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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396068" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Fifteenth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah!--What should follow slips from my reflection;<br>Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be <br>As à-propos of hope or retrospection,<br>As though the lurking thought had follow'd free.<br>All present life is but an interjection,<br>An 'Oh!' or 'Ah!' of joy or misery,<br>Or a 'Ha! ha!' or 'Bah!'-- a yawn, or 'Pooh!'<br>Of which perhaps the latter is most true.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, more or less, the whole's a syncope<br>Or a singultus - emblems of emotion,<br>The grand antithesis to great ennui,<br>Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean,--<br>That watery outline of eternity,<br>Or miniature at least, as is my notion,<br>Which ministers unto the soul's delight,<br>In seeing matters which are out of sight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But all are better than the sigh supprest,<br>Corroding in the cavern of the heart,<br>Making the countenance a masque of rest,<br>And turning human nature to an art.<br>Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best;<br>Dissimulation always sets apart<br>A corner for herself; and therefore fiction<br>Is that which passes with least contradiction.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! who can tell? Or rather, who can not<br>Remember, without telling, passion's errors?<br>The drainer of oblivion, even the sot,<br>Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors:<br>What though on Lethe's stream he seem to float,<br>He cannot sink his tremors or his terrors;<br>The ruby glass that shakes within his hand<br>Leaves a sad sediment of Time's worst sand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as for love--O love!--We will proceed.<br>The Lady Adeline Amundeville,<br>A pretty name as one would wish to read,<br>Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.<br>There's music in the sighing of a reed;<br>There's music in the gushing of a rill;<br>There's music in all things, if men had ears:<br>Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Lady Adeline, right honourable;<br>And honour'd, ran a risk of growing less so;<br>For few of the soft sex are very stable<br>In their resolves--alas! that I should say so!<br>They differ as wine differs from its label,<br>When once decanted;--I presume to guess so,<br>But will not swear: yet both upon occasion,<br>Till old, may undergo adulteration.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Adeline was of the purest vintage,<br>The unmingled essence of the grape; and yet<br>Bright as a new Napoleon from its mintage,<br>Or glorious as a diamond richly set;<br>A page where Time should hesitate to print age,<br>And for which Nature might forego her debt--<br>Sole creditor whose process doth involve in 't<br>The luck of finding every body solvent.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily<br>Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,<br>Like a meek tradesman when, approaching palely,<br>Some splendid debtor he would take by sap:<br>But oft denied, as patience 'gins to fail, he<br>Advances with exasperated rap,<br>And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome,<br>On ready money, or 'a draft on Ransom.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whate'er thou takest, spare a while poor Beauty!<br>She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey.<br>What though she now and then may slip from duty,<br>The more's the reason why you ought to stay.<br>Gaunt Gourmand! with whole nations for your booty,<br>You should be civil in a modest way:<br>Suppress, then, some slight feminine diseases,<br>And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous<br>Where she was interested (as was said),<br>Because she was not apt, like some of us,<br>To like too readily, or too high bred<br>To show it (points we need not now discuss)--<br>Would give up artlessly both heart and head<br>Unto such feelings as seem'd innocent,<br>For objects worthy of the sentiment.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumour,<br>That live gazette, had scatter'd to disfigure,<br>She had heard; but women hear with more good humour<br>Such aberrations than we men of rigour:<br>Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more<br>Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour;<br>Because he had, like Alcibiades,<br>The art of living in all climes with ease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His manner was perhaps the more seductive,<br>Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce;<br>Nothing affected, studied, or constructive<br>Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse<br>Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective,<br>To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,<br>And seem to say, 'Resist us if you can'--<br>Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They are wrong--that's not the way to set about it;<br>As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.<br>But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;<br>In fact, his manner was his own alone;<br>Sincere he was--at least you could not doubt it,<br>In listening merely to his voice's tone.<br>The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice<br>An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By nature soft, his whole address held off<br>Suspicion: though not timid, his regard<br>Was such as rather seem'd to keep aloof,<br>To shield himself than put you on your guard:<br>Perhaps 'twas hardly quite assured enough,<br>But modesty's at times its own reward,<br>Like virtue; and the absence of pretension<br>Will go much farther than there's need to mention.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful but not loud;<br>Insinuating without insinuation;<br>Observant of the foibles of the crowd,<br>Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation;<br>Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud,<br>So as to make them feel he knew his station<br>And theirs:--without a struggle for priority,<br>He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That is, with men: with women he was what<br>They pleased to make or take him for; and their<br>Imagination's quite enough for that:<br>So that the outline's tolerably fair,<br>They fill the canvas up - and 'verbum sat.'<br>If once their phantasies be brought to bear<br>Upon an object, whether sad or playful,<br>They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Adeline, no deep judge of character,<br>Was apt to add a colouring from her own:<br>'Tis thus the good will amiably err,<br>And eke the wise, as has been often shown.<br>Experience is the chief philosopher,<br>But saddest when his science is well known:<br>And persecuted sages teach the schools<br>Their folly in forgetting there are fools.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon?<br>Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still,<br>Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken,<br>And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?<br>Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,<br>How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill<br>Volumes with similar sad illustrations,<br>But leave them to the conscience of the nations.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I perch upon an humbler promontory,<br>Amidst life's infinite variety:<br>With no great care for what is nicknamed glory,<br>But speculating as I cast mine eye<br>On what may suit or may not suit my story,<br>And never straining hard to versify,<br>I rattle on exactly as I'd talk<br>With any body in a ride or walk.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I don't know that there may be much ability<br>Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme;<br>But there's a conversational facility,<br>Which may round off an hour upon a time.<br>Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility<br>In mine irregularity of chime,<br>Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,<br>Just as I feel the 'Improvvisatore.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Omnia vult belle Matho dicere - dic aliquando<br>Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male.'<br>The first is rather more than mortal can do;<br>The second may be sadly done or gaily;<br>The third is still more difficult to stand to;<br>The fourth we hear, and see, and say too, daily.<br>The whole together is what I could wish<br>To serve in this conundrum of a dish.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A modest hope--but modesty 's my forte,<br>And pride my feeble:--let us ramble on.<br>I meant to make this poem very short,<br>But now I can't tell where it may not run.<br>No doubt, if I had wish' to pay my court<br>To critics, or to hail the setting sun<br>Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision<br>Were more;--but I was born for opposition.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But then 'tis mostly on the weaker side;<br>So that I verily believe if they<br>Who now are basking in their full-blown pride<br>Were shaken down, and 'dogs had had their day,'<br>Though at the first I might perchance deride<br>Their tumble, I should turn the other way,<br>And wax an ultra-royalist in loyalty,<br>Because I hate even democratic royalty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think I should have made a decent spouse,<br>If I had never proved the soft condition;<br>I think I should have made monastic vows,<br>But for my own peculiar superstition:<br>'Gainst rhyme I never should have knock'd my brows,<br>Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian,<br>Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet,<br>If some one had not told me to forego it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But 'laissez aller'--knights and dames I sing,<br>Such as the times may furnish. 'T is a flight<br>Which seems at first to need no lofty wing,<br>Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite:<br>The difficultly lies in colouring<br>(Keeping the due proportions still in sight)<br>With nature manners which are artificial,<br>And rend'ring general that which is especial.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The difference is, that in the days of old<br>Men made the manners; manners now make men--<br>Pinn'd like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold,<br>At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten.<br>Now this at all events must render cold<br>Your writers, who must either draw again<br>Days better drawn before, or else assume<br>The present, with their common-place costume.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We'll do our best to make the best on't:--March!<br>March, my Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter;<br>And when you may not be sublime, be arch,<br>Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter.<br>We surely may find something worth research:<br>Columbus found a new world in a cutter,<br>Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage,<br>While yet America was in her non-age.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Adeline, in all her growing sense<br>Of Juan's merits and his situation,<br>Felt on the whole an interest intense,--<br>Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation,<br>Or that he had an air of innocence,<br>Which is for innocence a sad temptation,--<br>As women hate half measures, on the whole,<br>She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She had a good opinion of advice,<br>Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,<br>For which small thanks are still the market price,<br>Even where the article at highest rate is:<br>She thought upon the subject twice or thrice,<br>And morally decided, the best state is<br>For morals, marriage; and this question carried,<br>She seriously advised him to get married.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan replied, with all becoming deference,<br>He had a predilection for that tie;<br>But that, at present, with immediate reference<br>To his own circumstances, there might lie<br>Some difficulties, as in his own preference,<br>Or that of her to whom he might apply:<br>That still he'd wed with such or such a lady,<br>If that they were not married all already.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next to the making matches for herself,<br>And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,<br>Arranging them like books on the same shelf,<br>There 's nothing women love to dabble in<br>More (like a stock-holder in growing pelf)<br>Than match-making in general: 'tis no sin<br>Certes, but a preventative, and therefore<br>That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But never yet (except of course a miss<br>Unwed, or mistress never to be wed,<br>Or wed already, who object to this)<br>Was there chaste dame who had not in her head<br>Some drama of the marriage unities,<br>Observed as strictly both at board and bed<br>As those of Aristotle, though sometimes<br>They turn out melodrames or pantomimes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They generally have some only son,<br>Some heir to a large property, some friend<br>Of an old family, some gay Sir john,<br>Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might end<br>A line, and leave posterity undone,<br>Unless a marriage was applied to mend<br>The prospect and their morals: and besides,<br>They have at hand a blooming glut of brides.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From these they will be careful to select,<br>For this an heiress, and for that a beauty;<br>For one a songstress who hath no defect,<br>For t'other one who promises much duty;<br>For this a lady no one can reject,<br>Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty;<br>A second for her excellent connections;<br>A third, because there can be no objections.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Rapp the Harmonist embargo'd marriage<br>In his harmonious settlement (which flourishes<br>Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage,<br>Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes,<br>Without those sad expenses which disparage<br>What Nature naturally most encourages)--<br>Why call'd he 'Harmony' a state sans wedlock?<br>Now here I've got the preacher at a dead lock.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Because he either meant to sneer at harmony<br>Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly.<br>But whether reverend Rapp learn'd this in Germany<br>Or no, 'tis said his sect is rich and godly,<br>Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any<br>Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.<br>My objection's to his title, not his ritual,<br>Although I wonder how it grew habitual.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons,<br>Who favour, malgre Malthus, generation -<br>Professors of that genial art, and patrons<br>Of all the modest part of propagation;<br>Which after all at such a desperate rate runs,<br>That half its produce tends to emigration,<br>That sad result of passions and potatoes -<br>Two weeds which pose our economic Catos.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't tell;<br>I wish she had: his book 's the eleventh commandment,<br>Which says, 'Thou shalt not marry,' unless well:<br>This he (as far as I can understand) meant.<br>'Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell<br>Nor canvass what so 'eminent a hand' meant;<br>But certes it conducts to lives ascetic,<br>Or turning marriage into arithmetic.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Adeline, who probably presumed<br>That Juan had enough of maintenance,<br>Or separate maintenance, in case 'twas doom'd--<br>As on the whole it is an even chance<br>That bridegrooms, after they are fairly groom'd,<br>May retrograde a little in the dance<br>Of marriage (which might form a painter's fame,<br>Like Holbein's 'Dance of Death'--but 'tis the same);--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Adeline determined Juan's wedding<br>In her own mind, and that 's enough for woman:<br>But then, with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading,<br>Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman.<br>And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding.<br>She deem'd his merits something more than common:<br>All these were unobjectionable matches,<br>And might go on, if well wound up, like watches.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea,<br>That usual paragon, an only daughter,<br>Who seem'd the cream of equanimity<br>Till skimm'd - and then there was some milk and water,<br>With a slight shade of blue too, it might be,<br>Beneath the surface; but what did it matter?<br>Love's riotous, but marriage should have quiet,<br>And being consumptive, live on a milk diet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring,<br>A dashing demoiselle of good estate,<br>Whose heart was fix'd upon a star or blue string;<br>But whether English dukes grew rare of late,<br>Or that she had not harp'd upon the true string,<br>By which such sirens can attract our great,<br>She took up with some foreign younger brother,<br>A Russ or Turk - the one's as good as t'other.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then there was - but why should I go on,<br>Unless the ladies should go off?- there was<br>Indeed a certain fair and fairy one,<br>Of the best class, and better than her class,--<br>Aurora Raby, a young star who shone<br>O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass,<br>A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,<br>A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rich, noble, but an orphan; left an only<br>Child to the care of guardians good and kind;<br>But still her aspect had an air so lonely!<br>Blood is not water; and where shall we find<br>Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie<br>By death, when we are left, alas! behind,<br>To feel, in friendless palaces, a home<br>Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Early in years, and yet more infantine<br>In figure, she had something of sublime<br>In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine.<br>All youth - but with an aspect beyond time;<br>Radiant and grave - as pitying man's decline;<br>Mournful - but mournful of another's crime,<br>She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door.<br>And grieved for those who could return no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere,<br>As far as her own gentle heart allow'd,<br>And deem'd that fallen worship far more dear<br>Perhaps because 'twas fallen: her sires were proud<br>Of deeds and days when they had fill'd the ear<br>Of nations, and had never bent or bow'd<br>To novel power; and as she was the last,<br>She held their old faith and old feelings fast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew,<br>As seeking not to know it; silent, lone,<br>As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,<br>And kept her heart serene within its zone.<br>There was awe in the homage which she drew;<br>Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne<br>Apart from the surrounding world, and strong<br>In its own strength - most strange in one so young!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now it so happen'd, in the catalogue<br>Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted,<br>Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue<br>Beyond the charmers we have already cited;<br>Her beauty also seem'd to form no clog<br>Against her being mention'd as well fitted,<br>By many virtues, to be worth the trouble<br>Of single gentlemen who would be double.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And this omission, like that of the bust<br>Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius,<br>Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he must.<br>This he express'd half smiling and half serious;<br>When Adeline replied with some disgust,<br>And with an air, to say the least, imperious,<br>She marvell'd 'what he saw in such a baby<br>As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan rejoin'd - 'She was a Catholic,<br>And therefore fittest, as of his persuasion;<br>Since he was sure his mother would fall sick,<br>And the Pope thunder excommunication,<br>If--' But here Adeline, who seem'd to pique<br>Herself extremely on the inoculation<br>Of others with her own opinions, stated--<br>As usual--the same reason which she late did.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And wherefore not? A reasonable reason,<br>If good, is none the worse for repetition;<br>If bad, the best way's certainly to tease on,<br>And amplify: you lose much by concision,<br>Whereas insisting in or out of season<br>Convinces all men, even a politician;<br>Or - what is just the same - it wearies out.<br>So the end's gain'd, what signifies the route?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why Adeline had this slight prejudice -<br>For prejudice it was - against a creature<br>As pure as sanctity itself from vice,<br>With all the added charm of form and feature,<br>For me appears a question far too nice,<br>Since Adeline was liberal by nature;<br>But nature's nature, and has more caprices<br>Than I have time, or will, to take to pieces.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Perhaps she did not like the quiet way<br>With which Aurora on those baubles look'd,<br>Which charm most people in their earlier day:<br>For there are few things by mankind less brook'd,<br>And womankind too, if we so may say,<br>Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked,<br>Like 'Anthony's by Caesar,' by the few<br>Who look upon them as they ought to do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was not envy - Adeline had none;<br>Her place was far beyond it, and her mind.<br>It was not scorn - which could not light on one<br>Whose greatest fault was leaving few to find.<br>It was not jealousy, I think: but shun<br>Following the 'ignes fatui' of mankind.<br>It was not - but 'tis easier far, alas!<br>To say what it was not than what it was.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Little Aurora deem'd she was the theme<br>Of such discussion. She was there a guest;<br>A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream<br>Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest,<br>Which flow'd on for a moment in the beam<br>Time sheds a moment o'er each sparkling crest.<br>Had she known this, she would have calmly smiled--<br>She had so much, or little, of the child.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The dashing and proud air of Adeline<br>Imposed not upon her: she saw her blaze<br>Much as she would have seen a glow -worm shine,<br>Then turn'd unto the stars for loftier rays.<br>Juan was something she could not divine,<br>Being no sibyl in the new world's ways;<br>Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor,<br>Because she did not pin her faith on feature.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His fame too,--for he had that kind of fame<br>Which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind,<br>A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame,<br>Half virtues and whole vices being combined;<br>Faults which attract because they are not tame;<br>Follies trick'd out so brightly that they blind:--<br>These seals upon her wax made no impression,<br>Such was her coldness or her self-possession.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan knew nought of such a character--<br>High, yet resembling not his lost Haidee;<br>Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere:<br>The island girl, bred up by the lone sea,<br>More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere,<br>Was Nature's all: Aurora could not be,<br>Nor would be thus:--the difference in them<br>Was such as lies between a flower and gem.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Having wound up with this sublime comparison,<br>Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative,<br>And, as my friend Scott says, 'I sound my warison;'<br>Scott, the superlative of my comparative--<br>Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen,<br>Serf, lord, man, with such skill as none would share it, if<br>There had not been one Shakspeare and Voltaire,<br>Of one or both of whom he seems the heir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I say, in my slight way I may proceed<br>To play upon the surface of humanity.<br>I write the world, nor care if the world read,<br>At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.<br>My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed<br>More foes by this same scroll: when I began it, I<br>Thought that it might turn out so - now I know it,<br>But still I am, or was, a pretty poet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The conference or congress (for it ended<br>As congresses of late do) of the Lady<br>Adeline and Don Juan rather blended<br>Some acids with the sweets - for she was heady;<br>But, ere the matter could be marr'd or mended,<br>The silvery bell rang, not for 'dinner ready,<br>But for that hour, call'd half-hour, given to dress,<br>Though ladies' robes seem scant enough for less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great things were now to be achieved at table,<br>With massy plate for armour, knives and forks<br>For weapons; but what Muse since Homer 's able<br>(His feasts are not the worst part of his works)<br>To draw up in array a single day-bill<br>Of modern dinners? where more mystery lurks,<br>In soups or sauces, or a sole ragout,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There was a goodly 'soupe a la bonne femme,'<br>Though God knows whence it came from; there was, too,<br>A turbot for relief of those who cram,<br>Relieved with 'dindon a la Parigeux;'<br>How shall I get this gourmand stanza through?--<br>'Soupe a la Beauveau,' whose relief was dory,<br>Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I must crowd all into one grand mess<br>Or mass; for should I stretch into detail,<br>My Muse would run much more into excess,<br>Than when some squeamish people deem her frail.<br>But though a 'bonne vivante,' I must confess<br>Her stomach's not her peccant part; this tale<br>However doth require some slight refection,<br>Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fowls 'a la Conde,' slices eke of salmon,<br>With 'sauces Genevoises,' and haunch of venison;<br>Wines too, which might again have slain young Ammon--<br>A man like whom I hope we shan't see many soon;<br>They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on,<br>Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison;<br>And then there was champagne with foaming whirls,<br>As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then there was God knows what 'a l'Allemande,'<br>'A l'Espagnole,' 'timballe,' and 'salpicon'--<br>With things I can't withstand or understand,<br>Though swallow'd with much zest upon the whole;<br>And 'entremets' to piddle with at hand,<br>Gently to lull down the subsiding soul;<br>While great Lucullus' Robe triumphal muffles<br>(There's fame) young partridge fillets, deck'd with truffles.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What are the fillets on the victor's brow<br>To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the arch<br>Which nodded to the nation's spoils below?<br>Where the triumphal chariots' haughty march?<br>Gone to where victories must like dinners go.<br>Farther I shall not follow the research:<br>But oh! ye modern heroes with your cartridges,<br>When will your names lend lustre e'en to partridges?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those truffles too are no bad accessaries,<br>Follow'd by 'petits puits d'amour'--a dish<br>Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,<br>So every one may dress it to his wish,<br>According to the best of dictionaries,<br>Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish;<br>But even sans 'confitures,' it no less true is,<br>There's pretty picking in those 'petits puits.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The mind is lost in mighty contemplation<br>Of intellect expanded on two courses;<br>And indigestion's grand multiplication<br>Requires arithmetic beyond my forces.<br>Who would suppose, from Adam's simple ration,<br>That cookery could have call'd forth such resources,<br>As form a science and a nomenclature<br>From out the commonest demands of nature?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled;<br>The diners of celebrity dined well;<br>The ladies with more moderation mingled<br>In the feast, pecking less than I can tell;<br>Also the younger men too: for a springald<br>Can't, like ripe age, in gormandize excel,<br>But thinks less of good eating than the whisper<br>(When seated next him) of some pretty lisper.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! I must leave undescribed the gibier,<br>The salmi, the consomme, the puree,<br>All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber<br>Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull way:<br>I must not introduce even a spare rib here,<br>'Bubble and squeak' would spoil my liquid lay:<br>But I have dined, and must forego, Alas!<br>The chaste description even of a 'becasse;'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And fruits, and ice, and all that art refines<br>From nature for the service of the gout--<br>Taste or the gout,--pronounce it as inclines<br>Your stomach! Ere you dine, the French will do;<br>But after, there are sometimes certain signs<br>Which prove plain English truer of the two.<br>Hast ever had the gout? I have not had it--<br>But I may have, and you too, reader, dread it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The simple olives, best allies of wine,<br>Must I pass over in my bill of fare?<br>I must, although a favourite 'plat' of mine<br>In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, every where:<br>On them and bread 'twas oft my luck to dine,<br>The grass my table-cloth, in open-air,<br>On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes,<br>Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and 'fowl,<br>And vegetables, all in masquerade,<br>The guests were placed according to their roll,<br>But various as the various meats display'd:<br>Don Juan sat next 'an l'Espagnole'--<br>No damsel, but a dish, as hath been said;<br>But so far like a lady, that 'twas drest<br>Superbly, and contain'd a world of zest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By some odd chance too, he was placed between<br>Aurora and the Lady Adeline--<br>A situation difficult, I ween,<br>For man therein, with eyes and heart, to dine.<br>Also the conference which we have seen<br>Was not such as to encourage him to shine;<br>For Adeline, addressing few words to him,<br>With two transcendent eyes seem'd to look through him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears:<br>This much is sure, that, out of earshot, things<br>Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears,<br>Of which I can't tell whence their knowledge springs.<br>Like that same mystic music of the spheres,<br>Which no one bears, so loudly though it rings,<br>'T is wonderful how oft the sex have heard<br>Long dialogues - which pass'd without a word!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Aurora sat with that indifference<br>Which piques a preux chevalier - as it ought:<br>Of all offences that's the worst offence,<br>Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought.<br>Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence,<br>Was not exactly pleased to be so caught;<br>Like a good ship entangled among ice,<br>And after so much excellent advice.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To his gay nothings, nothing was replied,<br>Or something which was nothing, as urbanity<br>Required. Aurora scarcely look'd aside,<br>Nor even smiled enough for any vanity.<br>The devil was in the girl! Could it be pride?<br>Or modesty, or absence, or inanity?<br>Heaven knows? But Adeline's malicious eyes<br>Sparkled with her successful prophecies,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And look'd as much as if to say, 'I said it;'<br>A kind of triumph I'll not recommend,<br>Because it sometimes, as I have seen or read it,<br>Both in the case of lover and of friend,<br>Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit,<br>To bring what was a jest to a serious end:<br>For all men prophesy what is or was,<br>And hate those who won't let them come to pass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan was drawn thus into some attentions,<br>Slight but select, and just enough to express,<br>To females of perspicuous comprehensions,<br>That he would rather make them more than less.<br>Aurora at the last (so history mentions,<br>Though probably much less a fact than guess)<br>So far relax'd her thoughts from their sweet prison,<br>As once or twice to smile, if not to listen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From answering she began to question; this<br>With her was rare: and Adeline, who as yet<br>Thought her predictions went not much amiss,<br>Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette--<br>So very difficult, they say, it is<br>To keep extremes from meeting, when once set<br>In motion; but she here too much refined--<br>Aurora's spirit was not of that kind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Juan had a sort of winning way,<br>A proud humility, if such there be,<br>Which show'd such deference to what females say,<br>As if each charming word were a decree.<br>His tact, too, temper'd him from grave to gay,<br>And taught him when to be reserved or free:<br>He had the art of drawing people out,<br>Without their seeing what he was about.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Aurora, who in her indifference<br>Confounded him in common with the crowd<br>Of flatterers, though she deem'd he had more sense<br>Than whispering foplings, or than witlings loud--<br>Commenced (from such slight things will great commence)<br>To feel that flattery which attracts the proud<br>Rather by deference than compliment,<br>And wins even by a delicate dissent.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then he had good looks;--that point was carried<br>Nem. con. amongst the women, which I grieve<br>To say leads oft to crim. con. with the married -<br>A case which to the juries we may leave,<br>Since with digressions we too long have tarried.<br>Now though we know of old that looks deceive,<br>And always have done, somehow these good looks<br>Make more impression than the best of books.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Aurora, who look'd more on books than faces,<br>Was very young, although so very sage,<br>Admiring more Minerva than the Graces,<br>Especially upon a printed page.<br>But Virtue's self, with all her tightest laces,<br>Has not the natural stays of strict old age;<br>And Socrates, that model of all duty,<br>Own'd to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic,<br>But innocently so, as Socrates;<br>And really, if the sage sublime and Attic<br>At seventy years had phantasies like these,<br>Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic<br>Has shown, I know not why they should displease<br>In virgins - always in a modest way,<br>Observe; for that with me's a 'sine qua.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also observe, that, like the great Lord Coke<br>(See Littleton), whene'er I have express'd<br>Opinions two, which at first sight may look<br>Twin opposites, the second is the best.<br>Perhaps I have a third, too, in a nook,<br>Or none at all - which seems a sorry jest:<br>But if a writer should be quite consistent,<br>How could he possibly show things existent?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If people contradict themselves, can<br>Help contradicting them, and every body,<br>Even my veracious self?- But that's a lie:<br>I never did so, never will--how should I?<br>He who doubts all things nothing can deny:<br>Truth's fountains may be clear--her streams are muddy,<br>And cut through such canals of contradiction,<br>That she must often navigate o'er fiction.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Apologue, fable, poesy, and parable,<br>Are false, but may he render'd also true,<br>By those who sow them in a land that's arable.<br>'Tis wonderful what fable will not do!<br>'Tis said it makes reality more bearable:<br>But what's reality? Who has its clue?<br>Philosophy? No: she too much rejects.<br>Religion? Yes; but which of all her sects?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some millions must be wrong, that 's pretty dear;<br>Perhaps it may turn out that all were right.<br>God help us! Since we have need on our career<br>To keep our holy beacons always bright,<br>'Tis time that some new prophet should appear,<br>Or old indulge man with a second sight.<br>Opinions wear out in some thousand years,<br>Without a small refreshment from the spheres.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But here again, why will I thus entangle<br>Myself with metaphysics? None can hate<br>So much as I do any kind of wrangle;<br>And yet, such is my folly, or my fate,<br>I always knock my head against some angle<br>About the present, past, or future state.<br>Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian,<br>For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But though I am a temperate theologian,<br>And also meek as a metaphysician,<br>Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan,<br>As Eldon on a lunatic commission--<br>In politics my duty is to show John<br>Bull something of the lower world's condition.<br>It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla,<br>To see men let these scoundrel sovereigns break law.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But politics, and policy, and piety,<br>Are topics which I sometimes introduce,<br>Not only for the sake of their variety,<br>But as subservient to a moral use;<br>Because my business is to dress society,<br>And stuff with sage that very verdant goose.<br>And now, that we may furnish with some matter all<br>Tastes, we are going to try the supernatural.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now I will give up all argument;<br>And positively henceforth no temptation<br>Shall 'fool me to the top up of my bent:'--<br>Yes, I'll begin a thorough reformation.<br>Indeed, I never knew what people meant<br>By deeming that my Muse's conversation<br>Was dangerous;--I think she is as harmless<br>As some who labour more and yet may charm less.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost?<br>No; but you have heard--I understand--be dumb!<br>And don't regret the time you may have lost,<br>For you have got that pleasure still to come:<br>And do not think I mean to sneer at most<br>Of these things, or by ridicule benumb<br>That source of the sublime and the mysterious:-<br>For certain reasons my belief is serious.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Serious? You laugh;--you may: that will I not;<br>My smiles must be sincere or not at all.<br>I say I do believe a haunted spot<br>Exists--and where? That shall I not recall,<br>Because I 'd rather it should be forgot,<br>'Shadows the soul of Richard' may appal.<br>In short, upon that subject I've some qualms very<br>Like those of the philosopher of Malmsbury.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The night (I sing by night - sometimes an owl,<br>And now and then a nightingale) is dim,<br>And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's fowl<br>Rattles around me her discordant hymn:<br>Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl -<br>I wish to heaven they would not look so grim;<br>The dying embers dwindle in the grate -<br>I think too that I have sate up too late:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way<br>To rhyme at noon - when I have other things<br>To think of, if I ever think - I say<br>I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,<br>And prudently postpone, until mid-day,<br>Treating a topic which, alas! but brings<br>Shadows;--but you must be in my condition<br>Before you learn to call this superstition.</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>
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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=396068" data-title="Don Juan: Canto The Fifteenth de Byron" data-description="Ah!--What should follow slips from my reflection;
Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be 
As à-propos of hope or retrospection,
As though the lurking thought had follow'd free.
All present life is but an interjection,
An 'Oh!' or 'Ah!' of joy or mi..."></div>
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