have six weeks of "varnish'd faces."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVII.<br>Laura, when dress'd, was (as I sang before)<br>A pretty woman as was ever seen,<br>Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door,<br>Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,<br>With all the fashions which the last month wore,<br>Colour'd, and silver paper leaved between<br>That and the title-page, for fear the press<br>Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVIII.<br>They went to the Ridotto; — 'tis a hall<br>Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;<br>Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,<br>But that's of no importance to my strain;<br>'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,<br>Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain;<br>The company is "mix'd" (the phrase I quote is<br>As much as saying they're below your notice);</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIX.<br>For a "mix'd company" implies that, save<br>Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more,<br>Whom you may bow to without looking grave,<br>The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore<br>Of public places, where they basely brave<br>The fashionable stare of twenty score<br>Of well-bred persons, call'd "The World;" but I,<br>Although I know them, really don't know why.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LX.<br>This is the case in England; at least was<br>During the dynasty of Dandies, now<br>Perchance succeeded by some other class<br>Of imitated imitators: — how<br>Irreparably soon decline, alas!<br>The demagogues of fashion: all below<br>Is frail; how easily the world is lost<br>By love, or war, and now and then by frost!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXI.<br>Crush'd was Napoleon by the northern Thor,<br>Who knock'd his army down with icy hammer,<br>Stopp'd by the elements, like a whaler, or<br>A blundering novice in his new French grammar;<br>Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war,<br>And as for Fortune — but I dare not d—n her,<br>Because, were I to ponder to infinity,<br>The more I should believe in her divinity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXII.<br>She rules the present, past, and all to be yet,<br>She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage;<br>I cannot say that she's done much for me yet;<br>Not that I mean her bounties to disparage,<br>We've not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet;<br>How much she'll make amends for past miscarriage.<br>Meantime the Goddess I'll no more importune,<br>Unless to thank her when she's made my fortune.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIII.<br>To turn, — and return; — the devil take it!<br>This story slips for ever through my fingers,<br>Because, just as the stanza likes to make it,<br>It needs must be, and so it rather lingers:<br>This form of verse began, I can't well break it,<br>But must keep time and tune like public singers;<br>But if I once get through my present measure,<br>I'll take another when I'm at leisure.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIV.<br>They went to the Ridotto ('tis a place<br>To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,<br>Just to divert my thoughts a little space,<br>Because I'm rather hippish, and may borrow,<br>Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face<br>May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow<br>Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, or find,<br>Something shall leave it half an hour behind).</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXV.<br>Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,<br>Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips;<br>To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;<br>To some she curtsies, and to some she dips,<br>Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow'd,<br>Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips;<br>She then surveys, condemns, but pities still<br>Her dearest friends for being dress'd so ill.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVI.<br>One has false curls, another too much paint,<br>A third — where did she buy that frightful turban?<br>A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint,<br>A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban,<br>A sixth's white silk has got a yellow taint,<br>A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her bane,<br>And lo! an eighth appears, — "I'll see no more!"<br>For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVII.<br>Meantime, while she was thus at others gazing,<br>Others were leveling their looks at her;<br>She heard the men's half-whisper'd mode of praising,<br>And, till 'twas done, determined not to stir;<br>The women only thought it quite amazing<br>That, at her time of life, so many were<br>Admirers still, — but men are so debased,<br>Those brazen creatures always suit their taste.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVIII.<br>For my part, now, I ne'er could understand<br>Why naughty women — but I won't discuss<br>A thing which is a scandal to the land,<br>I only don't see why it should be thus;<br>And if I were but in a gown and band,<br>Just to entitle me to make a fuss,<br>I'd preach on this till Wilberforce and Romilly<br>Should quote in their next speeches from my homily.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIX.<br>While Laura thus was seen, and seeing, smiling,<br>Talking, she knew not why, and cared not what,<br>So that her female friends, with envy broiling,<br>Beheld her airs and triumph, and all that;<br>And well-dress'd males still kept before her filing,<br>And passing bow'd and mingled with her chat;<br>More than the rest one person seem'd to stare<br>With pertinacity that's rather rare.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXX.<br>He was a Turk, the colour of mahogany;<br>And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,<br>Because the Turks so much admire phylogyny,<br>Although their usage of their wives is sad;<br>'Tis said they use no better than a dog any<br>Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad;<br>They have a number, though the ne'er exhibit 'em,<br>Four wives by law, and concubines: ad libitum."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXI.<br>They lock them up, and veil, and guard them daily,<br>They scarcely can behold their male relations,<br>So that their moments do not pass so gaily<br>As is supposed the case with northern nations;<br>Confinement, too, must make them look quite palely;<br>And as the Turks abhor long conversations,<br>Their days are either pass'd in doing nothing,<br>Or bathing, nursing, making love, and clothing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXII.<br>They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;<br>Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse;<br>Were never caught in epigram or witticism,<br>Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews, —<br>In harams learning soon would make a pretty schism,<br>But luckily these beauties are no "Blues;"<br>No bustling Botherbys have they to show 'em<br>"That charming passage in the last new poem;"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIII.<br>No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme,<br>Who having angled all his life for fame,<br>And getting but a nibble at a time,<br>Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same<br>Small "Triton of the minnows," the sublime<br>Of mediocrity, the furious tame,<br>The echo's echo, usher of the school<br>Of female wits, boy bards — in short, a fool!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIV.<br>A stalking oracle of awful phrase<br>The approving "Good!" (By no means good in law,)<br>Humming like flies around the newest blaze,<br>The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw,<br>Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise,<br>Gorging the little fame he gets all raw,<br>Translating tongues he knows not even by letter,<br>And sweating plays so middling, bad were better.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXV.<br>One hates an author that's all author, fellows<br>In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink,<br>So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,<br>One do'nt know what to say to them, or think,<br>Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;<br>Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink<br>Are preferable to these shreds of paper,<br>These unquench'd snufflings of the midnight taper.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVI.<br>Of these same we see several, and of others,<br>Men of the world, who know the world like men,<br>Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers,<br>Who think of something else besides the pen;<br>But for the children of the "mighty mother's,"<br>The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,<br>I leave them to their daily "tea is ready,"<br>Smug coterie, and literary lady.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVII.<br>The poor dear Mussulwomen whom I mention<br>Have none of these instructive pleasant people,<br>And one would seem to them a new invention,<br>Unknown as bells within a Turkish steeple;<br>I think 't would almost be worth while to pension<br>(though best-sown projects ver often reap ill)<br>A missionary author, just to preach<br>Our Christian usage of the parts of speech.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVIII.<br>No chemistry for them unfolds her gases,<br>No metaphysics are let loose in lectures,<br>No circulating library amasses<br>Religious novels, moral tales, and strictures<br>Upon the living manners, as they pass us;<br>No exhibition glares with annual pictures;<br>They stare not on the stars from out their attics,<br>Nor deal (thank God for that!) in mathematics.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIX.<br>Why I thank God for that is no great matter,<br>I have my reasons, you no doubt suppose,<br>And as, perhaps, they would not highly flatter,<br>I'll keep them for my life (to come) in prose;<br>I fear I have a little turn for satire,<br>And yet methinks the older that one grows<br>Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter<br>Leaves us no doubly serious shortly after.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXX.<br>Oh, mirth and innocence! Oh, milk and water!<br>Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!<br>In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter,<br>Abominable Man no more allays<br>His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter,<br>I love you both, and both shall have my praise;<br>Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy! —<br>Meantime I drink to your return in brandy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXI.<br>Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes upon her,<br>Less in the Mussulman than Christian way,<br>Which seems to say, "Madam, I do you honour,<br>And while I please to stare, you'll please to stay!"<br>Could staring win a woman, this had won her,<br>But Laura could not thus be led astray;<br>She had stood fire too long and well, is boggle<br>Even at this stranger's most outlandish ogle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXII.<br>The morning now was on the point of breaking<br>A turn of time at which I would advise<br>Ladies who have been dancing, or partaking<br>In any other kind of exercise,<br>To make their preparations for forsaking<br>The ball-room ere the sun begins to rise,<br>Because when once the lamps and candles fail,<br>His blushes make them look a little pale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIII.<br>I've seen some balls and revels in my time,<br>And stay'd them over for some silly reason,<br>And then I look'd (I hope it was no crime)<br>To see what lady best stood out the season,<br>And though I've seen some thousands in their prime,<br>Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on,<br>I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn)<br>Whose bloom could after dancing dare the dawn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIV.<br>The name of this Aurora I'll not mention,<br>Although I might, for she was nought to me<br>More than that patent work of God's invention,<br>A charming woman, whom we like to see;<br>But writing names would merit reprehension,<br>Yet if you like to find out this fair she,<br>At the next London or Parisian ball<br>You still may mark her cheek out-blooming all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXV.<br>Laura, who knew it would not do at all<br>To meet the daylight after seven hours' sitting<br>Among three thousand people at a ball,<br>To make her curtsy thought it right and fitting;<br>The Count was at her elbow with her shawl,<br>And they the room were on the point of quitting,<br>When lo! those cursed gondoliers had got<br>Just in the very place where they should not.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVI.<br>In this they're like our coachmen, and the cause<br>Is much the same — the crowd, and pulling, hauling,<br>With blasphemies enough to break their jaws,<br>They make a never intermitted bawling.<br>At home, our Bow-street gemmen keep the laws,<br>And here a sentry stands within your calling;<br>But for all that, there is a deal of swearing,<br>And nauseous words past mentioning or bearing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVII.<br>The Count and Laura found their boat at last,<br>And homeward floated o'er the silent tied,<br>Discussing all the dances gone and past;<br>The dancers and their dresses, too, beside;<br>Some little scandals eke; but all aghast<br>(As to their palace-stairs the rowers glide)<br>Sate Laura by the side of her Adorer,<br>When lo! the Mussulman was there before her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVIII.<br>"Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave,<br>"Your unexpected presence here will make<br>It necessary for myself to crave<br>Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mistake;<br>I hope it is so; and, at once to waive<br>All compliment, I hope so for your sake;<br>You understand my meaning, or you shall,"<br>"Sir" (quoth the Turk), "'tis no mistake at all:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIX.<br>"That lady is my wife!" Much wonder paints<br>The lady's changing cheek, as well it might;<br>But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints,<br>Italian females don't do so outright;<br>They only call a little on their saints,<br>And then come to themselves, almost or quite;<br>Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces,<br>And cutting stays, as usual in such cases.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XC.<br>She said, — what could she say? Why, not a word:<br>But the Count courteously invited in<br>The stranger, much appeased by what he heard:<br>"Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within,"<br>Said he; "don't let us make ourselves absurd<br>In public, by a scene, nor raise a din,<br>For then the chief and only satisfaction<br>Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCI.<br>They enter'd, and for coffee call'd — it came,<br>A beverage for Turks and Christians both,<br>Although the way they make it's not the same.<br>Now Laura, much recover'd, or less loth<br>To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your pagan name?<br>Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth!<br>And how came you to keep away so long?<br>Are you not sensible 't was very wrong?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCII.<br>"And are you really, truly, now a Turk?<br>With any other women did you wive?<br>Is 't true they use their fingers for a fork?<br>Well, that's the prettiest shawl — as I'm alive!<br>You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.<br>And how so many years did you contrive<br>To — Bless me! did I ever? No, I never<br>Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIII.<br>"Beppo! that beard of yours becomes you not;<br>It shall be shaved before you're a day older:<br>Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot —<br>Pray don't you think the weather here is colder?<br>How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot<br>In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder<br>Should find you out, and make the story known.<br>How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIV.<br>What answer Beppo made to these demands<br>Is more than I know. He was cast away<br>About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands;<br>Became a slave of course, and for his pay<br>Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands<br>Of pirates landing in a neighbouring bay,<br>He join'd the rogues and prosper'd, and became<br>A renegado of indifferent fame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCV.<br>But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so<br>Keen the desire to see his home again,<br>He thought himself in duty bound to do so,<br>And not be always thieving on the main;<br>Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,<br>And so he hired a vessel come from Spain,<br>Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca,<br>Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVI.<br>Himself, and much (Heaven knows how gotten!) cash,<br>He then embark'd, with risk of life and limb<br>And got clear off, although the attempt was rash;<br>He said that Providence protected him —<br>For my part, I say nothing — lest we clash<br>In our opinions: — well, the ship was trim,<br>Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,<br>Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVII.<br>They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading<br>And self and live stock to another bottom,<br>And pass'd for a true Turkey-merchant, trading<br>With goods of various names, but I've forgot'em.<br>However, he got off by this evading,<br>Or else the people would perhaps have shot him;<br>And thus at Venice landed to reclaim<br>His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVIII.<br>His wife received, the patriarch re-baptised him<br>(He made the church a present, by the way);<br>He then threw off the garments which disguised him,<br>And borrow'd the Count's small clothes for a day:<br>His friends the more for his long absence prized him,<br>Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay,<br>With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them,<br>For stories — but I don't believe the half of them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIX.<br>Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age<br>With wealth and talking made him some amends;<br>Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,<br>I've heard the Count and he were always friends.<br>My pen is at the bottom of a page,<br>Which being finish'd, here the story ends;<br>'Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done,<br>But stories somehow lengthen when begun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116820" data-title="Beppo de Byron" data-description="I./'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout/All countries of the Catholic persuasion,/Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,/The people take their fill of recreation,/And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,/However high their ra..."></div> </div> </div>

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