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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116899" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Canto the Fourteenth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>If from great nature's or our own abyss<br> Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,<br>Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss --<br> But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.<br>One system eats another up, and this<br> Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;<br>For when his pious consort gave him stones<br>In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> II<br>But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,<br> And eats her parents, albeit the digestion<br>Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,<br> After due search, your faith to any question?<br>Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast<br> You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.<br>Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;<br>And yet what are your other evidences?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> III<br>For me, I know nought; nothing I deny,<br> Admit, reject, contemn; and what know you,<br>Except perhaps that you were born to die?<br> And both may after all turn out untrue.<br>An age may come, Font of Eternity,<br> When nothing shall be either old or new.<br>Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep,<br>And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IV<br>A sleep without dreams, after a rough day<br> Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet<br>How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!<br> The very Suicide that pays his debt<br>At once without instalments (an old way<br> Of paying debts, which creditors regret)<br>Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,<br>Less from disgust of life than dread of death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> V<br>'T is round him, near him, here, there, every where;<br> And there's a courage which grows out of fear,<br>Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare<br> The worst to know it -- when the mountains rear<br>Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there<br> You look down o'er the precipice, and drear<br>The gulf of rock yawns -- you can't gaze a minute<br>Without an awful wish to plunge within it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VI<br>'T is true, you don't -- but, pale and struck with terror,<br> Retire: but look into your past impression!<br>And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror<br> Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,<br>The lurking bias, be it truth or error,<br> To the unknown; a secret prepossession,<br>To plunge with all your fear -- but where? You know not,<br>And that's the reason why you'd -- or do not.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VII<br>But what's this to the purpose? you will say.<br> Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation,<br>For which my sole excuse is -- 't is my way;<br> Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion<br>I write what's uppermost, without delay:<br> This narrative is not meant for narration,<br>But a mere airy and fantastic basis,<br>To build up common things with common places.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> VIII<br>You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,<br> "Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"<br>And such a straw, borne on by human breath,<br> Is poesy, according as the mind glows;<br>A paper kite which flies 'twixt life and death,<br> A shadow which the onward soul behind throws:<br>And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise,<br>But just to play with, as an infant plays.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> IX<br>The world is all before me -- or behind;<br> For I have seen a portion of that same,<br>And quite enough for me to keep in mind; --<br> Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame,<br>To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind,<br> Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame;<br>For I was rather famous in my time,<br>Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> X<br>I have brought this world about my ears, and eke<br> The other; that's to say, the clergy, who<br>Upon my head have bid their thunders break<br> In pious libels by no means a few.<br>And yet I can't help scribbling once a week,<br> Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.<br>In youth I wrote because my mind was full,<br>And now because I feel it growing dull.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XI<br>But "why then publish?" -- There are no rewards<br> Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.<br>I ask in turn -- Why do you play at cards?<br> Why drink? Why read -- To make some hour less dreary.<br>It occupies me to turn back regards<br> On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery;<br>And what I write I cast upon the stream,<br>To swim or sink -- I have had at least my dream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XII<br>I think that were I certain of success,<br> I hardly could compose another line:<br>So long I've battled either more or less,<br> That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.<br>This feeling 't is not easy to express,<br> And yet 't is not affected, I opine.<br>In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing --<br>The one is winning, and the other losing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIII<br>Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction:<br> She gathers a repertory of facts,<br>Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,<br> But mostly sings of human things and acts --<br>And that's one cause she meets with contradiction;<br> For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts;<br>And were her object only what's call'd glory,<br>With more ease too she'd tell a different story.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIV<br>Love, war, a tempest -- surely there's variety;<br> Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;<br>A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society;<br> A slight glance thrown on men of every station.<br>If you have nought else, here's at least satiety<br> Both in performance and in preparation;<br>And though these lines should only line portmanteaus,<br>Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XV<br>The portion of this world which I at present<br> Have taken up to fill the following sermon,<br>Is one of which there's no description recent.<br> The reason why is easy to determine:<br>Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,<br> There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,<br>A dull and family likeness through all ages,<br>Of no great promise for poetic pages.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVI<br>With much to excite, there's little to exalt;<br> Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;<br>A sort of varnish over every fault;<br> A kind of common-place, even in their crimes;<br>Factitious passions, wit without much salt,<br> A want of that true nature which sublimes<br>Whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony<br>Of character, in those at least who have got any.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVII<br>Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,<br> They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;<br>But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,<br> And they must be or seem what they were: still<br>Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;<br> But when of the first sight you have had your fill,<br>It palls -- at least it did so upon me,<br>This paradise of pleasure and ennui.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XVIII<br>When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,<br> Drest, voted, shone, and, may be, something more;<br>With dandies dined; heard senators declaiming;<br> Seen beauties brought to market by the score,<br>Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming;<br> There's little left but to be bored or bore.<br>Witness those ci-devant jeunes hommes who stem<br>The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XIX<br>'T is said -- indeed a general complaint --<br> That no one has succeeded in describing<br>The monde, exactly as they ought to paint:<br> Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing<br>The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint,<br> To furnish matter for their moral gibing;<br>And that their books have but one style in common --<br>My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XX<br>But this can't well be true, just now; for writers<br> Are grown of the beau monde a part potential:<br>I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters,<br> Especially when young, for that's essential.<br>Why do their sketches fail them as inditers<br> Of what they deem themselves most consequential,<br>The real portrait of the highest tribe?<br>'T is that, in fact, there's little to describe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXI<br>"Haud ignara loquor;" these are Nugae, "quarum<br> Pars parva fui," but still art and part.<br>Now I could much more easily sketch a harem,<br> A battle, wreck, or history of the heart,<br>Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em,<br> For reasons which I choose to keep apart.<br>"Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit --"<br>Which means that vulgar people must not share it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXII<br>And therefore what I throw off is ideal --<br> Lower'd, leaven'd, like a history of freemasons;<br>Which bears the same relation to the real,<br> As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason's.<br>The grand arcanum's not for men to see all;<br> My music has some mystic diapasons;<br>And there is much which could not be appreciated<br>In any manner by the uninitiated.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIII<br>Alas! worlds fall -- and woman, since she fell'd<br> The world (as, since that history less polite<br>Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held)<br> Has not yet given up the practice quite.<br>Poor thing of usages! coerced, compell'd,<br> Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,<br>Condemn'd to child-bed, as men for their sins<br>Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins, --</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIV<br>A daily plague, which in the aggregate<br> May average on the whole with parturition.<br>But as to women, who can penetrate<br> The real sufferings of their she condition?<br>Man's very sympathy with their estate<br> Has much of selfishness, and more suspicion.<br>Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,<br>But form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXV<br>All this were very well, and can't be better;<br> But even this is difficult, Heaven knows,<br>So many troubles from her birth beset her,<br> Such small distinction between friends and foes,<br>The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter,<br> That -- but ask any woman if she'd choose<br>(Take her at thirty, that is) to have been<br>Female or male? a schoolboy or a queen?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVI<br>"Petticoat influence" is a great reproach,<br> Which even those who obey would fain be thought<br>To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;<br> But since beneath it upon earth we are brought,<br>By various joltings of life's hackney coach,<br> I for one venerate a petticoat --<br>A garment of a mystical sublimity,<br>No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVII<br>Much I respect, and much I have adored,<br> In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil,<br>Which holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard,<br> And more attracts by all it doth conceal --<br>A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword,<br> A loving letter with a mystic seal,<br>A cure for grief -- for what can ever rankle<br>Before a petticoat and peeping ankle?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXVIII<br>And when upon a silent, sullen day,<br> With a sirocco, for example, blowing,<br>When even the sea looks dim with all its spray,<br> And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing,<br>And the sky shows that very ancient gray,<br> The sober, sad antithesis to glowing, --<br>'T is pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant,<br>To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXIX<br>We left our heroes and our heroines<br> In that fair clime which don't depend on climate,<br>Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,<br> Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at,<br>Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines,<br> Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,<br>Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun --<br>Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXX<br>An in-door life is less poetical;<br> And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet,<br>With which I could not brew a pastoral.<br> But be it as it may, a bard must meet<br>All difficulties, whether great or small,<br> To spoil his undertaking or complete,<br>And work away like spirit upon matter,<br>Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXI<br>Juan -- in this respect, at least, like saints --<br> Was all things unto people of all sorts,<br>And lived contentedly, without complaints,<br> In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts --<br>Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,<br> And mingling modestly in toils or sports.<br>He likewise could be most things to all women,<br>Without the coxcombry of certain she men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXII<br>A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;<br> 'T is also subject to the double danger<br>Of tumbling first, and having in exchange<br> Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:<br>But Juan had been early taught to range<br> The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger,<br>So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,<br>Knew that he had a rider on his back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIII<br>And now in this new field, with some applause,<br> He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail,<br>And never craned, and made but few "faux pas,"<br> And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail.<br>He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws<br> Of hunting -- for the sagest youth is frail;<br>Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then,<br>And once o'er several country gentlemen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIV<br>But on the whole, to general admiration<br> He acquitted both himself and horse: the squires<br>Marvell'd at merit of another nation;<br> The boors cried "Dang it? who'd have thought it?" -- Sires,<br>The Nestors of the sporting generation,<br> Swore praises, and recall'd their former fires;<br>The huntsman's self relented to a grin,<br>And rated him almost a whipper-in.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXV<br>Such were his trophies -- not of spear and shield,<br> But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes' brushes;<br>Yet I must own -- although in this I yield<br> To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes, --<br>He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,<br> Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,<br>And what not, though he rode beyond all price,<br>Ask'd next day, "If men ever hunted twice?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVI<br>He also had a quality uncommon<br> To early risers after a long chase,<br>Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon<br> December's drowsy day to his dull race, --<br>A quality agreeable to woman,<br> When her soft, liquid words run on apace,<br>Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner, --<br>He did not fall asleep just after dinner;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVII<br>But, light and airy, stood on the alert,<br> And shone in the best part of dialogue,<br>By humouring always what they might assert,<br> And listening to the topics most in vogue;<br>Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;<br> And smiling but in secret -- cunning rogue!<br>He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer; --<br>In short, there never was a better hearer.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXVIII<br>And then he danced -- all foreigners excel<br> The serious Angles in the eloquence<br>Of pantomime -- he danced, I say, right well,<br> With emphasis, and also with good sense --<br>A thing in footing indispensable;<br> He danced without theatrical pretence,<br>Not like a ballet-master in the van<br>Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XXXIX<br>Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,<br> And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;<br>Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,<br> And rather held in than put forth his vigour;<br>And then he had an ear for music's sound,<br> Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour.<br>Such classic pas -- sans flaw -- set off our hero,<br>He glanced like a personified Bolero;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XL<br>Or, like a flying Hour before Aurora,<br> In Guido's famous fresco which alone<br>Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a<br> Remnant were there of the old world's sole throne.<br>The tout ensemble of his movements wore a<br> Grace of the soft ideal, seldom shown,<br>And ne'er to be described; for to the dolour<br>Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLI<br>No marvel then he was a favourite;<br> A full-grown Cupid, very much admired;<br>A little spoilt, but by no means so quite;<br> At least he kept his vanity retired.<br>Such was his tact, he could alike delight<br> The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired.<br>The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved tracasserie,<br>Began to treat him with some small agacerie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLII<br>She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,<br> Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated<br>For several winters in the grand, grand monde.<br> I'd rather not say what might be related<br>Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;<br> Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:<br>Her late performance had been a dead set<br>At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIII<br>This noble personage began to look<br> A little black upon this new flirtation;<br>But such small licences must lovers brook,<br> Mere freedoms of the female corporation.<br>Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke!<br> 'T will but precipitate a situation<br>Extremely disagreeable, but common<br>To calculators when they count on woman.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIV<br>The circle smiled, then whisper'd, and then sneer'd;<br> The Misses bridled, and the matrons frown'd;<br>Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear'd;<br> Some would not deem such women could be found;<br>Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard;<br> Some look'd perplex'd, and others look'd profound;<br>And several pitied with sincere regret<br>Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLV<br>But what is odd, none ever named the duke,<br> Who, one might think, was something in the affair;<br>True, he was absent, and, 't was rumour'd, took<br> But small concern about the when, or where,<br>Or what his consort did: if he could brook<br> Her gaieties, none had a right to stare:<br>Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt,<br>Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVI<br>But, oh! that I should ever pen so sad a line!<br> Fired with an abstract love of virtue, she,<br>My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline,<br> Began to think the duchess' conduct free;<br>Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line,<br> And waxing chiller in her courtesy,<br>Look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,<br>For which most friends reserve their sensibility.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVII<br>There's nought in this bad world like sympathy:<br> 'T is so becoming to the soul and face,<br>Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,<br> And robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.<br>Without a friend, what were humanity,<br> To hunt our errors up with a good grace?<br>Consoling us with -- "Would you had thought twice!<br>Ah, if you had but follow'd my advice!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLVIII<br>O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,<br> Especially when we are ill at ease;<br>They are but bad pilots when the weather's rough,<br> Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.<br>Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,<br> As they will do like leaves at the first breeze:<br>When your affairs come round, one way or t' other,<br>Go to the coffee-house, and take another.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XLIX<br>But this is not my maxim: had it been,<br> Some heart-aches had been spared me: yet I care not --<br>I would not be a tortoise in his screen<br> Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not.<br>'T is better on the whole to have felt and seen<br> That which humanity may bear, or bear not:<br>'T will teach discernment to the sensitive,<br>And not to pour their ocean in a sieve.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> L<br>Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,<br> Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,<br>Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so,"<br> Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,<br>Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,<br> Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,<br>And solace your slight lapse 'gainst bonos mores,<br>With a long memorandum of old stories.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LI<br>The Lady Adeline's serene severity<br> Was not confined to feeling for her friend,<br>Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity,<br> Unless her habits should begin to mend:<br>But Juan also shared in her austerity,<br> But mix'd with pity, pure as e'er was penn'd:<br>His inexperience moved her gentle ruth,<br>And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LII<br>These forty days' advantage of her years --<br> And hers were those which can face calculation,<br>Boldly referring to the list of peers<br> And noble births, nor dread the enumeration --<br>Gave her a right to have maternal fears<br> For a young gentleman's fit education,<br>Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap,<br>In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIII<br>This may be fix'd at somewhere before thirty --<br> Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew<br>The strictest in chronology and virtue<br> Advance beyond, while they could pass for new.<br>O Time! why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty<br> With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew.<br>Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower,<br>If but to keep thy credit as a mower.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIV<br>But Adeline was far from that ripe age,<br> Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best:<br>'T was rather her experience made her sage,<br> For she had seen the world and stood its test,<br>As I have said in -- I forget what page;<br> My Muse despises reference, as you have guess'd<br>By this time -- but strike six from seven-and-twenty,<br>And you will find her sum of years in plenty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LV<br>At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,<br> She put all coronets into commotion:<br>At seventeen, too, the world was still enchanted<br> With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean:<br>At eighteen, though below her feet still panted<br> A hecatomb of suitors with devotion,<br>She had consented to create again<br>That Adam, call'd "The happiest of men."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVI<br>Since then she had sparkled through three glowing winters,<br> Admired, adored; but also so correct,<br>That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters,<br> Without the apparel of being circumspect:<br>They could not even glean the slightest splinters<br> From off the marble, which had no defect.<br>She had also snatch'd a moment since her marriage<br>To bear a son and heir -- and one miscarriage.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVII<br>Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her,<br> Those little glitterers of the London night;<br>But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her --<br> She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight.<br>Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder;<br> But whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right;<br>And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify<br>A woman, so she's good, what does it signify?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LVIII<br>I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle<br> Which with the landlord makes too long a stand,<br>Leaving all-claretless the unmoisten'd throttle,<br> Especially with politics on hand;<br>I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle,<br> Who whirl the dust as simooms whirl the sand;<br>I hate it, as I hate an argument,<br>A laureate's ode, or servile peer's "content."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LIX<br>'T is sad to hack into the roots of things,<br> They are so much intertwisted with the earth;<br>So that the branch a goodly verdure flings,<br> I reck not if an acorn gave it birth.<br>To trace all actions to their secret springs<br> Would make indeed some melancholy mirth;<br>But this is not at present my concern,<br>And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LX<br>With the kind view of saving an éclat,<br> Both to the duchess and diplomatist,<br>The Lady Adeline, as soon's she saw<br> That Juan was unlikely to resist<br>(For foreigners don't know that a faux pas<br> In England ranks quite on a different list<br>From those of other lands unblest with juries,<br>Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is); --</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXI<br>The Lady Adeline resolved to take<br> Such measures as she thought might best impede<br>The farther progress of this sad mistake.<br> She thought with some simplicity indeed;<br>But innocence is bold even at the stake,<br> And simple in the world, and doth not need<br>Nor use those palisades by dames erected,<br>Whose virtue lies in never being detected.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXII<br>It was not that she fear'd the very worst:<br> His Grace was an enduring, married man,<br>And was not likely all at once to burst<br> Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan<br>Of Doctors' Commons: but she dreaded first<br> The magic of her Grace's talisman,<br>And next a quarrel (as he seem'd to fret)<br>With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIII<br>Her Grace, too, pass'd for being an intrigante,<br> And somewhat méchante in her amorous sphere;<br>One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt<br> A lover with caprices soft and dear,<br>That like to make a quarrel, when they can't<br> Find one, each day of the delightful year;<br>Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow,<br>And -- what is worst of all -- won't let you go:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIV<br>The sort of thing to turn a young man's head,<br> Or make a Werter of him in the end.<br>No wonder then a purer soul should dread<br> This sort of chaste liaison for a friend;<br>It were much better to be wed or dead,<br> Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend.<br>'T is best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,<br>If that a bonne fortune be really bonne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXV<br>And first, in the o'erflowing of her heart,<br> Which really knew or thought it knew no guile,<br>She call'd her husband now and then apart,<br> And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile<br>Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art<br> To wean Don Juan from the siren's wile;<br>And answer'd, like a statesman or a prophet,<br>In such guise that she could make nothing of it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVI<br>Firstly, he said, "he never interfered<br> In any body's business but the king's:"<br>Next, that "he never judged from what appear'd,<br> Without strong reason, of those sort of things:"<br>Thirdly, that "Juan had more brain than beard,<br> And was not to be held in leading strings;"<br>And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice,<br>"That good but rarely came from good advice."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVII<br>And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth<br> Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse<br>To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth --<br> At least as far as bienséance allows:<br>That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;<br> That young men rarely made monastic vows;<br>That opposition only more attaches --<br>But here a messenger brought in despatches:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXVIII<br>And being of the council call'd "the Privy,"<br> Lord Henry walk'd into his cabinet,<br>To furnish matter for some future Livy<br> To tell how he reduced the nation's debt;<br>And if their full contents I do not give ye,<br> It is because I do not know them yet;<br>But I shall add them in a brief appendix,<br>To come between mine epic and its index.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXIX<br>But ere he went, he added a slight hint,<br> Another gentle common-place or two,<br>Such as are coin'd in conversation's mint,<br> And pass, for want of better, though not new:<br>Then broke his packet, to see what was in 't,<br> And having casually glanced it through,<br>Retired; and, as went out, calmly kiss'd her,<br>Less like a young wife than an agéd sister.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXX<br>He was a cold, good, honourable man,<br> Proud of his birth, and proud of every thing;<br>A goodly spirit for a state divan,<br> A figure fit to walk before a king;<br>Tall, stately, form'd to lead the courtly van<br> On birthdays, glorious with a star and string;<br>The very model of a chamberlain --<br>And such I mean to make him when I reign.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXI<br>But there was something wanting on the whole --<br> I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell --<br>Which pretty women -- the sweet souls -- call soul.<br> Certes it was not body; he was well<br>Proportion'd, as a poplar or a pole,<br> A handsome man, that human miracle;<br>And in each circumstance of love or war<br>Had still preserved his perpendicular.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXII<br>Still there was something wanting, as I 've said --<br> That undefinable "Je ne sçais quoi,"<br>Which, for what I know, may of yore have led<br> To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy<br>The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed;<br> Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy<br>Was much inferior to King Menelaüs: --<br>But thus it is some women will betray us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIII<br>There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,<br> Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved<br>By turns the difference of the several sexes;<br> Neither can show quite how they would be loved.<br>The sensual for a short time but connects us,<br> The sentimental boasts to be unmoved;<br>But both together form a kind of centaur,<br>Upon whose back 't is better not to venture.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIV<br>A something all-sufficient for the heart<br> Is that for which the sex are always seeking:<br>But how to fill up that same vacant part?<br> There lies the rub -- and this they are but weak in.<br>Frail mariners afloat without a chart,<br> They run before the wind through high seas breaking;<br>And when they have made the shore through every shock,<br>'T is odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXV<br>There is a flower call'd "Love in Idleness,"<br> For which see Shakspeare's everblooming garden; --<br>I will not make his great description less,<br> And beg his British godship's humble pardon,<br>If in my extremity of rhyme's distress,<br> I touch a single leaf where he is warden; --<br>But though the flower is different, with the French<br>Or Swiss Rousseau, cry "Voilà la Pervenche!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVI<br>Eureka! I have found it! What I mean<br> To say is, not that love is idleness,<br>But that in love such idleness has been<br> An accessory, as I have cause to guess.<br>Hard labour's an indifferent go-between;<br> Your men of business are not apt to express<br>Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,<br>Convey'd Medea as her supercargo.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVII<br>"Beatus ille procul!" from "negotiis,"<br> Saith Horace; the great little poet's wrong;<br>His other maxim, "Noscitur a sociis,"<br> Is much more to the purpose of his song;<br>Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,<br> Unless good company be kept too long;<br>But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station,<br>Thrice happy they who have an occupation!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXVIII<br>Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,<br> Eve made up millinery with fig leaves --<br>The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing,<br> As far as I know, that the church receives:<br>And since that time it need not cost much showing,<br> That many of the ills o'er which man grieves,<br>And still more women, spring from not employing<br>Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXIX<br>And hence high life is oft a dreary void,<br> A rack of pleasures, where we must invent<br>A something wherewithal to be annoy'd.<br> Bards may sing what they please about Content;<br>Contented, when translated, means but cloy'd;<br> And hence arise the woes of sentiment,<br>Blue devils, and blue-stockings, and romances<br>Reduced to practice, and perform'd like dances.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXX<br>I do declare, upon an affidavit,<br> Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen;<br>Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,<br> Would some believe that such a tale had been:<br>But such intent I never had, nor have it;<br> Some truths are better kept behind a screen,<br>Especially when they would look like lies;<br>I therefore deal in generalities.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXI<br>"An oyster may be cross'd in love" -- and why?<br> Because he mopeth idly in his shell,<br>And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,<br> Much as a monk may do within his cell:<br>And à-propos of monks, their piety<br> With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell;<br>Those vegetables of the Catholic creed<br>Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXII<br>O Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,<br> Whose merit none enough can sing or say,<br>Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,<br> Thou moral Washington of Africa!<br>But there's another little thing, I own,<br> Which you should perpetrate some summer's day,<br>And set the other half of earth to rights;<br>You have freed the blacks -- now pray shut up the whites.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIII<br>Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander!<br> Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;<br>Teach them that "sauce for goose is sauce for gander,"<br> And ask them how they like to be in thrall?<br>Shut up each high heroic salamander,<br> Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small);<br>Shut up -- no, not the King, but the Pavilion,<br>Or else 't will cost us all another million.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIV<br>Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;<br> And you will be perhaps surprised to find<br>All things pursue exactly the same route,<br> As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.<br>This I could prove beyond a single doubt,<br> Were there a jot of sense among mankind;<br>But till that point d'appui is found, alas!<br>Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 't was.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXV<br>Our gentle Adeline had one defect --<br> Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;<br>Her conduct had been perfectly correct,<br> As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.<br>A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd,<br> Because 't is frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one;<br>But when the latter works its own undoing,<br>Its inner crash is like an earthquake's ruin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVI<br>She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love<br> Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,<br>The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move<br> Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.<br>She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,<br> No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:<br>Their union was a model to behold,<br>Serene and noble -- conjugal, but cold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVII<br>There was no great disparity of years,<br> Though much in temper; but they never clash'd:<br>They moved like stars united in their spheres,<br> Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd,<br>Where mingled and yet separate appears<br> The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd<br>Through the serene and placid glassy deep,<br>Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXVIII<br>Now when she once had ta'en an interest<br> In any thing, however she might flatter<br>Herself that her intentions were the best,<br> Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:<br>Impressions were much stronger than she guess'd,<br> And gather'd as they run like growing water<br>Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast<br>Was not at first too readily impress'd.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> LXXXIX<br>But when it was, she had that lurking demon<br> Of double nature, and thus doubly named --<br>Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,<br> That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed<br>As obstinacy, both in men and women,<br> Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed: --<br>And 't will perplex the casuist in morality<br>To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XC<br>Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo,<br> It had been firmness; now 't is pertinacity:<br>Must the event decide between the two?<br> I leave it to your people of sagacity<br>To draw the line between the false and true,<br> If such can e'er be drawn by man's capacity:<br>My business is with Lady Adeline,<br>Who in her way too was a heroine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCI<br>She knew not her own heart; then how should I?<br> I think not she was then in love with Juan:<br>If so, she would have had the strength to fly<br> The wild sensation, unto her a new one:<br>She merely felt a common sympathy<br> (I will not say it was a false or true one)<br>In him, because she thought he was in danger, --<br>Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger,</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCII<br>She was, or thought she was, his friend -- and this<br> Without the farce of friendship, or romance<br>Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss<br> Ladies who have studied friendship but in France,<br>Or Germany, where people purely kiss.<br> To thus much Adeline would not advance;<br>But of such friendship as man's may to man be<br>She was as capable as woman can be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIII<br>No doubt the secret influence of the sex<br> Will there, as also in the ties of blood,<br>An innocent predominance annex,<br> And tune the concord to a finer mood.<br>If free from passion, which all friendship checks,<br> And your true feelings fully understood,<br>No friend like to a woman earth discovers,<br>So that you have not been nor will be lovers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIV<br>Love bears within its breast the very germ<br> Of change; and how should this be otherwise?<br>That violent things more quickly find a term<br> Is shown through nature's whole analogies;<br>And how should the most fierce of all be firm?<br> Would you have endless lightning in the skies?<br>Methinks Love's very title says enough:<br>How should "the tender passion" e'er be tough?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCV<br>Alas! by all experience, seldom yet<br> (I merely quote what I have heard from many)<br>Had lovers not some reason to regret<br> The passion which made Solomon a zany.<br>I've also seen some wives (not to forget<br> The marriage state, the best or worst of any)<br>Who were the very paragons of wives,<br>Yet made the misery of at least two lives.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVI<br>I've also seen some female friends ('t is odd,<br> But true -- as, if expedient, I could prove)<br>That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,<br> At home, far more than ever yet was Love --<br>Who did not quit me when Oppression trod<br> Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;<br>Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles,<br>Despite the snake Society's loud rattles.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVII<br>Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline<br> Grew friends in this or any other sense,<br>Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine:<br> At present I am glad of a pretence<br>To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,<br> And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense;<br>The surest way for ladies and for books<br>To bait their tender, or their tenter, hooks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCVIII<br>Whether they rode, or walk'd, or studied Spanish<br> To read Don Quixote in the original,<br>A pleasure before which all others vanish;<br> Whether their talk was of the kind call'd "small,"<br>Or serious, are the topics I must banish<br> To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall<br>Say something to the purpose, and display<br>Considerable talent in my way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> XCIX<br>Above all, I beg all men to forbear<br> Anticipating aught about the matter:<br>They'll only make mistakes about the fair,<br> And Juan too, especially the latter.<br>And I shall take a much more serious air<br> Than I have yet done, in this epic satire.<br>It is not clear that Adeline and Juan<br>Will fall; but if they do, 't will be their ruin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> C<br>But great things spring from little -- Would you think,<br> That in our youth, as dangerous a passion<br>As e'er brought man and woman to the brink<br> Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,<br>As few would ever dream could form the link<br> Of such a sentimental situation?<br>You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards --<br>It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> CI<br>'T is strange -- but true; for truth is always strange;<br> Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,<br>How much would novels gain by the exchange!<br> How differently the world would men behold!<br>How oft would vice and virtue places change!<br> The new world would be nothing to the old,<br>If some Columbus of the moral seas<br>Would show mankind their souls' antipodes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> CII<br>What "antres vast and deserts idle" then<br> Would be discover'd in the human soul!<br>What icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,<br> With self-love in the centre as their pole!<br>What Anthropophagi are nine of ten<br> Of those who hold the kingdoms in control<br>Were things but only call'd by their right name,<br>Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.</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>
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<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=116899" data-title="Canto the Fourteenth de Byron" data-description="I/If from great nature's or our own abyss/ Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,/Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss --/ But then 't would spoil much good philosophy./One system eats another up, and this/ Much as old Saturn ate his..."></div>
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