<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396071" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Fourteenth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'twould 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">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">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">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">'Tis 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">'Tis 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 fears - but where? You know not, <br>And that's the reason why you do - or do not. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But what's this to the purpose? you will say. <br>Gent. reader, nothing; a mere speculation, <br>For which my sole excuse is - 'tis 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">You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, <br>'Fling up a straw, 'twill 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">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">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">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">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 'tis not easy to express, <br>And yet 'tis 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">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">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">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">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">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">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">'Tis 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">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>'Tis that, in fact, there's little to describe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'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">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">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">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">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">'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">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">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>'Tis pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant, <br>To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">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">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">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">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, 'tis 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">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">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">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">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">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">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 flaws--set off our hero, <br>He glanced like a personified Bolero; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">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">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">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>'Twill but precipitate a situation <br>Extremely disagreeable, but common <br>To calculators when they count on woman. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">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, 'twas 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">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">There's nought in this bad world like sympathy: <br>'Tis 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">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">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>'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen <br>That which humanity may bear, or bear not: <br>'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive, <br>And not to pour their ocean in a sieve. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">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">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">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">But Adeline was far from that ripe age, <br>Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best: <br>'Twas 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">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">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">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">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">'Tis 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">With the kind view of saving an eclat, <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">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">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">Her Grace, too, pass'd for being an intrigante, <br>And somewhat mechante 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">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">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">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">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 bienseance 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">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">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 aged sister. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">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">Still there was something wanting, as I've said - <br>That undefinable 'Je ne scais 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 Menelaus:- <br>But thus it is some women will betray us. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'tis better not to venture. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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>'Tis odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'Voila la Pervenche!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">'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">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">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">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">'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 a-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">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 halt of earth to rights; <br>You have freed the blacks - now pray shut up the whites. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'twill cost us all another million. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'twas. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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 'tis 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">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">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">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">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 'twill perplex the casuist in morality <br>To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo, <br>It had been firmness; now 'tis 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">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">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">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">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">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">I've also seen some female friends ('tis 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">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">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">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, 'twill be their ruin. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">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">'Tis 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">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>Caesar 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><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=396071" data-title="Don Juan: Canto The Fourteenth de Byron" data-description="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 'twould spoil much good philosophy. One system eats another up, and this Much as old Saturn ate his p..."></div> </div> </div>

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