<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116897" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Canto the Twelfth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>Of all the barbarous middle ages, that<br> Which is most barbarous is the middle age<br>Of man; it is -- I really scarce know what;<br> But when we hover between fool and sage,<br>And don't know justly what we would be at --<br> A period something like a printed page,<br>Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair<br>Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were; --</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> II<br>Too old for youth, -- too young, at thirty-five,<br> To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore, --<br>I wonder people should be left alive;<br> But since they are, that epoch is a bore:<br>Love lingers still, although 't were late to wive;<br> And as for other love, the illusion's o'er;<br>And money, that most pure imagination,<br>Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> III<br>O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?<br> Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;<br>Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable<br> Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.<br>Ye who but see the saving man at table,<br> And scorn his temperate board, as none at all,<br>And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,<br>Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IV<br>Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker;<br> Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss;<br>But making money, slowly first, then quicker,<br> And adding still a little through each cross<br>(Which will come over things), beats love or liquor,<br> The gamester's counter, or the statesman's dross.<br>O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,<br>Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> V<br>Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign<br> O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?<br>Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain? [*]<br> (That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all.)<br>Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain<br> Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?<br>The shade of Buonaparte's noble daring? --<br>Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VI<br>Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,<br> Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan<br>Is not a merely speculative hit,<br> But seats a nation or upsets a throne.<br>Republics also get involved a bit;<br> Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown<br>On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,<br>Must get itself discounted by a Jew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VII<br>Why call the miser miserable? as<br> I said before: the frugal life is his,<br>Which in a saint or cynic ever was<br> The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss<br>Canonization for the self-same cause,<br> And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities?<br>Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial; --<br>Then there's more merit in his self-denial.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VIII<br>He is your only poet; -- passion, pure<br> And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays,<br>Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure<br> Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays<br>Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure;<br> On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze,<br>While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dies<br>Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IX<br>The lands on either side are his; the ship<br> From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads<br>For him the fragrant produce of each trip;<br> Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,<br>And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip;<br> His very cellars might be kings' abodes;<br>While he, despising every sensual call,<br>Commands -- the intellectual lord of all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> X<br>Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,<br> To build a college, or to found a race,<br>A hospital, a church, -- and leave behind<br> Some dome surmounted by his meagre face:<br>Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind<br> Even with the very ore which makes them base;<br>Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,<br>Or revel in the joys of calculation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XI<br>But whether all, or each, or none of these<br> May be the hoarder's principle of action,<br>The fool will call such mania a disease: --<br> What is his own? Go -- look at each transaction,<br>Wars, revels, loves -- do these bring men more ease<br> Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction"?<br>Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser!<br>Let spendthrifts' heirs enquire of yours -- who's wiser?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XII<br>How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests<br> Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins<br>(Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests<br> Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines,<br>But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests<br> Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines,<br>Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp: --<br>Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIII<br>"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove," -- "for love<br> Is heaven, and heaven is love:" -- so sings the bard;<br>Which it were rather difficult to prove<br> (A thing with poetry in general hard).<br>Perhaps there may be something in "the grove,"<br> At least it rhymes to "love;" but I'm prepared<br>To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental)<br>If "courts" and "camps" be quite so sentimental.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIV<br>But if Love don't, Cash does, and Cash alone:<br> Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides;<br>Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none;<br> Without cash, Malthus tells you -- "take no brides."<br>So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own<br> High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides:<br>And as for Heaven "Heaven being Love," why not say honey<br>Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 't is Matrimony.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XV<br>Is not all love prohibited whatever,<br> Excepting marriage? which is love, no doubt,<br>After a sort; but somehow people never<br> With the same thought the two words have help'd out:<br>Love may exist with marriage, and should ever,<br> And marriage also may exist without;<br>But love sans bans is both a sin and shame,<br>And ought to go by quite another name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVI<br>Now if the "court," and "camp," and "grove," be not<br> Recruited all with constant married men,<br>Who never coveted their neighbour's lot,<br> I say that line's a lapsus of the pen; --<br>Strange too in my "buon camerado" Scott,<br> So celebrated for his morals, when<br>My Jeffrey held him up as an example<br>To me; -- of whom these morals are a sample.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVII<br>Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded,<br> And that's enough; succeeded in my youth,<br>The only time when much success is needed:<br> And my success produced what I, in sooth,<br>Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded --<br> Whate'er it was, 't was mine; I've paid, in truth,<br>Of late the penalty of such success,<br>But have not learn'd to wish it any less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVIII<br>That suit in Chancery, -- which some persons plead<br> In an appeal to the unborn, whom they,<br>In the faith of their procreative creed,<br> Baptize posterity, or future clay, --<br>To me seems but a dubious kind of reed<br> To lean on for support in any way;<br>Since odds are that posterity will know<br>No more of them, than they of her, I trow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIX<br>Why, I'm posterity -- and so are you;<br> And whom do we remember? Not a hundred.<br>Were every memory written down all true,<br> The tenth or twentieth name would be but blunder'd;<br>Even Plutarch's Lives have but pick'd out a few,<br> And 'gainst those few your annalists have thunder'd;<br>And Mitford in the nineteenth century [*]<br>Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XX<br>Good people all, of every degree,<br> Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers,<br>In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be<br> As serious as if I had for inditers<br>Malthus and Wilberforce: -- the last set free<br> The Negroes and is worth a million fighters;<br>While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites,<br>And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which he writes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXI<br>I'm serious -- so are all men upon paper;<br> And why should I not form my speculation,<br>And hold up to the sun my little taper?<br> Mankind just now seem wrapt in mediation<br>On constitutions and steam-boats of vapour;<br> While sages write against all procreation,<br>Unless a man can calculate his means<br>Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXII<br>That's noble! That's romantic! For my part,<br> I think that "Philo-genitiveness" is<br>(Now here's a word quite after my own heart,<br> Though there's a shorter a good deal than this,<br>If that politeness set it not apart;<br> But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss) --<br>I say, methinks that "Philo-genitiveness"<br>Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIII<br>And now to business. -- O my gentle Juan,<br> Thou art in London -- in that pleasant place,<br>Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing,<br> Which can await warm youth in its wild race.<br>'T is true, that thy career is not a new one;<br> Thou art no novice in the headlong chase<br>Of early life; but this is a new land,<br>Which foreigners can never understand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIV<br>What with a small diversity of climate,<br> Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate,<br>I could send forth my mandate like a primate<br> Upon the rest of Europe's social state;<br>But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at,<br> Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate.<br>All countries have their "Lions," but in thee<br>There is but one superb menagerie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXV<br>But I am sick of politics. Begin,<br> "Paulo Majora." Juan, undecided<br>Amongst the paths of being "taken in,"<br> Above the ice had like a skater glided:<br>When tired of play, he flirted without sin<br> With some of those fair creatures who have prided<br>Themselves on innocent tantalisation,<br>And hate all vice except its reputation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVI<br>But these are few, and in the end they make<br> Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows<br>That even the purest people may mistake<br> Their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows;<br>And then men stare, as if a new ass spake<br> To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows<br>Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you note it)<br>With the kind world's amen -- "Who would have thought it?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVII<br>The little Leila, with her orient eyes,<br> And taciturn Asiatic disposition<br>(Which saw all western things with small surprise,<br> To the surprise of people of condition,<br>Who think that novelties are butterflies<br> To be pursued as food for inanition),<br>Her charming figure and romantic history<br>Became a kind of fashionable mystery.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVIII<br>The women much divided -- as is usual<br> Amongst the sex in little things or great.<br>Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you all --<br> I have always liked you better than I state:<br>Since I've grown moral, still I must accuse you all<br> Of being apt to talk at a great rate;<br>And now there was a general sensation<br>Amongst you, about Leila's education.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIX<br>In one point only were you settled -- and<br> You had reason; 't was that a young child of grace,<br>As beautiful as her own native land,<br> And far away, the last bud of her race,<br>Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command<br> Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space,<br>Would be much better taught beneath the eye<br>Of peeresses whose follies had run dry.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXX<br>So first there was a generous emulation,<br> And then there was a general competition,<br>To undertake the orphan's education.<br> As Juan was a person of condition,<br>It had been an affront on this occasion<br> To talk of a subscription or petition;<br>But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages,<br>Whose tale belongs to "Hallam's Middle Ages,"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXI<br>And one or two sad, separate wives, without<br> A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough --<br>Begg'd to bring up the little girl and "out," --<br> For that's the phrase that settles all things now,<br>Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout,<br> And all her points as thorough-bred to show:<br>And I assure you, that like virgin honey<br>Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money).</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXII<br>How all the needy honourable misters,<br> Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy,<br>The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters<br> (Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy<br>At making matches, where "'t is gold that glisters,"<br> Than their he relatives), like flies o'er candy<br>Buzz round "the Fortune" with their busy battery,<br>To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIII<br>Each aunt, each cousin, hath her speculation;<br> Nay, married dames will now and then discover<br>Such pure disinterestedness of passion,<br> I've known them court an heiress for their lover.<br>"Tantæne!" Such the virtues of high station,<br> Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet 's "Dover!"<br>While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares,<br>Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIV<br>Some are soon bagg"d, and some reject three dozen.<br> 'T is fine to see them scattering refusals<br>And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin<br> (Friends of the party), who begin accusals,<br>Such as -- "Unless Miss (Blank) meant to have chosen<br> Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals<br>To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I pray,<br>Look yes last night, and yet say no to-day?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXV<br>"Why? -- Why? -- Besides, Fred really was attach'd;<br> 'T was not her fortune -- he has enough without:<br>The time will come she'll wish that she had snatch'd<br> So good an opportunity, no doubt: --<br>But the old marchioness some plan had hatch'd,<br> As I'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout:<br>And after all poor Frederick may do better --<br>Pray did you see her answer to his letter?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVI<br>Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets<br> Are spurn'd in turn, until her turn arrives,<br>After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets<br> Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives;<br>And when at last the pretty creature gets<br> Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or drives,<br>It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected<br>To find how very badly she selected.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVII<br>For sometimes they accept some long pursuer,<br> Worn out with importunity; or fall<br>(But here perhaps the instances are fewer)<br> To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all.<br>A hazy widower turn'd of forty's sure [*]<br> (If 't is not vain examples to recall)<br>To draw a high prize: now, howe'er he got her, I<br>See nought more strange in this than t' other lottery.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVIII<br>I, for my part (one "modern instance" more,<br> "True, 't is a pity -- pity 't is, 't is true"),<br>Was chosen from out an amatory score,<br> Albeit my years were less discreet than few;<br>But though I also had reform'd before<br> Those became one who soon were to be two,<br>I'll not gainsay the generous public's voice,<br>That the young lady made a monstrous choice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIX<br>Oh, pardon my digression -- or at least<br> Peruse! 'T is always with a moral end<br>That I dissert, like grace before a feast:<br> For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend,<br>A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest,<br> My Muse by exhortation means to mend<br>All people, at all times, and in most places,<br>Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XL<br>But now I'm going to be immoral; now<br> I mean to show things really as they are,<br>Not as they ought to be: for I avow,<br> That till we see what's what in fact, we're far<br>From much improvement with that virtuous plough<br> Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar<br>Upon the black loam long manured by Vice,<br>Only to keep its corn at the old price.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLI<br>But first of little Leila we'll dispose;<br> For like a day-dawn she was young and pure,<br>Or like the old comparison of snows,<br> Which are more pure than pleasant to be sure.<br>Like many people everybody knows,<br> Don Juan was delighted to secure<br>A goodly guardian for his infant charge,<br>Who might not profit much by being at large.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLII<br>Besides, he had found out he was no tutor<br> (I wish that others would find out the same);<br>And rather wish'd in such things to stand neuter,<br> For silly wards will bring their guardians blame:<br>So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor<br> To make his little wild Asiatic tame,<br>Consulting "the Society for Vice<br>Suppression," Lady Pinchbeck was his choice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIII<br>Olden she was -- but had been very young;<br> Virtuous she was -- and had been, I believe;<br>Although the world has such an evil tongue<br> That -- but my chaster ear will not receive<br>An echo of a syllable that's wrong:<br> In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve,<br>As that abominable tittle-tattle,<br>Which is the cud eschew'd by human cattle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIV<br>Moreover I've remark'd (and I was once<br> A slight observer in a modest way),<br>And so may every one except a dunce,<br> That ladies in their youth a little gay,<br>Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense<br> Of the sad consequence of going astray,<br>Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe<br>Which the mere passionless can never know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLV<br>While the harsh prude indemnifies her virtue<br> By railing at the unknown and envied passion,<br>Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you,<br> Or, what's still worse, to put you out of fashion, --<br>The kinder veteran with calm words will court you,<br> Entreating you to pause before you dash on;<br>Expounding and illustrating the riddle<br>Of epic Love's beginning, end, and middle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVI<br>Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter,<br> As better knowing why they should be so,<br>I think you'll find from many a family picture,<br> That daughters of such mothers as may know<br>The world by experience rather than by lecture,<br> Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show<br>Of vestals brought into the marriage mart,<br>Than those bred up by prudes without a heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVII<br>I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talk'd about --<br> As who has not, if female, young, and pretty?<br>But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalk'd about;<br> She merely was deem'd amiable and witty,<br>And several of her best bons-mots were hawk'd about:<br> Then she was given to charity and pity,<br>And pass'd (at least the latter years of life)<br>For being a most exemplary wife.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVIII<br>High in high circles, gentle in her own,<br> She was the mild reprover of the young,<br>Whenever -- which means every day -- they'd shown<br> An awkward inclination to go wrong.<br>The quantity of good she did's unknown,<br> Or at the least would lengthen out my song:<br>In brief, the little orphan of the East<br>Had raised an interest in her, which increased.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIX<br>Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with her,<br> Because she thought him a good heart at bottom,<br>A little spoil'd, but not so altogether;<br> Which was a wonder, if you think who got him,<br>And how he had been toss'd, he scarce knew whither:<br> Though this might ruin others, it did not him,<br>At least entirely -- for he had seen too many<br>Changes in youth, to be surprised at any.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> L<br>And these vicissitudes tell best in youth;<br> For when they happen at a riper age,<br>People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,<br> And wonder Providence is not more sage.<br>Adversity is the first path to truth:<br> He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,<br>Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,<br>Hath won the experience which is deem'd so weighty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LI<br>How far it profits is another matter. --<br> Our hero gladly saw his little charge<br>Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter<br> Being long married, and thus set at large,<br>Had left all the accomplishments she taught her<br> To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor's barge,<br>To the next comer; or -- as it will tell<br>More Muse-like -- like to Cytherea's shell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LII<br>I call such things transmission; for there is<br> A floating balance of accomplishment<br>Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss,<br> According as their minds or backs are bent.<br>Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss<br> Of metaphysics; others are content<br>With music; the most moderate shine as wits;<br>While others have a genius turn'd for fits.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIII<br>But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords,<br> Theology, fine arts, or finer stays,<br>May be the baits for gentlemen or lords<br> With regular descent, in these our days,<br>The last year to the new transfers its hoards;<br> New vestals claim men's eyes with the same praise<br>Of "elegant" et cætera, in fresh batches --<br>All matchless creatures, and yet bent on matches.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIV<br>But now I will begin my poem. 'T is<br> Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new,<br>That from the first of Cantos up to this<br> I've not begun what we have to go through.<br>These first twelve books are merely flourishes,<br> Preludios, trying just a string or two<br>Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure;<br>And when so, you shall have the overture.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LV<br>My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin<br> About what's call'd success, or not succeeding:<br>Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;<br> 'T is a "great moral lesson" they are reading.<br>I thought, at setting off, about two dozen<br> Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading,<br>If that my Pegasus should not be founder'd,<br>I think to canter gently through a hundred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVI<br>Don Juan saw that microcosm on stilts,<br> Yclept the Great World; for it is the least,<br>Although the highest: but as swords have hilts<br> By which their power of mischief is increased,<br>When man in battle or in quarrel tilts,<br> Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east,<br>Must still obey the high -- which is their handle,<br>Their moon, their sun, their gas, their farthing candle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVII<br>He had many friends who had many wives, and was<br> Well look'd upon by both, to that extent<br>Of friendship which you may accept or pass,<br> It does nor good nor harm being merely meant<br>To keep the wheels going of the higher class,<br> And draw them nightly when a ticket's sent:<br>And what with masquerades, and fetes, and balls,<br>For the first season such a life scarce palls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVIII<br>A young unmarried man, with a good name<br> And fortune, has an awkward part to play;<br>For good society is but a game,<br> "The royal game of Goose," as I may say,<br>Where every body has some separate aim,<br> An end to answer, or a plan to lay --<br>The single ladies wishing to be double,<br>The married ones to save the virgins trouble.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIX<br>I don't mean this as general, but particular<br> Examples may be found of such pursuits:<br>Though several also keep their perpendicular<br> Like poplars, with good principles for roots;<br>Yet many have a method more reticular --<br> "Fishers for men," like sirens with soft lutes:<br>For talk six times with the same single lady,<br>And you may get the wedding dresses ready.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LX<br>Perhaps you'll have a letter from the mother,<br> To say her daughter's feelings are trepann'd;<br>Perhaps you'll have a visit from the brother,<br> All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to demand<br>What "your intentions are?" -- One way or other<br> It seems the virgin's heart expects your hand:<br>And between pity for her case and yours,<br>You'll add to Matrimony's list of cures.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXI<br>I've known a dozen weddings made even thus,<br> And some of them high names: I have also known<br>Young men who -- though they hated to discuss<br> Pretensions which they never dream'd to have shown --<br>Yet neither frighten'd by a female fuss,<br> Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone,<br>And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair,<br>In happier plight than if they form'd a pair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXII<br>There's also nightly, to the uninitiated,<br> A peril -- not indeed like love or marriage,<br>But not the less for this to be depreciated:<br> It is -- I meant and mean not to disparage<br>The show of virtue even in the vitiated --<br> It adds an outward grace unto their carriage --<br>But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot,<br>"Couleur de rose," who's neither white nor scarlet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIII<br>Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No,"<br> And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing<br>On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow --<br> Then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing.<br>This works a world of sentimental woe,<br> And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin;<br>But yet is merely innocent flirtation,<br>Not quite adultery, but adulteration.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIV<br>"Ye gods, I grow a talker!" Let us prate.<br> The next of perils, though I place it sternest,<br>Is when, without regard to "church or state,"<br> A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest.<br>Abroad, such things decide few women's fate --<br> (Such, early traveller! is the truth thou learnest) --<br>But in old England, when a young bride errs,<br>Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to hers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXV<br>For 't is a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit<br> Country, where a young couple of the same ages<br>Can't form a friendship, but the world o'erawes it.<br> Then there's the vulgar trick of those damned damages!<br>A verdict -- grievous foe to those who cause it! --<br> Forms a sad climax to romantic homages;<br>Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders,<br>And evidences which regale all readers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVI<br>But they who blunder thus are raw beginners;<br> A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy<br>Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners,<br> The loveliest oligarchs of our gynocracy;<br>You may see such at all the balls and dinners,<br> Among the proudest of our aristocracy,<br>So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste --<br>And all by having tact as well as taste.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVII<br>Juan, who did not stand in the predicament<br> Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more;<br>For he was sick -- no, 't was not the word sick I meant --<br> But he had seen so much love before,<br>That he was not in heart so very weak; -- I meant<br> But thus much, and no sneer against the shore<br>Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings,<br>Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVIII<br>But coming young from lands and scenes romantic,<br> Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risk'd for Passion,<br>And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic,<br> Into a country where 't is half a fashion,<br>Seem'd to him half commercial, half pedantic,<br> Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation:<br>Besides (alas! his taste -- forgive and pity!)<br>At first he did not think the women pretty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIX<br>I say at first -- for he found out at last,<br> But by degrees, that they were fairer far<br>Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast<br> Beneath the influence of the eastern star.<br>A further proof we should not judge in haste;<br> Yet inexperience could not be his bar<br>To taste: -- the truth is, if men would confess,<br>That novelties please less than they impress.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXX<br>Though travell'd, I have never had the luck to<br> Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger,<br>To that impracticable place, Timbuctoo,<br> Where Geography finds no one to oblige her<br>With such a chart as may be safely stuck to --<br> For Europe ploughs in Afric like "bos piger:"<br>But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there<br>No doubt I should be told that black is fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXI<br>It is. I will not swear that black is white;<br> But I suspect in fact that white is black,<br>And the whole matter rests upon eyesight.<br> Ask a blind man, the best judge. You'll attack<br>Perhaps this new position -- but I'm right;<br> Or if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en aback: --<br>He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark<br>Within; and what seest thou? A dubious spark.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXII<br>But I'm relapsing into metaphysics,<br> That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same<br>Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics,<br> Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame;<br>And this reflection brings me to plain physics,<br> And to the beauties of a foreign dame,<br>Compared with those of our pure pearls of price,<br>Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIII<br>Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose<br> Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes; --<br>Not that there's not a quantity of those<br> Who have a due respect for their own wishes.<br>Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows [*]<br> Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious:<br>They warm into a scrape, but keep of course,<br>As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIV<br>But this has nought to do with their outsides.<br> I said that Juan did not think them pretty<br>At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides<br> Half her attractions -- probably from pity --<br>And rather calmly into the heart glides,<br> Than storms it as a foe would take a city;<br>But once there (if you doubt this, prithee try)<br>She keeps it for you like a true ally.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXV<br>She cannot step as does an Arab barb,<br> Or Andalusian girl from mass returning,<br>Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,<br> Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning;<br>Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb-<br> le those bravuras (which I still am learning<br>To like, though I have been seven years in Italy,<br>And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily); --</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVI<br>She cannot do these things, nor one or two<br> Others, in that off-hand and dashing style<br>Which takes so much -- to give the devil his due;<br> Nor is she quite so ready with her smile,<br>Nor settles all things in one interview<br> (A thing approved as saving time and toil); --<br>But though the soil may give you time and trouble,<br>Well cultivated, it will render double.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVII<br>And if in fact she takes to a "grande passion,"<br> It is a very serious thing indeed:<br>Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion,<br> Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead,<br>The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,<br> Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed:<br>But the tenth instance will be a tornado,<br>For there's no saying what they will or may do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVIII<br>The reason's obvious; if there's an éclat,<br> They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias;<br>And when the delicacies of the law<br> Have fill'd their papers with their comments various,<br>Society, that china without flaw<br> (The hypocrite!), will banish them like Marius,<br>To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt:<br>For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIX<br>Perhaps this is as it should be; -- it is<br> A comment on the Gospel's "Sin no more,<br>And be thy sins forgiven:" -- but upon this<br> I leave the saints to settle their own score.<br>Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss,<br> An erring woman finds an opener door<br>For her return to Virtue -- as they call<br>That lady, who should be at home to all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXX<br>For me, I leave the matter where I find it,<br> Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads<br>People some ten times less in fact to mind it,<br> And care but for discoveries and not deeds.<br>And as for chastity, you'll never bind it<br> By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads,<br>But aggravate the crime you have not prevented,<br>By rendering desperate those who had else repented.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXI<br>But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd<br> Upon the moral lessons of mankind:<br>Besides, he had not seen of several hundred<br> A lady altogether to his mind.<br>A little "blasé" -- 't is not to be wonder'd<br> At, that his heart had got a tougher rind:<br>And though not vainer from his past success,<br>No doubt his sensibilities were less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXII<br>He also had been busy seeing sights --<br> The Parliament and all the other houses;<br>Had sat beneath the gallery at nights,<br> To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses)<br>The world to gaze upon those northern lights<br> Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull browses; [*]<br>He had also stood at times behind the throne --<br>But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIII<br>He saw, however, at the closing session,<br> That noble sight, when really free the nation,<br>A king in constitutional possession<br> Of such a throne as is the proudest station,<br>Though despots know it not -- till the progression<br> Of freedom shall complete their education.<br>'T is not mere splendour makes the show august<br>To eye or heart -- it is the people's trust.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIV<br>There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now)<br> A Prince, the prince of princes at the time,<br>With fascination in his very bow,<br> And full of promise, as the spring of prime.<br>Though royalty was written on his brow,<br> He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime,<br>Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,<br>A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXV<br>And Juan was received, as hath been said,<br> Into the best society: and there<br>Occurr'd what often happens, I'm afraid,<br> However disciplined and debonnaire: --<br>The talent and good humour he display'd,<br> Besides the mark'd distinction of his air,<br>Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation,<br>Even though himself avoided the occasion.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVI<br>But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why,<br> Is not to be put hastily together;<br>And as my object is morality<br> (Whatever people say), I don't know whether<br>I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry,<br> But harrow up his feelings till they wither,<br>And hew out a huge monument of pathos,<br>As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos. [*]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVII<br>Here the twelfth Canto of our introduction<br> Ends. When the body of the book's begun,<br>You'll find it of a different construction<br> From what some people say 't will be when done:<br>The plan at present's simply in concoction,<br> I can't oblige you, reader, to read on;<br>That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit<br>Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVIII<br>And if my thunderbolt not always rattles,<br> Remember, reader! you have had before<br>The worst of tempests and the best of battles<br> That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore,<br>Besides the most sublime of -- Heaven knows what else:<br> An usurer could scarce expect much more --<br>But my best canto, save one on astronomy,<br>Will turn upon "political economy."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIX<br>That is your present theme for popularity:<br> Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake,<br>It grows an act of patriotic charity,<br> To show the people the best way to break.<br>My plan (but I, if but for singularity,<br> Reserve it) will be very sure to take.<br>Meantime, read all the national debt-sinkers,<br>And tell me what you think of your great thinkers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a> from <i>Don Juan</i><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=116897" data-title="Canto the Twelfth de Byron" data-description="I/Of all the barbarous middle ages, that/ Which is most barbarous is the middle age/Of man; it is -- I really scarce know what;/ But when we hover between fool and sage,/And don't know justly what we would be at --/ A period something like a print..."></div> </div> </div>

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