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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396073" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Ninth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, Wellington! (or 'Villainton'--for Fame<br>Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;<br>France could not even conquer your great name,<br>But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase-<br>Beating or beaten she will laugh the same),<br>You have obtain'd great pensions and much praise:<br>Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,<br>Humanity would rise, and thunder 'Nay!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well<br>In Marinet's affair--in fact, 'twas shabby,<br>And like some other things won't do to tell<br>Upon your tomb in Westminster's old abbey.<br>Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to dwell,<br>Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby;<br>But though your years as man tend fast to zero,<br>In fact your grace is still but a young hero. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,<br>Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more:<br>You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch,<br>A prop not quite so certain as before:<br>The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,<br>Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;<br>And Waterloo has made the world your debtor<br>(I wish your bards would sing it rather better). </div><div style="margin:10px 0">You are 'the best of cut-throats:'--do not start;<br>The phrase is Shakspeare's, and not misapplied:<br>War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,<br>Unless her cause by right be sanctified.<br>If you have acted once a generous part,<br>The world, not the world's masters, will decide,<br>And I shall be delighted to learn who,<br>Save you and yours, have gain'd by Waterloo? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I am no flatterer- you 've supp'd full of flattery:<br>They say you like it too- 't is no great wonder.<br>He whose whole life has been assault and battery,<br>At last may get a little tired of thunder;<br>And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he<br>May like being praised for every lucky blunder,<br>Call'd 'Saviour of the Nations'--not yet saved,<br>And 'Europe's Liberator'--still enslaved. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate<br>Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,<br>And send the sentinel before your gate<br>A slice or two from your luxurious meals:<br>He fought, but has not fed so well of late.<br>Some hunger, too, they say the people feels:--<br>There is no doubt that you deserve your ration,<br>But pray give back a little to the nation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I don't mean to reflect--a man so great as<br>You, my lord duke! is far above reflection:<br>The high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus,<br>With modern history has but small connection:<br>Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,<br>You need not take them under your direction;<br>And half a million for your Sabine farm<br>Is rather dear!--I'm sure I mean no harm. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great men have always scorn'd great recompenses:<br>Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,<br>Not leaving even his funeral expenses:<br>George Washington had thanks and nought beside,<br>Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is<br>To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,<br>And as a high-soul'd minister of state is<br>Renown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never had mortal man such opportunity,<br>Except Napoleon, or abused it more:<br>You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity<br>Of tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore:<br>And now--what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?<br>Now--that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er?<br>Go! hear it in your famish'd country's cries!<br>Behold the world! and curse your victories! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,<br>To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe<br>Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,<br>But which 'tis time to teach the hireling tribe<br>Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts,<br>Must be recited, and- without a bribe.<br>You did great things; but not being great in mind,<br>Have left undone the greatest- and mankind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Death laughs--Go ponder o'er the skeleton<br>With which men image out the unknown thing<br>That hides the past world, like to a set sun<br>Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring--<br>Death laughs at all you weep for:--look upon<br>This hourly dread of all! whose threaten'd sting<br>Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath:<br>Mark how its lipless mouth grins without breath! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mark how it laughs and scorns at all you are!<br>And yet was what you are: from ear to ear<br>It laughs not--there is now no fleshy bar<br>So call'd; the Antic long hath ceased to hear,<br>But still he smiles; and whether near or far,<br>He strips from man that mantle (far more dear<br>Than even the tailor's), his incarnate skin,<br>White, black, or copper--the dead bones will grin. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thus Death laughs,--it is sad merriment,<br>But still it is so; and with such example<br>Why should not Life be equally content<br>With his superior, in a smile to trample<br>Upon the nothings which are daily spent<br>Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample<br>Than the eternal deluge, which devours<br>Suns as rays--worlds like atoms--years like hours? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To be, or not to be? that is the question,'<br>Says Shakspeare, who just now is much in fashion.<br>I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion,<br>Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion;<br>But would much rather have a sound digestion<br>Than Buonaparte's cancer: could I dash on<br>Through fifty victories to shame or fame-<br>Without a stomach what were a good name? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O dura ilia messorum!'--'Oh<br>Ye rigid guts of reapers!' I translate<br>For the great benefit of those who know<br>What indigestion is--that inward fate<br>Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.<br>A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate:<br>Let this one toil for bread- that rack for rent,<br>He who sleeps best may be the most content. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To be, or not to be?'--Ere I decide,<br>I should be glad to know that which is being?<br>'T is true we speculate both far and wide,<br>And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing:<br>For my part, I 'll enlist on neither side,<br>Until I see both sides for once agreeing.<br>For me, I sometimes think that life is death,<br>Rather than life a mere affair of breath. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Que scais-je?' was the motto of Montaigne,<br>As also of the first academicians:<br>That all is dubious which man may attain,<br>Was one of their most favourite positions.<br>There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain<br>As any of Mortality's conditions;<br>So little do we know what we're about in<br>This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,<br>Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation;<br>But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?<br>Your wise men don't know much of navigation;<br>And swimming long in the abyss of thought<br>Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station<br>Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers<br>Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But heaven,' as Cassio says, 'is above all--<br>No more of this, then,--let us pray!' We have<br>Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall,<br>Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,<br>Besides fish, beasts, and birds. 'The sparrow's fall<br>Is special providence,' though how it gave<br>Offence, we know not; probably it perch'd<br>Upon the tree which Eve so fondly search'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, ye immortal gods! what is theogony?<br>Oh, thou too, mortal man! what is philanthropy?<br>Oh, world! which was and is, what is cosmogony?<br>Some people have accused me of misanthropy;<br>And yet I know no more than the mahogany<br>That forms this desk, of what they mean; lykanthropy<br>I comprehend, for without transformation<br>Men become wolves on any slight occasion. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind,<br>Like Moses, or Melancthon, who have ne'er<br>Done anything exceedingly unkind,--<br>And (though I could not now and then forbear<br>Following the bent of body or of mind)<br>Have always had a tendency to spare,--<br>Why do they call me misanthrope? Because<br>They hate me, not I them.--and here we'll pause. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis time we should proceed with our good poem,--<br>For I maintain that it is really good,<br>Not only in the body but the proem,<br>However little both are understood<br>Just now,--but by and by the Truth will show 'em<br>Herself in her sublimest attitude:<br>And till she doth, I fain must be content<br>To share her beauty and her banishment. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader, yours)<br>Was left upon his way to the chief city<br>Of the immortal Peter's polish'd boors<br>Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.<br>I know its mighty empire now allures<br>Much flattery--even Voltaire's, and that's a pity.<br>For me, I deem an absolute autocrat<br>Not a barbarian, but much worse than that. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I will war, at least in words (and--should<br>My chance so happen--deeds), with all who war<br>With Thought;--and of Thought's foes by far most rude,<br>Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.<br>I know not who may conquer: if I could<br>Have such a prescience, it should be no bar<br>To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation<br>Of every depotism in every nation. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is not that I adulate the people:<br>Without me, there are demagogues enough,<br>And infidels, to pull down every steeple,<br>And set up in their stead some proper stuff.<br>Whether they may sow scepticism to reap hell,<br>As is the Christian dogma rather rough,<br>I do not know;--I wish men to be free<br>As much from mobs as kings- from you as me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The consequence is, being of no party,<br>I shall offend all parties: never mind!<br>My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty<br>Than if I sought to sail before the wind.<br>He who has nought to gain can have small art: he<br>Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,<br>May still expatiate freely, as will I,<br>Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">That's an appropriate simile, that jackal;--<br>I 've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl<br>By night, as do that mercenary pack all,<br>Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl,<br>And scent the prey their masters would attack all.<br>However, the poor jackals are less foul<br>(As being the brave lions' keen providers)<br>Than human insects, catering for spiders. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Raise but an arm! 'twill brush their web away,<br>And without that, their poison and their claws<br>Are useless. Mind, good people! what I say<br>(Or rather peoples)--go on without pause!<br>The web of these tarantulas each day<br>Increases, till you shall make common cause:<br>None, save the Spanish fly and Attic bee,<br>As yet are strongly stinging to be free. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter,<br>Was left upon his way with the despatch,<br>Where blood was talk'd of as we would of water;<br>And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch<br>O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter<br>Fair Catherine's pastime--who look'd on the match<br>Between these nations as a main of cocks,<br>Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there in a kibitka he roll'd on<br>(A cursed sort of carriage without springs,<br>Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone),<br>Pondering on glory, chivalry, and kings,<br>And orders, and on all that he had done--<br>And wishing that post-horses had the wings<br>Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises<br>Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At every jolt--and they were many--still<br>He turn'd his eyes upon his little charge,<br>As if he wish'd that she should fare less ill<br>Than he, in these sad highways left at large<br>To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill,<br>Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge<br>On her canals, where God takes sea and land,<br>Fishery and farm, both into his own hand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At least he pays no rent, and has best right<br>To be the first of what we used to call<br>'Gentlemen farmer'--a race worn out quite,<br>Since lately there have been no rents at all,<br>And 'gentlemen' are in a piteous plight,<br>And 'farmers' can't raise Ceres from her fall:<br>She fell with Buonaparte--What strange thoughts<br>Arise, when we see emperors fall with oats! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But Juan turn'd his eyes on the sweet child<br>Whom he had saved from slaughter--what a trophy<br>Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled<br>With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive sophy,<br>Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild,<br>And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee<br>To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!<br>Because he could no more digest his dinner;--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect,<br>That one life saved, especially if young<br>Or pretty, is a thing to recollect<br>Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung<br>From the manure of human clay, though deck'd<br>With all the praises ever said or sung:<br>Though hymn'd by every harp, unless within<br>Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! ye great authors luminous, voluminous!<br>Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes!<br>Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us!<br>Whether you're paid by government in bribes,<br>To prove the public debt is not consuming us--<br>Or, roughly treading on the 'courtier's kibes'<br>With clownish heel, your popular circulation<br>Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation;-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, ye great authors!--'Apropos des bottes,'--<br>I have forgotten what I meant to say,<br>As sometimes have been greater sages' lots;<br>'Twas something calculated to allay<br>All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:<br>Certes it would have been but thrown away,<br>And that's one comfort for my lost advice,<br>Although no doubt it was beyond all price. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But let it go:--it will one day be found<br>With other relics of 'a former world,'<br>When this world shall be former, underground,<br>Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisp'd, and curl'd,<br>Baked, fried, or burnt, turn'd inside-out, or drown'd,<br>Like all the worlds before, which have been hurl'd<br>First out of, and then back again to chaos,<br>The superstratum which will overlay us. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So Cuvier says;--and then shall come again<br>Unto the new creation, rising out<br>From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain<br>Of things destroy'd and left in airy doubt:<br>Like to the notions we now entertain<br>Of Titans, giants, fellows of about<br>Some hundred feet in height, not to say miles,<br>And mammoths, and your winged crocodiles. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up!<br>How the new worldlings of the then new East<br>Will wonder where such animals could sup!<br>(For they themselves will be but of the least:<br>Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup,<br>And every new creation hath decreased<br>In size, from overworking the material--<br>Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">How will--to these young people, just thrust out<br>From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough,<br>And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about,<br>And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow,<br>Till all the arts at length are brought about,<br>Especially of war and taxing,--how,<br>I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em,<br>Look like the monsters of a new museum? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I am apt to grow too metaphysical:<br>'The time is out of joint,'--and so am I;<br>I quite forget this poem's merely quizzical,<br>And deviate into matters rather dry.<br>I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I cal<br>Much too poetical: men should know why<br>They write, and for what end; but, note or text,<br>I never know the word which will come next. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So on I ramble, now and then narrating,<br>Now pondering:--it is time we should narrate.<br>I left Don Juan with his horses baiting--<br>Now we 'll get o'er the ground at a great rate.<br>I shall not be particular in stating<br>His journey, we 've so many tours of late:<br>Suppose him then at Petersburgh; suppose<br>That pleasant capital of painted snows; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Suppose him in a handsome uniform,--<br>A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume,<br>Waving, like sails new shiver'd in a storm,<br>Over a cock'd hat in a crowded room,<br>And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme,<br>Of yellow casimere we may presume,<br>White stocking drawn uncurdled as new milk<br>O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand,<br>Made up by youth, fame, and an army tailor-<br>That great enchanter, at whose rod's command<br>Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler,<br>Seeing how Art can make her work more grand<br>(When she don't pin men's limbs in like a gaoler),--<br>Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He<br>Seems Love turn'd a lieutenant of artillery:-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">His bandage slipp'd down into a cravat;<br>His wings subdued to epaulettes; his quiver<br>Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at<br>His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever;<br>His bow converted into a cock'd hat;<br>But still so like, that Psyche were more clever<br>Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid),<br>If she had not mistaken him for Cupid. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The courtiers stared, the ladies whisper'd, and<br>The empress smiled: the reigning favourite frown'd--<br>I quite forget which of them was in hand<br>Just then; as they are rather numerous found,<br>Who took by turns that difficult command<br>Since first her majesty was singly crown'd:<br>But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows,<br>All fit to make a Patagonian jealous. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan was none of these, but slight and slim,<br>Blushing and beardless; and yet ne'ertheless<br>There was a something in his turn of limb,<br>And still more in his eye, which seem'd to express,<br>That though he look'd one of the seraphim,<br>There lurk'd a man beneath the spirit's dress.<br>Besides, the empress sometimes liked a boy,<br>And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff,<br>Or Scherbatoff, or any other off<br>Or on, might dread her majesty had not room enough<br>Within her bosom (which was not too tough)<br>For a new flame; a thought to cast of gloom enough<br>Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough,<br>Of him who, in the language of his station,<br>Then held that 'high official situation.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, gentle ladies! should you seek to know<br>The import of this diplomatic phrase,<br>Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess show<br>His parts of speech; and in the strange displays<br>Of that odd string of words, all in a row,<br>Which none divine, and every one obeys,<br>Perhaps you may pick out some queer no meaning,<br>Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I think I can explain myself without<br>That sad inexplicable beast of prey--<br>That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt,<br>Did not his deeds unriddle them each day--<br>That monstrous hieroglyphic--that long spout<br>Of blood and water, leaden Castlereagh!<br>And here I must an anecdote relate,<br>But luckily of no great length or weight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">An English lady ask'd of an Italian,<br>What were the actual and official duties<br>Of the strange thing some women set a value on,<br>Which hovers oft about some married beauties,<br>Called 'Cavalier servente?'--a Pygmalion<br>Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 'tis)<br>Beneath his art. The dame, press'd to disclose them,<br>Said--'Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thus I supplicate your supposition,<br>And mildest, matron-like interpretation,<br>Of the imperial favourite's condition.<br>'T was a high place, the highest in the nation<br>In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion<br>Of any one's attaining to his station,<br>No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,<br>If rather broad, made stocks rise and their holders. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy,<br>And had retain'd his boyish look beyond<br>The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,<br>With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond<br>Parisian aspect which upset old Troy<br>And founded Doctors' Commons:--I have conn'd<br>The history of divorces, which, though chequer'd,<br>Calls Ilion's the first damages on record. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Catherine, who loved all things (save her lord,<br>Who was gone to his place), and pass'd for much<br>Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorr'd)<br>Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch<br>Of sentiment; and he she most adored<br>Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such<br>A lover as had cost her many a tear,<br>And yet but made a middling grenadier. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh thou 'teterrima causa' of all 'belli'--<br>Thou gate of life and death--thou nondescript!<br>Whence is our exit and our entrance,--well I<br>May pause in pondering how all souls are dipt<br>In thy perennial fountain:--how man fell I<br>Know not, since knowledge saw her branches stript<br>Of her first fruit; but how he falls and rises<br>Since, thou hast settled beyond all surmises. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some call thee 'the worst cause of war,' but I<br>Maintain thou art the best: for after all<br>From thee we come, to thee we go, and why<br>To get at thee not batter down a wall,<br>Or waste a world? since no one can deny<br>Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:<br>With, or without thee, all things at a stand<br>Are, or would be, thou sea of life's dry land! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Catherine, who was the grand epitome<br>Of that great cause of war, or peace, or what<br>You please (it causes all the things which be,<br>So you may take your choice of this or that)--<br>Catherine, I say. was very glad to see<br>The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat<br>Victory; and pausing as she saw him kneel<br>With his despatch, forgot to break the seal. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then recollecting the whole empress, nor<br>forgetting quite the woman (which composed<br>At least three parts of this great whole), she tore<br>The letter open with an air which posed<br>The court, that watch'd each look her visage wore,<br>Until a royal smile at length disclosed<br>Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,<br>Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Great joy was hers, or rather joys: the first<br>Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand slain.<br>Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst,<br>As an East Indian sunrise on the main.<br>These quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst--<br>So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain:<br>In vain!- As fall the dews on quenchless sands,<br>Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her next amusement was more fanciful;<br>She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw<br>Into a Russian couplet rather dull<br>The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew.<br>Her third was feminine enough to annul<br>The shudder which runs naturally through<br>Our veins, when things call'd sovereigns think it best<br>To kill, and generals turn it into jest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The two first feelings ran their course complete,<br>And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth:<br>The whole court look'd immediately most sweet,<br>Like flowers well water'd after a long drouth.<br>But when on the lieutenant at her feet<br>Her majesty, who liked to gaze on youth<br>Almost as much as on a new despatch,<br>Glanced mildly, all the world was on the watch. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent,<br>When wroth- while pleased, she was as fine a figure<br>As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent,<br>Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.<br>She could repay each amatory look you lent<br>With interest, and in turn was wont with rigour<br>To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount<br>At sight, nor would permit you to discount. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With her the latter, though at times convenient,<br>Was not so necessary; for they tell<br>That she was handsome, and though fierce look'd lenient,<br>And always used her favourites too well.<br>If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went,<br>Your 'fortune' was in a fair way 'to swell<br>A man' (as Giles says); for though she would widow all<br>Nations, she liked man as an individual. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">What a strange thing is man? and what a stranger<br>Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head,<br>And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger<br>Is all the rest about her! Whether wed<br>Or widow, maid or mother, she can change her<br>Mind like the wind: whatever she has said<br>Or done, is light to what she'll say or do;--<br>The oldest thing on record, and yet new! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections,<br>To thee both oh! and ah! belong of right<br>In love and war) how odd are the connections<br>Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!<br>Just now yours were cut out in different sections:<br>First Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite;<br>Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch;<br>And thirdly he who brought you the despatch! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shakspeare talks of 'the herald Mercury<br>New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;'<br>And some such visions cross'd her majesty,<br>While her young herald knelt before her still.<br>'Tis very true the hill seem'd rather high,<br>For a lieutenant to climb up; but skill<br>Smooth'd even the Simplon's steep, and by God's blessing<br>With youth and health all kisses are 'heaven-kissing.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her majesty look'd down, the youth look'd up--<br>And so they fell in love;--she with his face,<br>His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid's cup<br>With the first draught intoxicates apace,<br>A quintessential laudanum or 'black drop,'<br>Which makes one drunk at once, without the base<br>Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye<br>In love drinks all life's fountains (save tears) dry. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He, on the other hand, if not in love,<br>Fell into that no less imperious passion,<br>Self-love- which, when some sort of thing above<br>Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,<br>Or duchess, princess, empress, 'deigns to prove'<br>('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,<br>For one especial person out of many,<br>Makes us believe ourselves as good as any. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Besides, he was of that delighted age<br>Which makes all female ages equal--when<br>We don't much care with whom we may engage,<br>As bold as Daniel in the lion's den,<br>So that we can our native sun assuage<br>In the next ocean, which may flow just then,<br>To make a twilight in, just as Sol's heat is<br>Quench'd in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),<br>Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing<br>Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,<br>Because each lover look'd a sort of king,<br>Made up upon an amatory pattern,<br>A royal husband in all save the ring--<br>Which, being the damn'dest part of matrimony,<br>Seem'd taking out the sting to leave the honey. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when you add to this, her womanhood<br>In its meridian, her blue eyes or gray<br>(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,<br>Or better, as the best examples say:<br>Napoleon's, Mary's (queen of Scotland), should<br>Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;<br>And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,<br>Too wise to look through optics black or blue)--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,<br>Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,<br>Her preference of a boy to men much bigger<br>(Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension),<br>Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,<br>With other extras, which we need not mention,--<br>All these, or any one of these, explain<br>Enough to make a stripling very vain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that's enough, for love is vanity,<br>Selfish in its beginning as its end,<br>Except where 't is a mere insanity,<br>A maddening spirit which would strive to blend<br>Itself with beauty's frail inanity,<br>On which the passion's self seems to depend:<br>And hence some heathenish philosophers<br>Make love the main spring of the universe. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Besides Platonic love, besides the love<br>Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving<br>Of faithful pairs (I needs must rhyme with dove,<br>That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving<br>'Gainst reason--Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove<br>With rhyme, but always leant less to improving<br>The sound than sense)--beside all these pretences<br>To love, there are those things which words name senses; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those movements, those improvements in our bodies<br>Which make all bodies anxious to get out<br>Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,<br>For such all women are at first no doubt.<br>How beautiful that moment! and how odd is<br>That fever which precedes the languid rout<br>Of our sensations! What a curious way<br>The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,<br>To end or to begin with; the next grand<br>Is that which may be christen'd love canonical,<br>Because the clergy take the thing in hand;<br>The third sort to be noted in our chronicle<br>As flourishing in every Christian land,<br>Is when chaste matrons to their other ties<br>Add what may be call'd marriage in disguise. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, we won't analyse--our story must<br>Tell for itself: the sovereign was smitten,<br>Juan much flatter'd by her love, or lust;-<br>I cannot stop to alter words once written,<br>And the two are so mix'd with human dust,<br>That he who names one, both perchance may hit on:<br>But in such matters Russia's mighty empress<br>Behaved no better than a common sempstress. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The whole court melted into one wide whisper,<br>And all lips were applied unto all ears!<br>The elder ladies' wrinkles curl'd much crisper<br>As they beheld; the younger cast some leers<br>On one another, and each lovely lisper<br>Smiled as she talk'd the matter o'er; but tears<br>Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye<br>Of all the standing army who stood by. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">All the ambassadors of all the powers<br>Enquired, Who was this very new young man,<br>Who promised to be great in some few hours?<br>Which is full soon--though life is but a span.<br>Already they beheld the silver showers<br>Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,<br>Upon his cabinet, besides the presents<br>Of several ribands, and some thousand peasants. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Catherine was generous,--all such ladies are:<br>Love, that great opener of the heart and all<br>The ways that lead there, be they near or far,<br>Above, below, by turnpikes great or small,--<br>Love (though she had a cursed taste for war,<br>And was not the best wife, unless we call<br>Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 't is better<br>That one should die, than two drag on the fetter)-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune,<br>Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth,<br>Whose avarice all disbursements did importune,<br>If history, the grand liar, ever saith<br>The truth; and though grief her old age might shorten,<br>Because she put a favourite to death,<br>Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,<br>And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when the levee rose, and all was bustle<br>In the dissolving circle, all the nations'<br>Ambassadors began as 'twere to hustle<br>Round the young man with their congratulations.<br>Also the softer silks were heard to rustle<br>Of gentle dames, among whose recreations<br>It is to speculate on handsome faces,<br>Especially when such lead to high places. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,<br>A general object of attention, made<br>His answers with a very graceful bow,<br>As if born for the ministerial trade.<br>Though modest, on his unembarrass'd brow<br>Nature had written 'gentleman.' He said<br>Little, but to the purpose; and his manner<br>Flung hovering graces o'er him like a banner. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">An order from her majesty consign'd<br>Our young lieutenant to the genial care<br>Of those in office: all the world look'd kind<br>(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,<br>Which youth would not act ill to keep in mind),<br>As also did Miss Protasoff then there,<br>Named from her mystic office 'l'Eprouveuse,'<br>A term inexplicable to the Muse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With her then, as in humble duty bound,<br>Juan retired,--and so will I, until<br>My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.<br>We have just lit on a 'heaven-kissing hill,'<br>So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,<br>And all my fancies whirling like a mill;<br>Which is a signal to my nerves and brain,<br>To take a quiet ride in some green Lane.</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=396073" data-title="Don Juan: Canto The Ninth de Byron" data-description="Oh, Wellington! (or 'Villainton'--for Fame
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase-
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same),
You have obtain'd great pensi..."></div>
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