En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Natura genetrix.

Latin proverbs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Particular Harbour

One particular harbour
By: jimmy buffett, bobby holcomb
1983
For marius skatelborough
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
I know i don't get there often enough
But god knows i surely try
It's a magic kind of medicine
That no doctor could prescribe
I used to rule my world from a pay phone
Ships out on the sea
But now times are rough
And i got too much stuff
Can't explain likes of me
Chorus:
But there's this one particular harbour
So far but yet so near
Where i see the days as they fade away
And finally disappear
But now i think about the good times
Down in the caribbean sunshine
In my younger days i was so bad
Laughin' about all the fun we had
I seen enough to feel the world spin
Mixin' different oceans meetin' cousins
Listen to the drummers and the night sounds
Listen to the singers make the world go 'round
(pan solo)
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Lakes below the mountain
Flow into the sea
Like oils applied to canvas
They permeate through me
And there's that one particular harbour
Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within
Most mysterious calling harbour
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair's full gray
And i finally disappear
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura (ua pau te maitai no te fenua)
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura (ua pau te maitai no te fenua)
E mea arofa teie ao nei, hey now, hey now, hey now
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ua pau te maitai no te fenua [bounty of the land is exhausted]
Te zai noa ra te ora o te mitie [but there's still abundance in the sea]
Ua pau te maitai no te fenua
Te zai noa ra te ora o te mitie
- notes:
Background vocals: timothy b. schmit and the chorale epherona
Additional percussion and congas: errol "crusher" bennett
Pahue and toere drums: jimmy buffett, jim shea, and sam clayton (the
Boom boom boys)
Language is tahitian

song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Particular Harbor

Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei
I know I don't get there often enough
But God knows I surely try
I'ts a magic kind of medicine
That no doctor could prescribe
I used to rule my world from a pay phone
And ships out on the sea
But now times are rough
And I got too much stuff
Can't explain the likes of me
But there's this one particular harbour
So far but yet so near
Where I see the days as they fade away
And finally disappear
But now I think about the good times
Down in the Caribbean sunshine
In my younger days I was so bad
Laughin' about all the fun we had
I've seen enough to feel the world spin
Mixin' different oceans meetin' cousins
Listen to the drummers and the night sounds
Listen to the singers make the world go round
Ia ora te natura...
Lakes below the mountains
Flow into the sea
Like oils applied to canvas
They permeate through me
And there's that one particular harbour
Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within
Most mysterious calling harbour
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair's full gray
And I finally disappear
Ia ora te natura...
Ua pau te maitai no te fenua
Te zai noa ra te ora o te mitie

song performed by by Jimmy Buffett, music by Jimmy Buffett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nothing can be created from nothing.

Lucretius in De Rerum Natura
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What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.

Lucretius in De Rerum Natura
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Such evil deeds could religion prompt.

Lucretius in De Rerum Natura
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To George Herbert,

SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE
ANCHOR AND CHRIST.

QUI prius assuetus serpentum fasce tabellas
Signare, hæc nostræ symbola parva domus,
Adscitus domui Domini, patrioque relicto
Stemmate, nanciscor stemmata jure nova.
Hinc mihi Crux primo quæ fronti impressa lavacro,
Finibus extensis, anchora facta patet.
Anchoræ in effigiem Crux tandem desinit ipsam,
Anchora fit tandem Crux tolerata diu.
Hoc tamen ut fiat, Christo vegetatur ab ipso
Crux, et ab affixo est Anchora facta Jesu.
Nec natalitiis penitus serpentibus orbor,
Non ita dat Deus, ut auferat ante data.
Qua sapiens, dos est, qua terram lambit et ambit,
Pestis, at in nostra sit medicina Cruce
Serpens fixa Cruci si sit natura, Crucique
A fixo nobis gratia tota fluat.
Omnia cum Crux sint, Crux Anchora fixa, sigillum
Non tam dicendum hoc, quam catechismus erit.
Mitto, nec exigua, exigua sub imagine, dona,
Pignora amicitiæ, et munera vota preces.
Plura tibi accumulet sanctus cognominis, Ille
Regia qui flavo dona sigillat equo.

poem by John Donne
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Epigramma in Duos montes Amosclivum Et Bilboreum

Farfacio.

Cernis ut ingenti distinguant limite campum
Montis Amos clivi Bilboreique juga!
Ille stat indomitus turritis undisque saxis:
Cingit huic laetum Fraximus alta Caput.
Illi petra minax rigidis cervicibus horret:
Huic quatiunt viridis lenia colla jubas.
Fulcit Atlanteo Rupes ea vertice coelos:
Collis at hic humeros subjicit Herculeos.
Hic ceu carceribus visum sylvaque coercet:
Ille Oculos alter dum quasi meta trahit.
Ille Giganteum surgit ceu Pelion Ossa:
Hic agit ut Pindi culmine Nympha choros.
Erectus, praeceps, salebrosus, & arduus ille:
Aeclivis, placidus, mollis, amoenus hic est.
Dissimilis Domino coiit Natura sub uno;
Farfaciaque tremunt sub ditione pares.
Dumque triumphanti terras perlabitur Axe,
Praeteriens aequa stringit utrumque Rota.
Asper in adversos, facilis cedentibus idem;
Ut credas Montes extimulasse suos.
Hi sunt Alcidae Borealis nempe Columnae,
Quos medio scindit vallis opaca freto.
An potius longe sic prona cacumina nutant,
Parnassus cupiant esse Maria tuus.

poem by Andrew Marvell
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Sprinkle drinkle in the bar

Sprinkle drinkle in the bar
how I wonder what side car
I’ll rush into as some knight
whets my blurry appetite.
Drinkle, twinkle, little bar –
only hope you’re up to par!

When to blazes one is gone
ten more line up for the fun,
can I, canned, quite see the light,
can I dream of selenite?
Drinkle drinkle nothing bar –
spare a dropp for grandmama!

When rich traveller in the dark
thanks one for the little lark
two play at in dark car park,
take him for a ride stripped stark.
One should thank that lucky star
and save a tip[ple] for mamma!

But – night’s curtains rise – still keep
all Tom’s change to pay for peep,
one should never shut an eye
till its time to say goodbye!
Drinkle’s cost? - what’s lost won’t count
[hope it is a large amount] J

As his drooping tiny spark
stands not on ceremony, mark,
one should heave par[s]ting remark -
“ciao” then leave him in the dark!
Drinkle, drinkle little bar
Closing time’s the best by far!

When at last Night’s curtain falls
Knight takes no more curtain calls,
see his bark grow[l] worse than bite –
both, if witnessed, could indict –...
Help I’m summoned to the bar
no-contest? judgement won by star?

19 March 2005 Parody Ann & Jane TAYLOR The Star, William Blake Tyger

'The Star'

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark:
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Jane Taylor probably parody of William BLAKE - TYGER


Twinkle, Twinkle

Twinkle, twinkle little bat,
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.

Lewis CARROLL 1832_1898 Parody Ann and Jane TAYLOR – The Star
Thus by extension parody of William BLAKE - TYGER

Reductio ad Absurdam

(The vision unfolded by Professor Schäfer of the production of life by chemical means has been declared by other scientists to be the same discovery made long since by Darwin and Huxley. The absurdity of any such pretensions in the past is, of course, easily proved by the following reference to the case of Thomas.)

Thomas, Thomas, going large
Down the Mall’s majestic marge,
What mad scientist is he
Would claim to have concocted thee?

In what oxyhydrotherm
Dwelt thy protoplasmic germ?
In what subtle chemic spasm?
What the hand dare seize the plasm?

To what end, ‘neath what pretence
Arose thy utter lack of sense?
And, bringing such a thing to pass,
What blind fool, what silly ass?

What the formule? What the fault?
In what test-tube was thy salt?
What the bunsen? What the flame
Fused the fluid of thy frame?

When the spars thrown down in spate
Formed thy weak precipitate,
Did he look on it with glee –
He who, to take a case, made me?

Thomas, Thomis going large
Down the Mall’s majestic marge,
What mad scientist is he
Dare claim to have concocted thee?

Wilfrid BLAIR 1889_1968 Sa Muse s’amuse 1914
Parody William BLAKE – The Tyger and Jane Taylor – Twinkle Twinkle

Mica, mica, parva stella

Mica, mica, parva stella,
Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
Super terra in caelo,
Alba gemma splendido.
Mica, mica, parva stella,
Miror quaenam sis tam bella

Henry DRURY Parody Translation Ann and Jane TAYLOR – The Star
see also Blake – The Tyger

Stella, bella, mi mica

Stella, bella, mi mica.
Miror quid sis natura.
Resplendes ex spatio
Velut gemma in caelo.
Stella, bella, mi mica.
Miror quid sis natura.

Author Unknown - Parody Translation Ann and Jane TAYLOR – The Star - see also Blake – The Tyger

poem by Jonathan Robin
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Dies Irae

Dies irae! dies ilia!
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
Quando Judex est venturus.
Cuncta stricte discussurus.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionem,
Coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit, et Natura,
Quum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo quum sedebit,
Quicquid latet apparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quem patronem rogaturus,
Quum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis;
Salva me, Fons pietatis

Recordare, Jesu pie
Quod sum causa tuae viae;
Ne me perdas illa die.

Quarens me sedisti lassus
Redimisti crucem passus,
Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste Judex ultionis,
Donum fac remissionis
Ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus;
Supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti
Et latronem exaudisti,
Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae,
Sed tu bonus fac benigne
Ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta.
Et ab haedis me sequestra,
Statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
Cor contritum quasi cinis;
Gere curam mei finis.

Lacrymosa dies illa
Qua resurgent et favilla,
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus!

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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To A Gentleman That Only Upon The Sight Of The Author's Writing, Had Given A Character Of His Person And Judgment Of His Fortune. Illustrissimo Vero Domino Lanceloto Josepho De Maniban Grammatomantis

Quis posthac chartae committat sensa loquaci,
Si sua crediderit Fata subesse stylo?
Conscia si prodat Seribentis Litera sortem,
Quicquid & in vita plus latuisse velit?
Flexibus in calami tamen omnia sponte leguntur:
Quod non significant Verba, Figura notat.
Bellerophonteas signat sibi quisque Tabellas;
Ignaramque Manum Spiritus intus agit.
Nil praeter solitum sapiebat Epistola nostra,
Exemplumque meae Simplicitatis erat.
Fabula jucundos qualis delectat Amicos;
Urbe, lepore, novis, carmine tota scatens.
Hic tamen interpres quo non securior alter,
(Non res, non voces, non ego notus ei)
Rimatur fibras notularum cautus Aruspex,
Scriptur aeque inhians consulit exta meae.
Inde statim vitae casus, animique recessus
Explicat; (haud Genio plura liquere putem.)
Distribuit totum nostris eventibus orbem,
Et quo me rapiat cardine Sphaera docet.
Quae Sol oppositus, quae Mars adversa minetur,
Jupiter aut ubi me, Luna, Venusque juvent.
Ut trucis intentet mihi vulnera Cauda Draconis;
Vipereo levet ut vulnera more Caput.
Hinc mihi praeteriti rationes atque futuri
Elicit; Astrologus certior Astronomo.
Ut conjecturas nequeam discernere vero,
Historiae superet sed Genitura fidem.
Usque adeo caeli respondet pagina nostrae,
Astrorum & nexus syllaba scripta refert.
Scilicet & toti subsunt Oracula mundo,
Dummodo tot foliis una Sibylla foret.
Partum, Fortunae mater Natura, propinquum
Milie modis monstrat mille per indicia:
Ingentemque Uterum qui mole Puerpera solvat
Vivit at in praesens maxima pars hominum.
Ast Tu sorte tua gaude Celeberrime Vatum;
Scribe, sed haud superest qui tua fata legat.
Nostra tamen si fas praesagia jungere vestris,
Quo magis inspexti sydera spernis humum.
Et, nisi stellarum fueris divina propago,
Naupliada credam te Palamede satum.
Qui dedit ex aviun scriptoria signa volatu,
Sydereaque idem nobilis arte fuit.
Hinc utriusque tibi cognata scientia crevit,
Nec minus augurium Litera quam dat Avis.

poem by Andrew Marvell
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The Day Of Wrath / Dies Iræ

Day of Satan's painful duty! Dies iræ! dies illa!
Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty; Solvet sæclum in favilla
So says Virtue, so says Beauty. Teste David cum Sibylla.
Ah! what terror shall be shaping Quantus tremor est futurus,
When the Judge the truth's undraping- Quando Judex est venturus.
Cats from every bag escaping! Cuncta stricte discussurus.
Now the trumpet's invocation Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Calls the dead to condemnation; Per sepulchra regionem,
All receive an invitation. Coget omnes ante thronum
Death and Nature now are quaking, Mors stupebit, et Natura,
And the late lamented, waking, Quum resurget creatura
In their breezy shrouds are shaking. Judicanti responsura.
Lo! the Ledger's leaves are stirring, Liber scriptus proferetur,
And the Clerk, to them referring, In quo totum continetur,
Makes it awkward for the erring. Unde mundus judicetur.
When the Judge appears in session, Judex ergo quum sedebit,
We shall all attend confession, Quicquid latet apparebit,
Loudly preaching non-suppression. Nil inultum remanebit.
How shall I then make romances Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Mitigating circumstances? Quem patronem rogaturus,
Even the just must take their chances. Quum vix justus sit securus?
King whose majesty amazes, Rex tremendæ majestatis,
Save thou him who sings thy praises; Qui salvandos salvas gratis;
Fountain, quench my private blazes. Salva me, Fons pietatis.
Pray remember, sacred Saviour, Recordare, Jesu pie,
Mine the playful hand that gave your Quod sum causa tuæ viæ;
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior. Ne me perdas illa die.
Seeking me, fatigue assailed thee, Quærens me sedisti lassus
Calvary's outlook naught availed thee; Redemisti crucem passus,
Now 'twere cruel if I failed thee. Tantus labor non sit cassus.
Righteous judge and learnèd brother, Juste Judex ultionis,
Pray thy prejudices smother Donum fac remissionis
Ere we meet to try each other. Ante diem rationis.
Sighs of guilt my conscience gushes, Ingemisco tanquam reus,
And my face vermilion flushes; Culpa rubet vultus meus;
Spare me for my pretty blushes. Supplicanti parce, Deus.
Thief and harlot, when repenting, Qui Mariam absolvisti,
Thou forgavest-complimenting Et latronem exaudisti,
Me with sign of like relenting. Mihi quoque spem dedisti.
If too bold is my petition Preces meæ non sunt dignæ,
I'll receive with due submission Sed to bonus fac benigne
My dismissal-from perdition. Ne perenni cremer igne.
When thy sheep thou hast selected Inter oves locum præsta.
From the goats, may I, respected, Et ab hædis me sequestra,
Stand amongst them undetected. Statuens in parte dextra.
When offenders are indited, Confutatis maledictis,
And with trial-flames ignited, Flammis acribus addictis,
Elsewhere I'll attend if cited. Voca me cum benedictis.
Ashen-hearted, prone and prayerful, Oro supplex et acclinis,
When of death I see the air full, Cor contritum quasi cinis;
Lest I perish too be careful. Gere curam mei finis.
On that day of lamentation, Lacrymosa dies illa
When, to enjoy the conflagration, Qua resurget et favilla,
Men come forth, O be not cruel: Judicandus homo reus,
Spare me, Lord-make them thy fuel. Huic ergo parce, Deus!

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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A Letter To Doctor Ingelo, then With My Lord Whitlock, Ambassador From The Protector To The Queen Of Sweden

Quid facis Arctoi charissime transfuga coeli,
Ingele, proh sero cognite, rapte cito?
Num satis Hybernum defendis pellibus Astrum,
Qui modo tam mollis nec bene firmus eras?
Quae Gentes Hominum, quae sit Natura Locorum,
Sint Homines, potius dic ibi sintre Loca?
Num gravis horrisono Polus obruit omnia lapsu,
Jungitur & praeceps Mundas utraque nive?
An melius canis horrescit Campus Aristis,
Amuius Agricolis & redit Orbe labor?
Incolit, ut fertur, saevam Gens mitior Oram,
Pace vigil, Bello strenua, justa Foro.
Quin ibi sunt Urbes, atque alta Palatia Regum,
Musarumque domus, & sua Templa Deo.
Nam regit Imperio populum Christina ferocem,
Et dare jura potest regia Virgo viris.
Utque trahit rigidum Magnes Aquilone Metallum,
Gandet eam Soboles ferrea sponte sequii.
Dic quantum liceat fallaci credere Famae,
Invida num taceat plura, sonet ve loquax.
At, si vera fides, Mundi melioris ab ortu,
Saecula Christinae nulla tulere parem.
Ipsa licet redeat (nostri decus orbis) Eliza,
Qualis nostra tamen quantaque Eliza fuit.
Vidimus Effigiem, mistasque Coloribus Umbras:
Sic quoque Sceptripotens, sic quoque visa Dea.
Augustam decorant (raro concordia) frontem
Majestas & Amor, Forma Pudorque simul.
Ingens Virgineo spirat Gustavus in ore:
Agnoscas animos, fulmineumque Patrem.
Nulla suo nituit tam lucida Stella sub Axe;
Non Ea quae meruit Crimine Nympha Polum.
Ah quoties pavidum demisit conscia Lumen,
Utque suae timuit Parrhasis Ora Deae!
Et, simulet falsa ni Pictor imagine Vultus,
Delia tam similis nec fuit ipsa sibi.
Ni quod inornati Triviae sint forte Capilli,
Sollicita sed buic distribuantur Acu.
Scilicet ut nemo est illa reverentior aequi;
Haud ipsas igitur fert sine Lege Comas.
Gloria sylvarum pariter communis utrique
Est, & perpetuae Virginitatis Honos.
Sic quoque Nympharum supereminet Agmina collo,
Fertque Choros Cynthi per Juga, per Nives.
Haud aliter pariles Ciliorum contrahit Arcus
Acribus ast Oculis tela subesse putes.
Luminibus dubites an straverit illa Sagittis
Quae foret exuviis ardua colla Feram.
Alcides humeros coopertus pelle Nemaea
Haud ita labentis sustulit Orbis Onus.
Heu quae Cervices subnectunt Pectora tales.
Frigidiora Gelu, candidiora Nive.
Caetera non licuit, sed vix ea tota, videre;
Nam chau fi rigido stant Adamante Sinus.
Seu chlamys Artifici nimium succurrerit auso,
Sicque imperfectum fugerit impar Opus:
Sive tribus spernat Victrix certare Deabus,
Et pretium formae nec spoliata ferat.
Junonis properans & clara Trophaea Minervae;
Mollia nam Veneris praemia nosse piget.
Hinc neque consuluit fugitivae prodiga Formae,
Nectimuit seris invigilasse Libris.
Insommem quoties Nymphae monuere sequaces
Decedet roseis heu color ille Genis.
Jamque vigil leni cessit Philomela sopori,
Omnibus & Sylvis conticuere Ferae.
Acrior illa tamen pergit, Curasque fatigat:
Tanti est doctorum volvere scripta Virum.
Et liciti quae sint moderamina discere Regni,
Quid fuerit, quid sit, noscere quicquid erit.
Sic quod in ingenuas Gothus peccaverit Artes
Vindicat, & studiis expiat Una suis.
Exemplum dociles imitantur nobile Gentes,
Et geminis Infans imbuit Ora sonis.
Transpositos Suecis credas migrasse Latinos,
Carmine Romuleo sic strepit omne Nemus.
Upsala nec priscis impar memoratur Athenis,
Aegidaque & Currus hic sua Pallas habet.
Illinc O quales liceat sperasse Liquores,
Quum Dea praesideat fontibus ipsa sacris!
Illic Lacte ruant illic & flumina Melle,
Fulvaque inauratam tingat Arena Salam.
Upsalides Musae nunc & majora conemus,
Quaeque mihi Famae non levis Aura tulit.
Creditur haud ulli Christus signasse suorum
Occultam gemina de meliore Notam.
Quemque tenet charo descriptum Nomine semper,
Non minus exculptum Pectore fida refert.
Sola haec virgineas depascit Flamma Medullas,
Et licito pergit solvere corda foco.
Tu quoque Sanctorum fastos Christina sacrabis,
Unica nec Virgo Volsiniensis erit.
Discite nunc Reges (Majestas proxima coelo)
Discite proh magnos hinc coluisse Deos.
Ah pudeat Tanitos puerilia fingere coepta,
Nugas nescio quas, & male quaerere Opes.
Acer Equo cunctos dum praeterit illa Britanno,
Et pecoris spolium nescit inerme sequi.
Ast Aquilam poscit Germano pellere Nido,
Deque Palatino Monte fugare Lupam.
Vos etiam latos in praedam jungite Campos,
Impiaque arctatis cingite Lustra Plagis.
Victor Oliverus nudum Caput exerit Armis,
Ducere sive sequi nobile laetus Iter.
Qualis jam Senior Solymae Godfredus ad Arces,
Spina cui canis floruit alba comis.
Et lappos Christina potest & solvere Finnos,
Ultima quos Boreae carcere Claustra premunt.
Aeoliis quales Venti fremuere sub antris,
Et tentant Montis corripuisse moras.
Hanc Dea si summa demiserit Arce procellam
Quam gravis Austriacis Hesperiisque cadat!
Omnia sed rediens olim narraveris Ipse;
Nec reditus spero tempora longa petit.
Non ibi lenta pigro stringuntur frigore Verba,
Solibus, & tandem Vere liquanda novo.
Sed radiis hyemem Regina potentior urit;
Haecque magis solvit, quam ligat illa Polum.
Dicitur & nostros moerens andisse Labores,
Fortis & ingenuam Gentis amasse Fidem.
Oblatae Batavam nec paci commodat Aurem;
Nec versat Danos insidiosa dolos.
Sed pia festinat mutatis Foedera rebus,
Et Libertatem quae dominatur amat.
Digna cui Salomon meritos retulisset honores,
Et Saba concretum Thure cremasset Iter.
Hanc tua, sed melius, celebraverit, Ingele, Musa;
Et labor est vestrae debitus ille Lyrae.
Nos sine te frustra Thamisis saliceta subimus,
Sparsaque per steriles Turba vagamur Agros.
Et male tentanti querulum respondet Avena:
Quin & Rogerio dissiluere fides.
Haec tamen absenti memores dictamus Amico,
Grataque speramus qualiacumque fore.

poem by Andrew Marvell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 18

Wolleward and weetshoed wente I forth after
As a recchelees renk that [reccheth of no wo],
And yede forth lik a lorel al my lif tyme,
Til I weex wery of the world and wilned eft to slepe,
And lened me to a Lenten - and longe tyme I slepte;
Reste me there and rutte faste til ramis palmarum.
Of gerlis and of Gloria, laus gretly me dremed
And how osanna by organye olde folk songen,

And of Cristes passion and penaunce, the peple that ofraughte.
Oon semblable to the Samaritan, and somdeel to Piers the Plowman,
Barefoot on an asse bak bootles cam prikye,
Withouten spores other spere; spakliche he loked,
As is the kynde of a knyght that cometh to be dubbed,
To geten hym gilte spores on galoches ycouped.
Thanne was Feith in a fenestre, and cryde 'At Fili David!'
As dooth an heraud of armes whan aventrous cometh to iustes.
Olde Jewes of Jerusalem for joye thei songen,
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Thanne I frayned at Feith what al that fare bymente,
And who sholde juste in Jerusalem. 'jesus,' he seide,
'And fecche that the fend claymeth - Piers fruyt the Plowman.'
'Is Piers in this place?' quod I, and he preynte on me.
'This Jesus of his gentries wol juste in Piers armes,
In his helm and in his haubergeon - humana natura.
That Crist be noght biknowe here for consummatus Deus,
In Piers paltok the Plowman this prikiere shal ryde;
For no dynt shal hym dere as in deitate Patris.'
'Who shal juste with Jesus?' quod I, 'Jewes or scrybes?'
'Nay,' quod Feith, 'but the fend and fals doom to deye.
Deeth seith he shal fordo and adoun brynge
Al that lyveth or loketh in londe or in watre.
Lif seith that he lieth, and leieth his lif to wedde
That, for al that Deeth kan do, withinne thre daies to walke
And fecche fro the fend Piers fruyt the Plowman,
And legge it ther hym liketh, and Lucifer bynde,

And forbete and adoun brynge bale-deeth for evere
O Mors ero mors tua!'
Thanne cam Pilatus with muche peple, sedens pro tribunali,
To se how doghtiliche Deeth sholde do, and deme hir botheres right.
The Jewes and the justieeayeins Jesu thei weere,
And al the court on hym cryde ' Crucifige!' sharpe.
Tho putte hym forth a p[e]lour bifore Pilat and seide,
'This Jesus of oure Jewes temple japed and despised,
To fordoon it on o day, and in thre dayes after
Edifie it eft newe - here he stant that seide it -
And yit maken it as muche in alle manere poyntes
Bothe as long and as large a lofte and by grounde.'
' Crucifige!' quod a cachepol, ' I warante hym a wicche!'
' Tolle, tolle!' quod another, and took of kene thornes,
And bigan of [gr]ene thorn a garland to make,
And sette it sore on his heed and seide in envye,
'A ve, rabyt' quod that ribaud - and threw reedes at hym,
Nailed hym with thre nailes naked on the roode,
And poison on a poole thei putte up to hise lippes,
And beden hym drynken his deeth-yvel - hise dayes were ydone -
And [seiden], ' If that thow sotil be, help now thiselve;
If thow be Crist and kynges sone, com down of the roode;
Thanne shul we leve that lif thee loveth and wol noght lete thee deye!'
' Consummatum est,' quod Crist, and comsede for to swoune,
Pitousliche and pale as a prison that deieth;
The lord of lif and of light tho leide hise eighen togideres.
The day for drede withdrough and derk bicam the sonne.
The wal waggede and cleef, and al the world quaved.
Dede men for that dene come out of depe graves,
And tolde why that tempeste so longe tyme durede.
'For a bitter bataille,' the dede body seide;
'Lif and Deeth in this derknesse, hir oon fordeoth hir oother.
Shal no wight wite witterly who shal have the maistrie
Er Sonday aboute sonne risyng' - and sank with that til erthe.

Some seide that he was Goddes sone, that so faire deyde
Vere filius Dei erat iste.
And some seide he was a wicche - 'Good is that we assaye
Wher he be deed or noght deed, doun er he be taken.'
Two theves also tholed deeth that tyme
Upon a croos bisides Crist - so was the comune lawe.
A cachepol cam forth and craked bothe hir legges,
And hir armes after of either of tho theves.
Ac was no boy so boold Goddes body to touche;
For he was knyght and kynges sone, Kynde foryaf that throwe
That noon harlot were so hardy to leyen hond upon hym.
Ac ther cam forth a knyght with a kene spere ygrounde,
Highte Longeus, as the lettre telleth, and longe hadde lore his sight.
Bifore Pilat and oother peple in the place he hoved.
Maugree his manye teeth he was maad that tyme
To [justen with Jesus, this blynde Jew Longeus].
For alle thei were unhardy, that hoved on horse or stode,
To touchen hym or to tasten hym or taken hym doun of roode,
But this blynde bacheler, that baar hym thorugh the herte.
The blood sprong doun by the spere and unspered the knyghtes eighen.
Thanne fil the knyght upon knees and cryde Jesu mercy
'Ayein my wille it was, Lord, to wownde yow so soore!'
He sighed and seide, ' Soore it me athynketh!
For the dede that I have doon I do me in youre grace.
Have on me ruthe, rightful Jesu!' - and right with that he wepte.
Thanne gan Feith felly the false Jewes despise -
Callede hem caytyves acorsed for evere
' For this foule vileynye vengeaunce to yow falle!
To do the blynde bete hym ybounde, it was a boyes counseille.
Cursede caytyves! Knyghthood was it nevere

To mysdo a deed body by daye or by nyghte.
The gree yit hath he geten, for al his grete wounde.
' For youre champion chivaler, chief knyght of yow alle,
Yilt hym recreaunt rennyng, right at Jesus wilk.
For be this derknesse ydo, Deeth worth yvenquisshed;
And ye, lurdaynes, han ylost - for Lif shal have the maistrye.
And youre fraunchyse, that fre was, fallen is in thraldom,
And ye, cherles, and youre children, cheve shulle ye nevere,
Ne have lordshipe in londe, ne no lond tilye,
But al barayne be and usurie usen,
Which is lif that Oure Lord in alle lawes acurseth.
Now youre goode dayes arn doon, as Daniel prophecied
Whan Crist cam hir kyngdom the crowne sholde lese -
Cum veniat sanctus sanctorum cessabit unxio vestra.'
What for feere of this ferly and of the false Jewes,
I drow me in that derknesse to descendit ad inferna,
And there I saugh soothly, secundum scripturas,
Out of the west coste, a wenche, as me thoughte,
Cam walkynge in the wey; to helleward she loked.
Mercy highte that mayde, a meke thyng with alle,
A ful benigne burde, and buxom of speche.
Hir suster, as it semed, cam softely walkynge
Evene out of the est, and westward she lokede -
A ful comely creature [and a clene], Truthe she highte;
For the vertue that hire folwede, afered was she nevere.
Whan thise maydenes mette, Mercy and Truthe,
Either asked oother of this grete wonder -
Of the dyn and of the derknesse, and how the day rowed,
And which a light and a leme lay bifore helle.
'Ich have ferly of this fare, in feith,' seide Truthe,
'And am wendynge to wite what this wonder meneth.'
'Have no merveille', quod Mercy, 'murhte it bitokneth.

A maiden that highte Marie, and moder withouten felyng
Of any kynde creature, conceyved thorugh speche
And grace of the Holy Goost; weex greet with childe;
Withouten wem into this world she broghte hym;
And that my tale be trewe, I take God to witnesse.
'Sith this barn was ybore ben thritti wynter passed,
Which deide and deeth tholed this day aboute mydday -
And that is cause of this clips that closeth now the sonne,
In menynge that man shal fro merknesse be drawe
The while this light and this leme shal Lucifer ablende.
For patriarkes and prophetes han preched herof often -
That man shal man save thorugh a maydenes helpe,
And that was tynt thorugh tree, tree shal it wynne,
And that Deeth down broughte, deeth shal releve.'
'That thow tellest; quod Truthe, 'is but a tale of waltrot!
For Adam and Eve and Abraham with othere
Patriarkes and prophetes that in peyne liggen,
Leve thow nevere that yon light hem alofte brynge,
Ne have hem out of helle - hold thi tonge, Mercy!
It is but trufle that thow tellest - I, Truthe, woot the sothe.
For that is ones in helle, out cometh it nevere;
Job the prophete patriark repreveth thi sawes
Quia in inferno nulla est redempcio.'
Thanne Mercy ful myldely mouthed thise wordes
'Thorugh experience,' quod he[o], ' I hope thei shul be saved.
For venym fordooth venym - and that I preve by reson.
For of alle venymes foulest is the scorpion;
May no medicyne [am]e[nd]e the place ther he styngeth,
Til he be deed and do therto - the yvel he destruyeth,
The firste venymouste, thorugh vertu of hymselve.
So shal this deeth fordo - I dar my lif legge -
Al that deeth dide first thorugh the develes entisyng;
And right as thorugh [gilours] gil;e [bigiled was man],
So shal grace that al bigan make a good ende

[And bigile the gilour - and that is good] sleighte
Ars ut artem falleret.'
'Now suffre we!' seide Truthe, ' I se, as me thynketh,
Out of the nyppe of the north, noght ful fer hennes,
Rightwisnesse corne rennynge; reste we the while,
For he[o] woot moore than we - he[o] was er we bothe.'
'That is sooth,' seide Mercy, 'and I se here by sowthe
Where cometh Pees pleyinge, in pacience yclothed.
Love hath coveited hire longe - leve I noon oother
But [Love] sente hire som lettre, what this light bymeneth
That overhoveth helle thus; she us shal telle.'
Whan Pees in pacience yclothed approched ner hem tweyne,
Rightwisnesse hire reverenced for hir riche clothyng,
And preide Pees to telle hire to whit place she wolde
And in hire gaye garnements whom she grete thoughte?
'My wil is to wende,' quod she, 'and welcome hem alle
That many day myghte I noght se for merknesse of synne -
Adam and Eve and othere mo in helle,
Moyses and many mo; Mercy shul [synge],
And I shal daunce therto - do thow so, suster!
For Jesus justede wel, joye bigynneth dawe
Ad vesperum demorabitur fletus, et ad matutinum leticia.
' Love, that is my lemman, swiche lettres me sente
That Mercy, my suster, and I mankynde sholde save,
And that God hath forgyven and graunted me, Pees, and Mercy
To be mannes meynpernour for everemoore after.
Lo, here the patente!' quod Pees, 'In pace in idipsum,
And that this dede shal dure, dormiam et requiescam.'
'What, ravestow?' quod Rightwisnesse; 'or thow art righty dronke!

Levestow that yond light unlouke myghte helle
And save mannes soule? Suster, wene it nevere!
At the bigynnyng God gaf the doom hymselve -
That Adam and Eve and alle that hem suwede
Sholden deye downrighte, and dwelle in peyne after
If that thei touchede a tree and of the fruyt eten.
Adam afterward, ayeins his defence,
Freet of that fruyt, and forsook, as it were,
The love of Oure Lord and his loore bothe
And folwede that the fend taughte and his felawes wille
Ayeins reson - I, Rightwisnesse, recorde thus with Truthe
That hir peyne be perpetuel and no preiere hem helpe.
Forthi lat hem chewe as thei chosen, and chide we noght, sustres,
For it is botelees bale, the byte that thei eten.'
'And I shal preie,' quod Pees, 'hir peyne moot have ende,
And wo into wele mowe wenden at the laste.
For hadde thei wist of no wo, wele hadde thei noght knowen;
For no wight woot what wele is, that nevere wo suffrede,
Ne what is hoot hunger, that hadde nevere defaute.
If no nyght ne weere, no man, as I leve,
Sholde wite witterly what day is to meene.
Sholde nevere right riche man that lyveth in reste and ese
Wite what wo is, ne were the deeth of kynde.
So God that bigan al of his goode wille
Bicam man of a mayde mankynde to save,
And suffrede to be sold, to se the sorwe of deying,
The which unknytteth alle care, and comsynge is of reste.
For til modicum mete with us, I may it wel avowe,
Woot no wight, as I wene, what is ynogh to mene.
' Forthi God, of his goodnesse, the firste gome Adam,
Sette hym in solace and in sovereyn murthe;
And siththe he suffred hym synne, sorwe to feele -
To wite what wele was, kyndeliche to knowe it.
And after, God auntrede hymself and took Adames kynde
To wite what he hath suffred in thre sondry places,

Bothe in hevene and in erthe - and now til helle he thenketh,
To wite what alle wo is, that woot of alle joye.
'So it shal fare by this folkhir folie and hir synne
Shal lere hem what langour is, and lisse withouten ende.
Woot no wight what werre is ther that pees regneth,
Ne what is witterly wele til ''weylawey'' hym teche.'
Thanne was ther a wight with two brode eighen;
Book highte that beaupeere, a bold man of speche.
'By Goddes body!' quod this Book, 'I wol bere witnesse
That tho this barn was ybore, ther blased a sterre
That alle the wise of this world in o wit acordeden -
That swich a barn was ybore in Bethleem the citee
That mannes soule sholde save and synne destroye.
'And alle the elements,' quod the Book, 'herof beren witnesse.
That he was God that al wroghte the wolkne first shewed
Tho that weren in hevene token stella comata
And tendeden hire as a torche to reverencen his burthe;
The light folwede the Lord into the lowe erthe.
The water witnesseth that he was God, for he wente on it;
Peter the Apostel parceyved his gate,
And as he wente on the water wel hym knew, and seide,
''tube me venire ad te super aquas.''
And lo! how the sonne gan louke hire light in hirselve
Whan she seigh hym suffre, that sonne and see made.
The erthe for hevynesse that he wolde suffre
Quaked as quyk thyng and al biquasshed the roche.
'Lo! helle myghte nat holde, but opnede tho God tholede,
And leet out Symondes sones to seen hym hange on roode.
And now shal Lucifer leve it, though hyrn looth thynke.
For Gigas the geaunt with a gyn engyned
To breke and to bete adoun that ben ayeins Jesus.
And I, Book, wole be brent, but Jesus rise to lyve
In alle myghtes of man, and his moder gladie,

And conforte al his kyn and out of care brynge,
And al the Jewene joye unjoynen and unlouken;
And but thei reverencen his roode and his resurexion,
And bileve on a newe lawe, be lost, lif and soule!'
'Suffre we!' seide Truthe, 'I here and see bothe
A spirit speketh to helle and biddeth unspere the yates
''Attolite portas.''
A vois loude in that light to Lucifer crieth,
''Prynees of this place, unpynneth and unlouketh!
For here cometh with crowne that kyng is of glorie.''
Thanne sikede Sathan, and seide to helle,
'Swich a light, ayeins oure leve, Lazar it fette;
Care and combraunce is comen to us alle!
If this kyng come in, mankynde wole he fecche,
And lede it ther Lazar is, and lightliche me bynde.
Patriarkes and prophetes han parled herof longe -
That swich a lord and a light shal lede hem alle hennes.'
'Listneth!' quod Lucifer, 'for I this lord knowe;
Bothe this lord and this light, is longe ago I knew hym.
May no deeth this lord dere, ne no develes queyntise,
And where he wole, is his wey - ac ware hym of the perils!
If he reve me of my right, he robbeth me by maistrie;
For by right and by reson the renkes that ben here
Body and soule beth myne, bothe goode and ille.
For hymself seide, that sire is of hevene,
That if Adam ete the appul, alle sholde deye,
And dwelle [in deol] with us develes - this thretynge he made.
And [sithen] he that Soothnesse is seide thise wordes,
And I sithen iseised sevene [thousand] wynter,
I leeve that lawe nyl noght lete hym the leeste.'

'That is sooth,' seide Satan, 'but I me soore drede;
For thow gete hem with gile, and his gardyn breke,
And in semblaunce of a serpent sete on the appultre,
And eggedest hem to ete, Eve by hirselve,
And toldest hire a tale - of treson were the wordes;
And so thou haddest hem out and hider at the laste.
It is noght graithly geten, ther gile is the roote!'
' For God wol noght be bigiled,' quod Gobelyn, ' ne byjaped.
We have no trewe title to hem, for thorugh treson were thei dampned.'
' Certes, I drede me,' quod the Devel, 'lest Truthe wol hem fecche.
Thise thritty wynter, as I wene, he wente aboute and preched.
I have assailled hym with synne, and som tyme I asked
Wheither he were God or Goddes sone - he gaf me short answere;
And thus hath he trolled forth thise two and thritty wynter.
And whan I seigh it was so, slepynge I wente
To warne Pilates wif what done man was Jesus;
For Jewes hateden hym and han doon hym to dethe.
I wolde have lengthed his lif - for I leved, if he deide,
That his soule wolde suffre no synne in his sighte;
For the body, while it on bones yede, aboute was evere
To save men from synne if hemself wolde.
And now I se wher a soule cometh [silynge hiderward]
With glorie and with gret light - God it is, I woot wel!
I rede we fle,' quod he, 'faste alle hennes -
For us were bettre noght be than biden his sighte.
For thi lesynges, Lucifer, lost is al oure praye.
First thorugh the we fellen fro hevene so heighe;
For we leved thi lesynges, we lopen out alle with thee;
And now for thi laste lesynge, ylorn we have Adam,
And al oure lordshipe, I leve, a londe and a watre
Nunc Princeps huius mundi eicietur foras.'

Eft the light bad unlouke, and Lucifer answerde,
' Quis est iste ?
What lord artow?' quod Lucifer. The light soone seide,
Rex glorie,
The lord of myght and of mayn and alle manere vertues -
Dominus virtutum.
Dukes of this dymme place, anoon undo thise yates,
That Crist may come in, the Kynges sone of Hevene!'
And with that breeth helle brak, with Belialles barres -
For any wye or warde, wide open the yates.
Patriarkes and prophetes, populus in tenebris,
Songen Seint Johanes song, ' Ecce Agnus Dei.'
Lucifer loke ne myghte, so light hym ablente.
And tho that Oure Lord lovede, into his light he laughte,
And seide to Sathan, 'Lo! here my soule to amendes
For alle synfulle soules, to save tho that ben worthi.
Myne thei ben and of me - I may the bet hem cleyme.
Although reson recorde, and right of myselve,
That if thei ete the appul, alle sholde deye,
I bihighte hem noght here helle for evere.
For the dede that thei dide, thi deceite it made;
With gile thow hem gete, ageyn alle reson.
For in my paleis, Paradis, in persone of an addre,
Falsliche thow fettest there thyng that I lovede.
'Thus ylik a lusard with a lady visage,
Thefliche thow me robbedest; the Olde Lawe graunteth
That gilours be bigiled - and that is good reson
Dentem pro dente et oculum pro oculo.

Ergo soule shal soule quyte and synne to synne wende,
And al that man hath mysdo, I, man, wole amende it.
Membre for membre [was amendes by the Olde Lawe],
And lif for lif also - and by that lawe I clayme
Adam and al his issue at my wille herafter.
And that deeth in hem fordide, my deeth shal releve,
And bothe quyke and quyte that queynt was thorugh synne;
And that grace gile destruye, good feith it asketh.
So leve it noght, Lucifer, ayein the lawe I fecche hem,
But by right and by reson raunsone here my liges
Non veni solvere legem set adimplere.
'Thow fettest myne in my place ayeins alle reson -
Falsliche and felonliche; good feith me it taughte,
To recovere hem thorugh raunsoun, and by no reson ellis,
So that with gile thow gete, thorugh grace it is ywonne.
Thow, Lucifer, in liknesse of a luther addere
Getest bi gile tho that God lovede;
And I, in liknesse of a leode, that Lord am of hevene,
Graciousliche thi gile have quyt - go gile ayein gile!
And as Adam and alle thorugh a tree deyden,
Adam and alle thorugh a tree shal turne to lyve;
And gile is bigiled, and in his gile fallen
Et cecidit in foveam quam fecit.
Now bigynneth thi gile ageyn thee to turne
And my grace to growe ay gretter and widder.
The bitternesse that thow hast browe, now brouke it thiselve;
That art doctour of deeth, drynk that thow madest!
'For I that am lord of lif, love is my drynke,
And for that drynke today, I deide upon erthe.
I faught so, me thursteth yet, for mannes soule sake;
May no drynke me moiste, ne my thurst stake,

Til the vendage falle in the vale of Josaphat,
That I drynke right ripe must, resureccio mortuorum.
And thanne shal I come as a kyng, crouned, with aungeles,
And have out of helle alle mennes soules.
' Fendes and fendekynes bifore me shul stande
And be at my biddyng wheresoevere [be] me liketh.
Ac to be merciable to man thanne, my kynde it asketh,
For we beth bretheren of blood, but noght in baptisme alle.
Ac alle that beth myne hole bretheren, in blood and in baptisme,
Shul noght be dampned to the deeth that is withouten ende
Tibi soli peccavi .
'It is noght used on erthe to hangen a feloun
Ofter than ones, though he were a tretour.
And if the kyng of that kyngdom corne in that tyme
There the feloun thole sholde deeth oother juwise,
Lawe wolde he yeve hym lif, and he loked on hym.
And I that am kyng of kynges shal come swich a tyme
There doom to the deeth dampneth alle wikked;
And if lawe wole I loke on hem, it lith in my grace
Wheither thei deye or deye noght for that thei diden ille.
Be it any thyng abought, the boldnesse of hir synnes,
I may do mercy thorugh rightwisnesse, and alle my wordes trewe.
And though Holy Writ wole that I be wroke of hem that diden ille -
Nullum malum impunitum -
Thei shul be clensed clerliche and [clene] wasshen of hir synnes
In my prisone Purgatorie, til parce it hote.
And my mercy shal be shewed to manye of my bretheren;

For blood may suffre blood bothe hungry and acale,
Ac blood may noght se blood blede, but hym rewe.'
Audivi archana verba que non licet homini loqui.
'Ac my rightwisnesse and right shal rulen al helle,
And mercy al mankynde bifore me in hevene.
For I were an unkynde kyng but I my kyn helpe - -
And nameliche at swich a nede ther nedes help bihoveth
Non intres in iudicium cum servo tuo.
'Thus by lawe,' quod Oure Lord, 'lede I wole fro hennes
Tho [leodes] that I lov[e] and leved in my comynge.
And for thi lesynge, Lucifer, that thow leighe til Eve,
Thow shalt abyen it bittre!' - and bond hym with cheynes.
As troth and al the route hidden hem in hernes;
They dorste noght loke on Oure Lord, the [lothli]este of hem alle,
But leten hym lede forth what hym liked and lete what hym liste.
Manye hundred of aungeles harpeden and songen,
' Culpat caro, purgat caro, regnat Deus Dei caro.'
Thanne pipede Pees of poesie a note
' Clarior est solito post maxima nebula phebus;
Post inimicicias clarior est et amor.
' After sharpest shoures,' quod Pees, ' moost shene is the sonne;
Is no weder warmer than after watry cloudes;
Ne no love levere; ne lever frendes
Than after werre and wo, whan love and pees ben maistres.
Was nevere werre in this world, ne wikkednesse so kene,
'That Love, and hym liste, to laughyng ne broughte,
And Pees, thorugh pacience, alle perils stoppede.'

' Trewes!' quod Truthe; ' thow tellest us sooth, by Jesus!
Clippe we in covenaunt, and ech of us kisse oother.'
'And lete no peple,' quod Pees, 'parceyve that we chidde;
For inpossible is no thyng to Hym that is almyghty.'
'Thow seist sooth,' seide Rightwisnesse, and reverentliche hire kiste,
Pees, and Pees h[i]re, per secula seculorum.
Misericordia et Veritas obviaverunt sibi, justicia et Pax osculate sunt.
Truthe trumpede tho and song Te Deum laudamus,
And thanne lutede Love in a loud note,
' Ecce quam bonum et quam iocundum .'
Til the day dawed thise damyseles carolden,
That men rongen to the resurexion - and right with that I wakede,
And called Kytte my wif and Calote my doghter
'Ariseth and reverenceth Goddes resurexion,
And crepeth to the cros on knees, and kisseth it for a juwel!
For Goddes blik body it bar for eure body,
And it afereth the fend - for swich is the myghte,
May no grisly goost glide there it shadweth!'

poem by William Langland
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Don Juan: Canto The Sixteenth

The antique Persians taught three useful things,
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings--
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.

The cause of this effect, or this defect,--
'For this effect defective comes by cause,'--
Is what I have not leisure to inspect;
But this I must say in my own applause,
Of all the Muses that I recollect,
Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws
In some things, mine's beyond all contradiction
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.

And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats
From any thing, this epic will contain
A wilderness of the most rare conceits,
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets,
Yet mix'd so slightly, that you can't complain,
But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
'De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis.'

But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost--
What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast,
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?
'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.

Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority
Is always greatest at a miracle.
But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with 'quia impossibile.'

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe:--if 'tis improbable you must,
And if it is impossible, you shall:
'Tis always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely, to recall
Those holier mysteries which the wise and just
Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted,
As all truths must, the more they are disputed:

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years,
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears;
And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears
'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.

The dinner and the soiree too were done,
The supper too discuss'd, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropp'd off one by one -
The song was silent, and the dance expired:
The last thin petticoats were vanish'd, gone
Like fleecy Clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleam'd through the saloon
Than dying tapers - and the peeping moon.

The evaporation of a joyous day
Is like the last glass of champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;
Or like a system coupled with a doubt;
Or like a soda bottle when its spray
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;
Or like a billow left by storms behind,
Without the animation of the wind;

Or like an opiate, which brings troubled rest,
Or none; or like--like nothing that I know
Except itself;--such is the human breast;
A thing, of which similitudes can show
No real likeness,--like the old Tyrian vest
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.
So perish every tyrant's robe piece -meal!

But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
Undressing is a woe; our robe de chambre
May sit like that of Nessus, and recall
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.
Titus exclaim'd, 'I've lost a day!' Of all
The nights and days most people can remember
(I have had of both, some not to be disdain'd),
I wish they 'd state how many they have gain'd.

And Juan, on retiring for the night,
Felt restless, and perplex'd, and compromised:
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright
Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;
If he had known exactly his own plight,
He probably would have philosophised:
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sigh'd.

He sigh'd;--the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happen'd luckily, the chaste orb shone
As clear as such a climate will allow;
And Juan's mind was in the proper tone
To hail her with the apostrophe--'O thou!'
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.

But lover, poet, or astronomer,
Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold,
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her:
Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);
Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;
The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways,
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.

Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed
For contemplation rather than his pillow:
The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow,
With all the mystery by midnight caused;
Below his window waved (of course) a willow;
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade.

Upon his table or his toilet,--which
Of these is not exactly ascertain'd
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain'd),--
A lamp burn'd high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a Gothic ornament remain'd,
In chisell'd stone and painted glass, and all
That time has left our fathers of their hall.

Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw
His chamber door wide open - and went forth
Into a gallery, of a sombre hue,
Long, furnish'd with old pictures of great worth,
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,
As doubtless should be people of high birth.
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.

The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps - voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.

And the pale smile of beauties in the grave,
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams,
Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave
Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.
A picture is the past; even ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.

As Juan mused on mutability,
Or on his mistress - terms synonymous -
No sound except the echo of his sigh
Or step ran sadly through that antique house;
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent - or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.

It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, array'd
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made;
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.

Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
And did he see this? or was it a vapour?

Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd--the thing of air,
Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t'other place;
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base
As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;
He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.

The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow pass'd away--but where? the hall
Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
To think his vanishing unnatural:
Doors there were many, through which, by the laws
Of physics, bodies whether short or tall
Might come or go; but Juan could not state
Through which the spectre seem'd to evaporate.

He stood -- how long he knew not, but it seem'd
An age -- expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strain'd on the spot where first the figure gleam'd;
Then by degrees recall'd his energies,
And would have pass'd the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
Waking already, and return'd at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.

All there was as he left it: still his taper
Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use,
Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour;
He rubb'd his eyes, and they did not refuse
Their office; he took up an old newspaper;
The paper was right easy to peruse;
He read an article the king attacking,
And a long eulogy of 'patent blacking.'

This savour'd of this world; but his hand shook--
He shut his door, and after having read
A paragraph, I think about Horne Tooke,
Undrest, and rather slowly went to bed.
There, couch'd all snugly on his pillow's nook,
With what he had seen his phantasy he fed;
And though it was no opiate, slumber crept
Upon him by degrees, and so he slept.

He woke betimes; and, as may be supposed,
Ponder'd upon his visitant or vision,
And whether it ought not to be disclosed,
At risk of being quizz'd for superstition.
The more he thought, the more his mind was posed:
In the mean time, his valet, whose precision
Was great, because his master brook'd no less,
Knock'd to inform him it was time to dress.

He dress'd; and like young people he was wont
To take some trouble with his toilet, but
This morning rather spent less time upon't;
Aside his very mirror soon was put;
His curls fell negligently o'er his front,
His clothes were not curb'd to their usual cut,
His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was tied
Almost an hair's breadth too much on one side.

And when he walk'd down into the saloon,
He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea,
Which he perhaps had not discover'd soon,
Had it not happen'd scalding hot to be,
Which made him have recourse unto his spoon;
So much distrait he was, that all could see
That something was the matter -- Adeline
The first -- but what she could not well divine.

She look'd, and saw him pale, and turn'd as pale
Herself; then hastily look'd down, and mutter'd
Something, but what's not stated in my tale.
Lord Henry said his muffin was ill butter'd;
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke play'd with her veil,
And look'd at Juan hard, but nothing utter'd.
Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes
Survey'd him with a kind of calm surprise.

But seeing him all cold and silent still,
And everybody wondering more or less,
Fair Adeline enquired, 'If he were ill?'
He started, and said, 'Yes--no--rather--yes.'
The family physician had great skill,
And being present, now began to express
His readiness to feel his pulse and tell
The cause, but Juan said, 'He was quite well.'

'Quite well; yes,--no.'--These answers were mysterious,
And yet his looks appear'd to sanction both,
However they might savour of delirious;
Something like illness of a sudden growth
Weigh'd on his spirit, though by no means serious:
But for the rest, as he himself seem'd loth
To state the case, it might be ta'en for granted
It was not the physician that he wanted.

Lord Henry, who had now discuss'd his chocolate,
Also the muffin whereof he complain'd,
Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate,
At which he marvell'd, since it had not rain'd;
Then ask'd her Grace what news were of the duke of late?
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pain'd
With some slight, light, hereditary twinges
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.

Then Henry turn'd to Juan, and address'd
A few words of condolence on his state:
'You look,' quoth he, 'as if you had had your rest
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late.'
'What friar?' said Juan; and he did his best
To put the question with an air sedate,
Or careless; but the effort was not valid
To hinder him from growing still more pallid.

'Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?
The spirit of these walls?'--'In truth not I.'
'Why Fame--but Fame you know 's sometimes a liar--
Tells an odd story, of which by and by:
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer,
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The friar of late has not been oft perceived.

(Who watch'd the changes of Don Juan's brow,
And from its context thought she could divine
Connexions stronger then he chose to avow
With this same legend)--'if you but design
To jest, you'll choose some other theme just now,
Because the present tale has oft been told,
And is not much improved by growing old.'

'Jest!' quoth Milor; 'why, Adeline, you know
That we ourselves - 'twas in the honey-moon--
But, come, I'll set your story to a tune.'
Graceful as Dian, when she draws her bow,
She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon
As touch'd, and plaintively began to play
The air of ''Twas a Friar of Orders Gray.'

'But add the words,' cried Henry, 'which you made;
For Adeline is half a poetess,'
Turning round to the rest, he smiling said.
Of course the others could not but express
In courtesy their wish to see display'd
By one three talents, for there were no less--
The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once
Could hardly be united by a dunce.

After some fascinating hesitation,--
The charming of these charmers, who seem bound,
I can't tell why, to this dissimulation,--
Fair Adeline, with eyes fix'd on the ground
At first, then kindling into animation,
Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound,
And sang with much simplicity,--a merit
Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it.

Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey,
And expell'd the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.

Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand, and torch to light
Their walls, if they said nay;
A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd,
And he did not seem form'd of clay,
For he's seen in the porch, and he 's seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.

And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still with the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes - but not to grieve.

When an heir is born, he's heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the 'we moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'Tis shadow'd by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.

But beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church's heir
Whoever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night;
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar's right.

Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he'll say nought to you;
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o'er the grass the dew.
Then grammercy! for the Black Friar;
Heaven sain him, fair or foul!
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer,
Let ours be for his soul.

The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling wires
Died from the touch that kindled them to sound;
And the pause follow'd, which when song expires
Pervades a moment those who listen round;
And then of course the circle much admires,
Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound,
The tones, the feeling, and the execution,
To the performer's diffident confusion.

Fair Adeline, though in a careless way,
As if she rated such accomplishment
As the mere pastime of an idle day,
Pursued an instant for her own content,
Would now and then as 'twere without display,
Yet with display in fact, at times relent
To such performances with haughty smile,
To show she could, if it were worth her while.

Now this (but we will whisper it aside)
Was - pardon the pedantic illustration--
Trampling on Plato's pride with greater pride,
As did the Cynic on some like occasion;
Deeming the sage would be much mortified,
Or thrown into a philosophic passion,
For a spoil'd carpet - but the 'Attic Bee'
Was much consoled by his own repartee.

Thus Adeline would throw into the shade
(By doing easily, whene'er she chose,
What dilettanti do with vast parade)
Their sort of half profession; for it grows
To something like this when too oft display'd;
And that it is so everybody knows
Who have heard Miss That or This, or Lady T'other,
Show off - to please their company or mother.

Oh! the long evenings of duets and trios!
The admirations and the speculations;
The 'Mamma Mia's!' and the 'Amor Mio's!'
The 'Tanti palpiti's' on such occasions:
The 'Lasciami's,' and quavering 'Addio's!'
Amongst our own most musical of nations;
With 'Tu mi chamas's' from Portingale,
To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.

In Babylon's bravuras - as the home
Heart-ballads of Green Erin or Gray Highlands,
That bring Lochaber back to eyes that roam
O'er far Atlantic continents or islands,
The calentures of music which o'ercome
All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh lands,
No more to be beheld but in such visions -
Was Adeline well versed, as compositions.

She also had a twilight tinge of 'Blue,'
Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote,
Made epigrams occasionally too
Upon her friends, as everybody ought.
But still from that sublimer azure hue,
So much the present dye, she was remote;
Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet,
And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it.

Aurora - since we are touching upon taste,
Which now-a-days is the thermometer
By whose degrees all characters are class'd -
Was more Shakspearian, if I do not err.
The worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste
Had more of her existence, for in her
There was a depth of feeling to embrace
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.

Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace,
The full-grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind,
If she had any, was upon her face,
And that was of a fascinating kind.
A little turn for mischief you might trace
Also thereon,--but that's not much; we find
Few females without some such gentle leaven,
For fear we should suppose us quite in heaven.

I have not heard she was at all poetic,
Though once she was seen reading the 'Bath Guide,'
And 'Hayley's Triumphs,' which she deem'd pathetic,
Because she said her temper had been tried
So much, the bard had really been prophetic
Of what she had gone through with - since a bride.
But of all verse, what most ensured her praise
Were sonnets to herself, or 'bouts rimes.'

'Twere difficult to say what was the object
Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay
To bear on what appear'd to her the subject
Of Juan's nervous feelings on that day.
Perhaps she merely had the simple project
To laugh him out of his supposed dismay;
Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it,
Though why I cannot say - at least this minute.

But so far the immediate effect
Was to restore him to his self -propriety,
A thing quite necessary to the elect,
Who wish to take the tone of their society:
In which you cannot be too circumspect,
Whether the mode be persiflage or piety,
But wear the newest mantle of hypocrisy,
On pain of much displeasing the gynocracy.

And therefore Juan now began to rally
His spirits, and without more explanation
To jest upon such themes in many a sally.
Her Grace, too, also seized the same occasion,
With various similar remarks to tally,
But wish'd for a still more detail'd narration
Of this same mystic friar's curious doings,
About the present family's deaths and wooings.

Of these few could say more than has been said;
They pass'd as such things do, for superstition
With some, while others, who had more in dread
The theme, half credited the strange tradition;
And much was talk'd on all sides on that head:
But Juan, when cross-question'd on the vision,
Which some supposed (though he had not avow'd it)
Had stirr'd him, answer'd in a way to cloud it.

And then, the mid-day having worn to one,
The company prepared to separate;
Some to their several pastimes, or to none,
Some wondering 'twas so early, some so late.
There was a goodly match too, to be run
Between some greyhounds on my lord's estate,
And a young race-horse of old pedigree
Match'd for the spring, whom several went to see.

There was a picture-dealer who had brought
A special Titian, warranted original,
So precious that it was not to be bought,
Though princes the possessor were besieging all.
The king himself had cheapen'd it, but thought
The civil list he deigns to accept (obliging all
His subjects by his gracious acceptation)
Too scanty, in these times of low taxation.

But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur,--
The friend of artists, if not arts,--the owner,
With motives the most classical and pure,
So that he would have been the very donor,
Rather than seller, had his wants been fewer,
So much he deem'd his patronage an honour,
Had brought the capo d'opera, not for sale,
But for his judgment - never known to fail.

There was a modern Goth, I mean a Gothic
Bricklayer of Babel, call'd an architect,
Brought to survey these grey walls, which though so thick,
Might have from time acquired some slight defect;
Who after rummaging the Abbey through thick
And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect
New buildings of correctest conformation,
And throw down old - which he call'd restoration.

The cost would be a trifle - an 'old song,'
Set to some thousands ('tis the usual burden
Of that same tune, when people hum it long)--
The price would speedily repay its worth in
An edifice no less sublime than strong,
By which Lord Henry's good taste would go forth in
Its glory, through all ages shining sunny,
For Gothic daring shown in English money.

There were two lawyers busy on a mortgage
Lord Henry wish'd to raise for a new purchase;
Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage,
And one on tithes, which sure are Discord's torches,
Kindling Religion till she throws down her gage,
'Untying' squires 'to fight against the churches;'
There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and ploughman,
For Henry was a sort of Sabine showman.

There were two poachers caught in a steel trap,
Ready for gaol, their place of convalescence;
There was a country girl in a close cap
And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since--
Since--since--in youth, I had the sad mishap--
But luckily I have paid few parish fees since):
That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with rigour,
Presents the problem of a double figure.

A reel within a bottle is a mystery,
One can't tell how it e'er got in or out;
Therefore the present piece of natural history
I leave to those who are fond of solving doubt;
And merely state, though not for the consistory,
Lord Henry was a justice, and that Scout
The constable, beneath a warrant's banner,
Had bagg'd this poacher upon Nature's manor.

Now justices of peace must judge all pieces
Of mischief of all kinds, and keep the game
And morals of the country from caprices
Of those who have not a license for the same;
And of all things, excepting tithes and leases,
Perhaps these are most difficult to tame:
Preserving partridges and pretty wenches
Are puzzles to the most precautious benches.

The present culprit was extremely pale,
Pale as if painted so; her cheek being red
By nature, as in higher dames less hale
'Tis white, at least when they just rise from bed.
Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming frail,
Poor soul! for she was country born and bred,
And knew no better in her immorality
Than to wax white - for blushes are for quality.

Her black, bright, downcast, yet espiegle eye,
Had gather'd a large tear into its corner,
Which the poor thing at times essay'd to dry,
For she was not a sentimental mourner
Parading all her sensibility,
Nor insolent enough to scorn the scorner,
But stood in trembling, patient tribulation,
To be call'd up for her examination.

Of course these groups were scatter'd here and there,
Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies gent.
The lawyers in the study; and in air
The prize pig, ploughman, poachers; the men sent
From town, viz., architect and dealer, were
Both busy (as a general in his tent
Writing despatches) in their several stations,
Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations.

But this poor girl was left in the great hall,
While Scout, the parish guardian of the frail,
Discuss'd (he hated beer yclept the 'small')
A mighty mug of moral double ale.
She waited until justice could recall
Its kind attentions to their proper pale,
To name a thing in nomenclature rather
Perplexing for most virgins - a child's father.

You see here was enough of occupation
For the Lord Henry, link'd with dogs and horses.
There was much bustle too, and preparation
Below stairs on the score of second courses;
Because, as suits their rank and situation,
Those who in counties have great land resources
Have 'Public days,' when all men may carouse,
Though not exactly what's call'd 'open house.'

But once a week or fortnight, uninvited
(Thus we translate a general invitation),
All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted,
May drop in without cards, and take their station
At the full board, and sit alike delighted
With fashionable wines and conversation;
And, as the isthmus of the grand connection,
Talk o'er themselves the past and next election.

Lord Henry was a great electioneerer,
Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit;
But county contests cost him rather dearer,
Because the neighbouring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit
Had English influence in the self-same sphere here;
His son, the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit,
Was member for the 'other interest' (meaning
The same self-interest, with a different leaning).

Courteous and cautious therefore in his county,
He was all things to all men, and dispensed
To some civility, to others bounty,
And promises to all - which last commenced
To gather to a somewhat large amount, he
Not calculating how much they condensed;
But what with keeping some, and breaking others,
His word had the same value as another's.

A friend to freedom and freeholders--yet
No less a friend to government--he held,
That he exactly the just medium hit
'Twixt place and patriotism--albeit compell'd,
Such was his sovereign's pleasure (though unfit,
He added modestly, when rebels rail'd),
To hold some sinecures he wish'd abolish'd,
But that with them all law would be demolish'd.

He was 'free to confess' (whence comes this phrase?
Is't English? No--'tis only parliamentary)
That innovation's spirit now-a-days
Had made more progress than for the last century.
He would not tread a factious path to praise,
Though for the public weal disposed to venture high;
As for his place, he could but say this of it,
That the fatigue was greater than the profit.

Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life
Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;
But could he quit his king in times of strife,
Which threaten'd the whole country with perdition?
When demagogues would with a butcher's knife
Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)
The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings
Have tied together commons, lords, and kings.

Sooner 'come lace into the civil list
And champion him to the utmost'--he would keep it,
Till duly disappointed or dismiss'd:
Profit he care not for, let others reap it;
But should the day come when place ceased to exist,
The country would have far more cause to weep it:
For how could it go on? Explain who can!
He gloried in the name of Englishman.

He was as independent--ay, much more--
Than those who were not paid for independence,
As common soldiers, or a common--shore,
Have in their several arts or parts ascendance
O'er the irregulars in lust or gore,
Who do not give professional attendance.
Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager
To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar.

All this (save the last stanza) Henry said,
And thought. I say no more--I've said too much;
For all of us have either heard or read--
Off--or upon the hustings--some slight such
Hints from the independent heart or head
Of the official candidate. I'll touch
No more on this--the dinner-bell hath rung,
And grace is said; the grace I should have sung--

But I'm too late, and therefore must make play.
'Twas a great banquet, such as Albion old
Was wont to boast--as if a glutton's tray
Were something very glorious to behold.
But 'twas a public feast and public day,--
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,
And every body out of their own sphere.

The squires familiarly formal, and
My lords and ladies proudly condescending;
The very servants puzzling how to hand
Their plates--without it might be too much bending
From their high places by the sideboard's stand--
Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending.
For any deviation from the graces
Might cost both man and master too--their places.

There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen,
Whose hounds ne'er err'd, nor greyhounds deign'd to lurch;
Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers, seen
Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search
Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen.
There were some massy members of the church,
Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches,
And several who sung fewer psalms than catches.

There were some country wags too - and, alas!
Some exiles from the town, who had been driven
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass,
And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven.
And lo! upon that day it came to pass,
I sate next that o'erwhelming son of heaven,
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,
The loudest wit I e'er was deafen'd with.

I knew him in his livelier London days,
A brilliant diner out, though but a curate;
And not a joke he cut but earn'd its praise,
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate
(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!
Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?),
Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln,
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.

His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;
But both were thrown away amongst the fens;
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.
No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax:
The poor priest was reduced to common sense,
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,
To hammer a horse laugh from the thick throng.

There is a difference, says the song, 'between
A beggar and a queen,' or was (of late
The latter worse used of the two we've seen--
But we'll say nothing of affairs of state);
A difference ''twixt a bishop and a dean,'
A difference between crockery ware and plate,
As between English beef and Spartan broth--
And yet great heroes have been bred by both.

But of all nature's discrepancies, none
Upon the whole is greater than the difference
Beheld between the country and the town,
Of which the latter merits every preference
From those who have few resources of their own,
And only think, or act, or feel, with reference
To some small plan of interest or ambition--
Both which are limited to no condition.

But 'en avant!' The light loves languish o'er
Long banquets and too many guests, although
A slight repast makes people love much more,
Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know
Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore
With vivifying Venus, who doth owe
To these the invention of champagne and truffles:
Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles.

Dully past o'er the dinner of the day;
And Juan took his place, he knew not where,
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait,
And sitting as if nail'd upon his chair:
Though knives and forks clank'd round as in a fray,
He seem'd unconscious of all passing there,
Till some one, with a groan, exprest a wish
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish.

On which, at the third asking of the bans,
He started; and perceiving smiles around
Broadening to grins, he colour'd more than once,
And hastily--as nothing can confound
A wise man more than laughter from a dunce--
Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound,
And with such hurry, that ere he could curb it
He had paid his neighbour's prayer with half a turbot.

This was no bad mistake, as it occurr'd,
The supplicator being an amateur;
But others, who were left with scarce a third,
Were angry--as they well might, to be sure.
They wonder'd how a young man so absurd
Lord Henry at his table should endure;
And this, and his not knowing how much oats
Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes.

They little knew, or might have sympathised,
That he the night before had seen a ghost,
A prologue which but slightly harmonised
With the substantial company engross'd
By matter, and so much materialised,
That one scarce knew at what to marvel most
Of two things--how (the question rather odd is)
Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.

But what confused him more than smile or stare
From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around,
Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air,
Especially as he had been renown'd
For some vivacity among the fair,
Even in the country circle's narrow bound
(For little things upon my lord's estate
Were good small talk for others still less great)--

Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his,
And something like a smile upon her cheek.
Now this he really rather took amiss:
In those who rarely smile, their smiles bespeak
A strong external motive; and in this
Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique
Or hope, or love, with any of the wiles
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles.

'Twas a mere quiet smile of contemplation,
Indicative of some surprise and pity;
And Juan grew carnation with vexation,
Which was not very wise, and still less witty,
Since he had gain'd at least her observation,
A most important outwork of the city--
As Juan should have known, had not his senses
By last night's ghost been driven from their defences.

But what was bad, she did not blush in turn,
Nor seem embarrass'd--quite the contrary;
Her aspect was as usual, still--not stern--
And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye,
Yet grew a little pale--with what? concern?
I know not; but her colour ne'er was high--
Though sometimes faintly flush'd--and always clear,
As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.

But Adeline was occupied by fame
This day; and watching, witching, condescending
To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game,
And dignity with courtesy so blending,
As all must blend whose part it is to aim
(Especially as the sixth year is ending)
At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's
Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections.

Though this was most expedient on the whole,
And usual--Juan, when he cast a glance
On Adeline while playing her grand role,
Which she went through as though it were a dance,
Betraying only now and then her soul
By a look scarce perceptibly askance
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real;

So well she acted all and every part
By turns--with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart.
They err--'tis merely what is call'd mobility,
A thing of temperament and not of art,
Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false--though true; for surely they 're sincerest
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.

This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,
Heroes sometimes, though seldom--sages never;
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,
Little that's great, but much of what is clever;
Most orators, but very few financiers,
Though all Exchequer chancellors endeavour,
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours,
And grow quite figurative with their figures.

The poets of arithmetic are they
Who, though they prove not two and two to be
Five, as they might do in a modest way,
Have plainly made it out that four are three,
Judging by what they take, and what they pay.
The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea,
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives.

While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces,
The fair Fitz-Fulke seem'd very much at ease;
Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces,
Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize
The ridicules of people in all places -
That honey of your fashionable bees -
And store it up for mischievous enjoyment;
And this at present was her kind employment.

However, the day closed, as days must close;
The evening also waned - and coffee came.
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose,
And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame,
Retired: with most unfashionable bows
Their docile esquires also did the same,
Delighted with their dinner and their host,
But with the Lady Adeline the most.

Some praised her beauty; others her great grace;
The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity
Was obvious in each feature of her face,
Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity.
Yes; she was truly worthy her high place!
No one could envy her deserved prosperity.
And then her dress - what beautiful simplicity
Draperied her form with curious felicity!

Meanwhile Sweet Adeline deserved their praises,
By an impartial indemnification
For all her past exertion and soft phrases,
In a most edifying conversation,
Which turn'd upon their late guests' miens and faces,
And families, even to the last relation;
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses,
And truculent distortion of their tresses.

True, she said little - 'twas the rest that broke
Forth into universal epigram;
But then 'twas to the purpose what she spoke:
Like Addison's 'faint praise,' so wont to damn,
Her own but served to set off every joke,
As music chimes in with a melodrame.
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend!
I ask but this of mine, to - not defend.

There were but two exceptions to this keen
Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; one
Aurora, with her pure and placid mien;
And Juan, too, in general behind none
In gay remark on what he had heard or seen,
Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone:
In vain he heard the others rail or rally,
He would not join them in a single sally.

'Tis true he saw Aurora look as though
She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook
Its motive for that charity we owe
But seldom pay the absent, nor would look
Farther - it might or might not be so.
But Juan, sitting silent in his nook,
Observing little in his reverie,
Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.

The ghost at least had done him this much good,
In making him as silent as a ghost,
If in the circumstances which ensued
He gain'd esteem where it was worth the most.
And certainly Aurora had renew'd
In him some feelings he had lately lost,
Or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal,
Are so divine, that I must deem them real:--

The love of higher things and better days;
The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways;
The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another's bosom is the zone.

Who would not sigh Ai ai Tan Kuuerheian
That hath a memory, or that had a heart?
Alas! her star must fade like that of Dian:
Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart.
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an
Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart
Of Eros: but though thou hast play'd us many tricks,
Still we respect thee, 'Alma Venus Genetrix!'

And full of sentiments, sublime as billows
Heaving between this world and worlds beyond,
Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows
Arrived, retired to his; but to despond
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows
Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

The night was as before: he was undrest,
Saving his night-gown, which is an undress;
Completely 'sans culotte,' and without vest;
In short, he hardly could be clothed with less:
But apprehensive of his spectral guest,
He sate with feelings awkward to express
(By those who have not had such visitations),
Expectant of the ghost's fresh operations.

And not in vain he listen'd;--Hush! what's that?
I see--I see--Ah, no!--'tis not--yet 'tis--
Ye powers! it is the-the-the-Pooh! the cat!
The devil may take that stealthy pace of his!
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat,
Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss,
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous,
And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.

Again--what is't? The wind? No, no--this time
It is the sable friar as before,
With awful footsteps regular as rhyme,
Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more.
Again through shadows of the night sublime,
When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore
The starry darkness round her like a girdle
Spangled with gems--the monk made his blood curdle.

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,
Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter,
Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,
Sounding like very supernatural water,
Came over Juan's ear, which throbb'd, alas!
For immaterialism's a serious matter;
So that even those whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tete-a-tete.

Were his eyes open?--Yes! and his mouth too.
Surprise has this effect--to make one dumb,
Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through
As wide as if a long speech were to come.
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,
Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:
His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What open'd next?--the door.

It open'd with a most infernal creak,
Like that of hell. 'Lasciate ogni speranza
Voi che entrate!' The hinge seem'd to speak,
Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza;
Or - but all words upon such themes are weak:
A single shade's sufficient to entrance
Hero - for what is substance to a spirit?
Or how is't matter trembles to come near it?

The door flew wide,--not swiftly, but, as fly
The sea -gulls, with a steady, sober flight,
And then swung back, nor close, but stood awry,
Half letting in long shadows on the light,
Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high,
For he had two, both tolerably bright,
And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood
The sable Friar in his solemn hood.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken
The night before, but being sick of shaking,
He first inclined to think he had been mistaken,
And then to be ashamed of such mistaking.
His own internal ghost began to awaken
Within him and to quell his corporal quaking,
Hinting that soul and body on the whole
Were odds against a disembodied soul.

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce,
And he arose, advanced. The shade retreated,
But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,
Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated,
Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,
At whatsoever risk of being defeated.
The ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until
He reached the ancient wall, then stood stone still.

Juan put forth one arm. Eternal powers!
It touched no soul nor body, but the wall,
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers
Checkered with all the tracery of the hall.
He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers
When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal.
How odd, a single hobgoblin's nonentity
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity.

But still the shade remained, the blue eyes glared,
And rather variably for stony death.
Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared;
The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl showed he had been fair-haired.
A red lip with two rows of pearls beneath
Gleamed forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peeped, just escaped from a grey cloud.

And Juan, puzzled but still curious, thrust
His other arm forth. Wonder upon wonder!
It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust,
Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.
He found, as people on most trials must,
That he had made at first a silly blunder
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought

The ghost, if ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul
As ever lurked beneath a holy hood.
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory stole
Forth into something much like flesh and blood.
Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl
And they revealed, alas, that ere they should,
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,
The phantom of her frolic Grace - Fita-Fulke!

poem by Byron
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Canto the Sixteenth

I
The antique Persians taught three useful things,
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings --
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.

II
The cause of this effect, or this defect, --
"For this effect defective comes by cause," --
Is what I have not leisure to inspect;
But this I must say in my own applause,
Of all the Muses that I recollect,
Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws
In some things, mine's beyond all contradiction
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.

III
And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats
From any thing, this epic will contain
A wilderness of the most rare conceits,
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
'T is true there be some bitters with the sweets,
Yet mix'd so slightly, that you can't complain,
But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
"De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis."

IV
But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost --
What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast,
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?
'T is time to strike such puny doubters dumb as
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.

V
Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority
Is always greatest at a miracle.
But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because 't is so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with "quia impossibile."

VI
And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe: -- if 't is improbable you must,
And if it is impossible, you shall:
'T is always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely, to recall
Those holier mysteries which the wise and just
Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted,
As all truths must, the more they are disputed:

VII
I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years,
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears;
And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears
'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.

VIII
The dinner and the soirée too were done,
The supper too discuss'd, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropp'd off one by one --
The song was silent, and the dance expired:
The last thin petticoats were vanish'd, gone
Like fleecy Clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleam'd through the saloon
Than dying tapers -- and the peeping moon.

IX
The evaporation of a joyous day
Is like the last glass of champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;
Or like a system coupled with a doubt;
Or like a soda bottle when its spray
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;
Or like a billow left by storms behind,
Without the animation of the wind;

X
Or like an opiate, which brings troubled rest,
Or none; or like -- like nothing that I know
Except itself; -- such is the human breast;
A thing, of which similitudes can show
No real likeness, -- like the old Tyrian vest
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.
So perish every tyrant's robe piece-meal!

XI
But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
Undressing is a woe; our robe de chambre
May sit like that of Nessus, and recall
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.
Titus exclaim'd, "I've lost a day!" Of all
The nights and days most people can remember
(I have had of both, some not to be disdain'd),
I wish they 'd state how many they have gain'd.

XII
And Juan, on retiring for the night,
Felt restless, and perplex'd, and compromised:
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright
Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;
If he had known exactly his own plight,
He probably would have philosophised:
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sigh'd.

XIII
He sigh'd; -- the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happen'd luckily, the chaste orb shone
As clear as such a climate will allow;
And Juan's mind was in the proper tone
To hail her with the apostrophe -- "O thou!"
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.

XIV
But lover, poet, or astronomer,
Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold,
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her:
Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);
Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;
The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways,
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.

XV
Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed
For contemplation rather than his pillow:
The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow,
With all the mystery by midnight caused;
Below his window waved (of course) a willow;
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade.

XVI
Upon his table or his toilet, -- which
Of these is not exactly ascertain'd
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain'd), --
A lamp burn'd high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a Gothic ornament remain'd,
In chisell'd stone and painted glass, and all
That time has left our fathers of their hall.

XVII
Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw
His chamber door wide open -- and went forth
Into a gallery, of a sombre hue,
Long, furnish'd with old pictures of great worth,
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,
As doubtless should be people of high birth.
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.

XVIII
The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps -- voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.

XIX
And the pale smile of beauties in the grave,
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams,
Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave
Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.
A picture is the past; even ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.

XX
As Juan mused on mutability,
Or on his mistress -- terms synonymous --
No sound except the echo of his sigh
Or step ran sadly through that antique house;
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent -- or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.

XXI
It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, array'd
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made;
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.

XXII
Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
But thought, like most men, there was nothing in 't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
And did he see this? or was it a vapour?

XXIII
Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd -- the thing of air,
Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t' other place;
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base
As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;
He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.

XXIV
The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow pass'd away -- but where? the hall
Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
To think his vanishing unnatural:
Doors there were many, through which, by the laws
Of physics, bodies whether short or tall
Might come or go; but Juan could not state
Through which the spectre seem'd to evaporate.

XXV
He stood -- how long he knew not, but it seem'd
An age -- expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strain'd on the spot where first the figure gleam'd;
Then by degrees recall'd his energies,
And would have pass'd the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
Waking already, and return'd at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.

XXVI
All there was as he left it: still his taper
Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use,
Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour;
He rubb'd his eyes, and they did not refuse
Their office; he took up an old newspaper;
The paper was right easy to peruse;
He read an article the king attacking,
And a long eulogy of "patent blacking."

XXVII
This savour'd of this world; but his hand shook --
He shut his door, and after having read
A paragraph, I think about Horne Tooke,
Undrest, and rather slowly went to bed.
There, couch'd all snugly on his pillow's nook,
With what he had seen his phantasy he fed;
And though it was no opiate, slumber crept
Upon him by degrees, and so he slept.

XXVIII
He woke betimes; and, as may be supposed,
Ponder'd upon his visitant or vision,
And whether it ought not to be disclosed,
At risk of being quizz'd for superstition.
The more he thought, the more his mind was posed:
In the mean time, his valet, whose precision
Was great, because his master brook'd no less,
Knock'd to inform him it was time to dress.

XXIX
He dress'd; and like young people he was wont
To take some trouble with his toilet, but
This morning rather spent less time upon 't;
Aside his very mirror soon was put;
His curls fell negligently o'er his front,
His clothes were not curb'd to their usual cut,
His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was tied
Almost an hair's breadth too much on one side.

XXX
And when he walk'd down into the saloon,
He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea,
Which he perhaps had not discover'd soon,
Had it not happen'd scalding hot to be,
Which made him have recourse unto his spoon;
So much distrait he was, that all could see
That something was the matter -- Adeline
The first -- but what she could not well divine.

XXXI
She look'd, and saw him pale, and turn'd as pale
Herself; then hastily look'd down, and mutter'd
Something, but what's not stated in my tale.
Lord Henry said his muffin was ill butter'd;
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke play'd with her veil,
And look'd at Juan hard, but nothing utter'd.
Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes
Survey'd him with a kind of calm surprise.

XXXII
But seeing him all cold and silent still,
And everybody wondering more or less,
Fair Adeline enquired, "If he were ill?"
He started, and said, "Yes -- no -- rather -- yes."
The family physician had great skill,
And being present, now began to express
His readiness to feel his pulse and tell
The cause, but Juan said, "He was quite well."

XXXIII
"Quite well; yes, -- no." -- These answers were mysterious,
And yet his looks appear'd to sanction both,
However they might savour of delirious;
Something like illness of a sudden growth
Weigh'd on his spirit, though by no means serious:
But for the rest, as he himself seem'd loth
To state the case, it might be ta'en for granted
It was not the physician that he wanted.

XXXIV
Lord Henry, who had now discuss'd his chocolate,
Also the muffin whereof he complain'd,
Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate,
At which he marvell'd, since it had not rain'd;
Then ask'd her Grace what news were of the duke of late?
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pain'd
With some slight, light, hereditary twinges
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.

XXXV
Then Henry turn'd to Juan, and address'd
A few words of condolence on his state:
"You look," quoth he, "as if you had had your rest
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late."
"What friar?" said Juan; and he did his best
To put the question with an air sedate,
Or careless; but the effort was not valid
To hinder him from growing still more pallid.

XXXVI
"Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?
The spirit of these walls?" -- "In truth not I."
"Why Fame -- but Fame you know's sometimes a liar --
Tells an odd story, of which by and by:
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer,
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The friar of late has not been oft perceived.

XXXVII
"The last time was -- " -- "I pray," said Adeline --
(Who watch'd the changes of Don Juan's brow,
And from its context thought she could divine
Connexions stronger then he chose to avow
With this same legend) -- "if you but design
To jest, you'll choose some other theme just now,
Because the present tale has oft been told,
And is not much improved by growing old."

XXXVIII
"Jest!" quoth Milor; "why, Adeline, you know
That we ourselves -- 't was in the honey-moon --
"Saw --" -- "Well, no matter. t was so long ago;
But, come, I'll set your story to a tune."
Graceful as Dian, when she draws her bow,
She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon
As touch'd, and plaintively began to play
The air of "'T was a Friar of Orders Gray."

XXXIX
"But add the words," cried Henry, "which you made;
For Adeline is half a poetess,"
Turning round to the rest, he smiling said.
Of course the others could not but express
In courtesy their wish to see display'd
By one three talents, for there were no less --
The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once
Could hardly be united by a dunce.

XL
After some fascinating hesitation, --
The charming of these charmers, who seem bound,
I can't tell why, to this dissimulation, --
Fair Adeline, with eyes fix'd on the ground
At first, then kindling into animation,
Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound,
And sang with much simplicity, -- a merit
Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it.

1
Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey,
And expell'd the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.

2
Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand, and torch to light
Their walls, if they said nay;
A monk remain'd, unchased, unchain'd,
And he did not seem form'd of clay,
For he 's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.

3
And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still with the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage-bed of their lords, 't is said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 't is held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes -- but not to grieve.

4
When an heir is born, he's heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the "we moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'T is shadow'd by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.

5
But beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church's heir
Whoever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night;
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar's right.

6
Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he'll say nought to you;
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o'er the grass the dew.
Then grammercy! for the Black Friar;
Heaven sain him, fair or foul!
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer,
Let ours be for his soul.

XLI
The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling wires
Died from the touch that kindled them to sound;
And the pause follow'd, which when song expires
Pervades a moment those who listen round;
And then of course the circle much admires,
Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound,
The tones, the feeling, and the execution,
To the performer's diffident confusion.

XLII
Fair Adeline, though in a careless way,
As if she rated such accomplishment
As the mere pastime of an idle day,
Pursued an instant for her own content,
Would now and then as 't were without display,
Yet with display in fact, at times relent
To such performances with haughty smile,
To show she could, if it were worth her while.

XLIII
Now this (but we will whisper it aside)
Was -- pardon the pedantic illustration --
Trampling on Plato's pride with greater pride,
As did the Cynic on some like occasion;
Deeming the sage would be much mortified,
Or thrown into a philosophic passion,
For a spoil'd carpet -- but the "Attic Bee"
Was much consoled by his own repartee.

XLIV
Thus Adeline would throw into the shade
(By doing easily, whene'er she chose,
What dilettanti do with vast parade)
Their sort of half profession; for it grows
To something like this when too oft display'd;
And that it is so everybody knows
Who have heard Miss That or This, or Lady T'other,
Show off -- to please their company or mother.

XLV
Oh! the long evenings of duets and trios!
The admirations and the speculations;
The "Mamma Mia's!" and the "Amor Mio's!"
The "Tanti palpiti's" on such occasions:
The "Lasciami's," and quavering "Addio's!"
Amongst our own most musical of nations;
With "Tu mi chamas's" from Portingale,
To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.

XLVI
In Babylon's bravuras -- as the home
Heart-ballads of Green Erin or Gray Highlands,
That bring Lochaber back to eyes that roam
O'er far Atlantic continents or islands,
The calentures of music which o'ercome
All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh lands,
No more to be beheld but in such visions --
Was Adeline well versed, as compositions.

XLVII
She also had a twilight tinge of "Blue,"
Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote,
Made epigrams occasionally too
Upon her friends, as everybody ought.
But still from that sublimer azure hue,
So much the present dye, she was remote;
Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet,
And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it.

XLVIII
Aurora -- since we are touching upon taste,
Which now-a-days is the thermometer
By whose degrees all characters are class'd --
Was more Shakspearian, if I do not err.
The worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste
Had more of her existence, for in her
There was a depth of feeling to embrace
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.

XLIX
Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace,
The full-grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind,
If she had any, was upon her face,
And that was of a fascinating kind.
A little turn for mischief you might trace
Also thereon, -- but that's not much; we find
Few females without some such gentle leaven,
For fear we should suppose us quite in heaven.

L
I have not heard she was at all poetic,
Though once she was seen reading the Bath Guide,
And Hayley's Triumphs, which she deem'd pathetic,
Because she said her temper had been tried
So much, the bard had really been prophetic
Of what she had gone through with -- since a bride.
But of all verse, what most ensured her praise
Were sonnets to herself, or bouts rimés.

LI
'T were difficult to say what was the object
Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay
To bear on what appear'd to her the subject
Of Juan's nervous feelings on that day.
Perhaps she merely had the simple project
To laugh him out of his supposed dismay;
Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it,
Though why I cannot say -- at least this minute.

LII
But so far the immediate effect
Was to restore him to his self-propriety,
A thing quite necessary to the elect,
Who wish to take the tone of their society:
In which you cannot be too circumspect,
Whether the mode be persiflage or piety,
But wear the newest mantle of hypocrisy,
On pain of much displeasing the gynocracy.

LIII
And therefore Juan now began to rally
His spirits, and without more explanation
To jest upon such themes in many a sally.
Her Grace, too, also seized the same occasion,
With various similar remarks to tally,
But wish'd for a still more detail'd narration
Of this same mystic friar's curious doings,
About the present family's deaths and wooings.

LIV
Of these few could say more than has been said;
They pass'd as such things do, for superstition
With some, while others, who had more in dread
The theme, half credited the strange tradition;
And much was talk'd on all sides on that head:
But Juan, when cross-question'd on the vision,
Which some supposed (though he had not avow'd it)
Had stirr'd him, answer'd in a way to cloud it.

LV
And then, the mid-day having worn to one,
The company prepared to separate;
Some to their several pastimes, or to none,
Some wondering 't was so early, some so late.
There was a goodly match too, to be run
Between some greyhounds on my lord's estate,
And a young race-horse of old pedigree
Match'd for the spring, whom several went to see.

LVI
There was a picture-dealer who had brought
A special Titian, warranted original,
So precious that it was not to be bought,
Though princes the possessor were besieging all.
The king himself had cheapen'd it, but thought
The civil list he deigns to accept (obliging all
His subjects by his gracious acceptation)
Too scanty, in these times of low taxation.

LVII
But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur, --
The friend of artists, if not arts, -- the owner,
With motives the most classical and pure,
So that he would have been the very donor,
Rather than seller, had his wants been fewer,
So much he deem'd his patronage an honour,
Had brought the capo d'opera, not for sale,
But for his judgment -- never known to fail.

LVIII
There was a modern Goth, I mean a Gothic
Bricklayer of Babel, call'd an architect,
Brought to survey these grey walls, which though so thick,
Might have from time acquired some slight defect;
Who after rummaging the Abbey through thick
And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect
New buildings of correctest conformation,
And throw down old -- which he call'd restoration.

LIX
The cost would be a trifle -- an "old song,"
Set to some thousands ('t is the usual burden
Of that same tune, when people hum it long) --
The price would speedily repay its worth in
An edifice no less sublime than strong,
By which Lord Henry's good taste would go forth in
Its glory, through all ages shining sunny,
For Gothic daring shown in English money.

LX
There were two lawyers busy on a mortgage
Lord Henry wish'd to raise for a new purchase;
Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage,
And one on tithes, which sure are Discord's torches,
Kindling Religion till she throws down her gage,
"Untying" squires "to fight against the churches;"
There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and ploughman,
For Henry was a sort of Sabine showman.

LXI
There were two poachers caught in a steel trap,
Ready for gaol, their place of convalescence;
There was a country girl in a close cap
And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since --
Since -- since -- in youth, I had the sad mishap --
But luckily I have paid few parish fees since):
That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with rigour,
Presents the problem of a double figure.

LXII
A reel within a bottle is a mystery,
One can't tell how it e'er got in or out;
Therefore the present piece of natural history
I leave to those who are fond of solving doubt;
And merely state, though not for the consistory,
Lord Henry was a justice, and that Scout
The constable, beneath a warrant's banner,
Had bagg'd this poacher upon Nature's manor.

LXIII
Now justices of peace must judge all pieces
Of mischief of all kinds, and keep the game
And morals of the country from caprices
Of those who have not a license for the same;
And of all things, excepting tithes and leases,
Perhaps these are most difficult to tame:
Preserving partridges and pretty wenches
Are puzzles to the most precautious benches.

LXIV
The present culprit was extremely pale,
Pale as if painted so; her cheek being red
By nature, as in higher dames less hale
'T is white, at least when they just rise from bed.
Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming frail,
Poor soul! for she was country born and bred,
And knew no better in her immorality
Than to wax white -- for blushes are for quality.

LXV
Her black, bright, downcast, yet espiègle eye,
Had gather'd a large tear into its corner,
Which the poor thing at times essay'd to dry,
For she was not a sentimental mourner
Parading all her sensibility,
Nor insolent enough to scorn the scorner,
But stood in trembling, patient tribulation,
To be call'd up for her examination.

LXVI
Of course these groups were scatter'd here and there,
Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies gent.
The lawyers in the study; and in air
The prize pig, ploughman, poachers; the men sent
From town, viz., architect and dealer, were
Both busy (as a general in his tent
Writing despatches) in their several stations,
Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations.

LXVII
But this poor girl was left in the great hall,
While Scout, the parish guardian of the frail,
Discuss'd (he hated beer yclept the "small")
A mighty mug of moral double ale.
She waited until justice could recall
Its kind attentions to their proper pale,
To name a thing in nomenclature rather
Perplexing for most virgins -- a child's father.

LXVIII
You see here was enough of occupation
For the Lord Henry, link'd with dogs and horses.
There was much bustle too, and preparation
Below stairs on the score of second courses;
Because, as suits their rank and situation,
Those who in counties have great land resources
Have "Public days," when all men may carouse,
Though not exactly what's call'd "open house."

LXIX
But once a week or fortnight, uninvited
(Thus we translate a general invitation),
All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted,
May drop in without cards, and take their station
At the full board, and sit alike delighted
With fashionable wines and conversation;
And, as the isthmus of the grand connection,
Talk o'er themselves the past and next election.

LXX
Lord Henry was a great electioneerer,
Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit;
But county contests cost him rather dearer,
Because the neighbouring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit
Had English influence in the self-same sphere here;
His son, the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit,
Was member for the "other interest" (meaning
The same self-interest, with a different leaning).

LXXI
Courteous and cautious therefore in his county,
He was all things to all men, and dispensed
To some civility, to others bounty,
And promises to all -- which last commenced
To gather to a somewhat large amount, he
Not calculating how much they condensed;
But what with keeping some, and breaking others,
His word had the same value as another's.

LXXII
A friend to freedom and freeholders -- yet
No less a friend to government -- he held,
That he exactly the just medium hit
'Twixt place and patriotism -- albeit compell'd,
Such was his sovereign's pleasure (though unfit,
He added modestly, when rebels rail'd),
To hold some sinecures he wish'd abolish'd,
But that with them all law would be demolish'd.

LXXIII
He was "free to confess" (whence comes this phrase?
Is 't English? No -- 't is only parliamentary)
That innovation's spirit now-a-days
Had made more progress than for the last century.
He would not tread a factious path to praise,
Though for the public weal disposed to venture high;
As for his place, he could but say this of it,
That the fatigue was greater than the profit.

LXXIV
Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life
Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;
But could he quit his king in times of strife,
Which threaten'd the whole country with perdition?
When demagogues would with a butcher's knife
Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)
The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings
Have tied together commons, lords, and kings.

LXXV
Sooner "come Place into the civil list
And champion him to the utmost" -- he would keep it,
Till duly disappointed or dismiss'd:
Profit he care not for, let others reap it;
But should the day come when place ceased to exist,
The country would have far more cause to weep it:
For how could it go on? Explain who can!
He gloried in the name of Englishman.

LXXVI
He was as independent -- ay, much more --
Than those who were not paid for independence,
As common soldiers, or a common -- shore,
Have in their several arts or parts ascendance
O'er the irregulars in lust or gore,
Who do not give professional attendance.
Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager
To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar.

LXXVII
All this (save the last stanza) Henry said,
And thought. I say no more -- I've said too much;
For all of us have either heard or read --
Off -- or upon the hustings -- some slight such
Hints from the independent heart or head
Of the official candidate. I'll touch
No more on this -- the dinner-bell hath rung,
And grace is said; the grace I should have sung --

LXXVIII
But I'm too late, and therefore must make play.
'T was a great banquet, such as Albion old
Was wont to boast -- as if a glutton's tray
Were something very glorious to behold.
But 't was a public feast and public day, --
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,
And every body out of their own sphere.

LXXIX
The squires familiarly formal, and
My lords and ladies proudly condescending;
The very servants puzzling how to hand
Their plates -- without it might be too much bending
From their high places by the sideboard's stand --
Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending.
For any deviation from the graces
Might cost both man and master too -- their places.

LXXX
There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen,
Whose hounds ne'er err'd, nor greyhounds deign'd to lurch;
Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers, seen
Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search
Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen.
There were some massy members of the church,
Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches,
And several who sung fewer psalms than catches.

LXXXI
There were some country wags too -- and, alas!
Some exiles from the town, who had been driven
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass,
And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven.
And lo! upon that day it came to pass,
I sate next that o'erwhelming son of heaven,
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,
The loudest wit I e'er was deafen'd with.

LXXXII
I knew him in his livelier London days,
A brilliant diner out, though but a curate;
And not a joke he cut but earn'd its praise,
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate
(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!
Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?),
Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln,
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.

LXXXIII
His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;
But both were thrown away amongst the fens;
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.
No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax:
The poor priest was reduced to common sense,
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,
To hammer a horse laugh from the thick throng.

LXXXIV
There is a difference, says the song, "between
A beggar and a queen," or was (of late
The latter worse used of the two we've seen --
But we'll say nothing of affairs of state);
A difference "'twixt a bishop and a dean,"
A difference between crockery ware and plate,
As between English beef and Spartan broth --
And yet great heroes have been bred by both.

LXXXV
But of all nature's discrepancies, none
Upon the whole is greater than the difference
Beheld between the country and the town,
Of which the latter merits every preference
From those who have few resources of their own,
And only think, or act, or feel, with reference
To some small plan of interest or ambition --
Both which are limited to no condition.

LXXXVI
But en avant! The light loves languish o'er
Long banquets and too many guests, although
A slight repast makes people love much more,
Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know
Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore
With vivifying Venus, who doth owe
To these the invention of champagne and truffles:
Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles.

LXXXVII
Dully past o'er the dinner of the day;
And Juan took his place, he knew not where,
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait,
And sitting as if nail'd upon his chair:
Though knives and forks clank'd round as in a fray,
He seem'd unconscious of all passing there,
Till some one, with a groan, exprest a wish
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish.

LXXXVIII
On which, at the third asking of the bans,
He started; and perceiving smiles around
Broadening to grins, he colour'd more than once,
And hastily -- as nothing can confound
A wise man more than laughter from a dunce --
Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound,
And with such hurry, that ere he could curb it
He had paid his neighbour's prayer with half a turbot.

LXXXIX
This was no bad mistake, as it occurr'd,
The supplicator being an amateur;
But others, who were left with scarce a third,
Were angry -- as they well might, to be sure.
They wonder'd how a young man so absurd
Lord Henry at his table should endure;
And this, and his not knowing how much oats
Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes.

XC
They little knew, or might have sympathised,
That he the night before had seen a ghost,
A prologue which but slightly harmonised
With the substantial company engross'd
By matter, and so much materialised,
That one scarce knew at what to marvel most
Of two things -- how (the question rather odd is)
Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.

XCI
But what confused him more than smile or stare
From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around,
Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air,
Especially as he had been renown'd
For some vivacity among the fair,
Even in the country circle's narrow bound
(For little things upon my lord's estate
Were good small talk for others still less great) --

XCII
Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his,
And something like a smile upon her cheek.
Now this he really rather took amiss:
In those who rarely smile, their smiles bespeak
A strong external motive; and in this
Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique
Or hope, or love, with any of the wiles
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles.

XCIII
'T was a mere quiet smile of contemplation,
Indicative of some surprise and pity;
And Juan grew carnation with vexation,
Which was not very wise, and still less witty,
Since he had gain'd at least her observation,
A most important outwork of the city --
As Juan should have known, had not his senses
By last night's ghost been driven from their defences.

XCIV
But what was bad, she did not blush in turn,
Nor seem embarrass'd -- quite the contrary;
Her aspect was as usual, still -- not stern --
And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye,
Yet grew a little pale -- with what? concern?
I know not; but her colour ne'er was high --
Though sometimes faintly flush'd -- and always clear,
As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.

XCV
But Adeline was occupied by fame
This day; and watching, witching, condescending
To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game,
And dignity with courtesy so blending,
As all must blend whose part it is to aim
(Especially as the sixth year is ending)
At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's
Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections.

XCVI
Though this was most expedient on the whole,
And usual -- Juan, when he cast a glance
On Adeline while playing her grand rôle,
Which she went through as though it were a dance,
Betraying only now and then her soul
By a look scarce perceptibly askance
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real;

XCVII
So well she acted all and every part
By turns -- with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart.
They err -- 't is merely what is call'd mobility,
A thing of temperament and not of art,
Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false -- though true; for surely they're sincerest
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.

XCVIII
This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,
Heroes sometimes, though seldom -- sages never;
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,
Little that's great, but much of what is clever;
Most orators, but very few financiers,
Though all Exchequer chancellors endeavour,
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours,
And grow quite figurative with their figures.

XCIX
The poets of arithmetic are they
Who, though they prove not two and two to be
Five, as they might do in a modest way,
Have plainly made it out that four are three,
Judging by what they take, and what they pay.
The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea,
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives.

C
While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces,
The fair Fitz-Fulke seem'd very much at ease;
Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces,
Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize
The ridicules of people in all places --
That honey of your fashionable bees --
And store it up for mischievous enjoyment;
And this at present was her kind employment.

CI
However, the day closed, as days must close;
The evening also waned -- and coffee came.
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose,
And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame,
Retired: with most unfashionable bows
Their docile esquires also did the same,
Delighted with their dinner and their host,
But with the Lady Adeline the most.

CII
Some praised her beauty; others her great grace;
The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity
Was obvious in each feature of her face,
Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity.
Yes; she was truly worthy her high place!
No one could envy her deserved prosperity.
And then her dress -- what beautiful simplicity
Draperied her form with curious felicity!

CIII
Meanwhile Sweet Adeline deserved their praises,
By an impartial indemnification
For all her past exertion and soft phrases,
In a most edifying conversation,
Which turn'd upon their late guests' miens and faces,
And families, even to the last relation;
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses,
And truculent distortion of their tresses.

CIV
True, she said little -- 't was the rest that broke
Forth into universal epigram;
But then 't was to the purpose what she spoke:
Like Addison's "faint praise," so wont to damn,
Her own but served to set off every joke,
As music chimes in with a melodrame.
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend!
I ask but this of mine, to -- not defend.

CV
There were but two exceptions to this keen
Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; one
Aurora, with her pure and placid mien;
And Juan, too, in general behind none
In gay remark on what he had heard or seen,
Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone:
In vain he heard the others rail or rally,
He would not join them in a single sally.

CVI
'T is true he saw Aurora look as though
She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook
Its motive for that charity we owe
But seldom pay the absent, nor would look
Farther -- it might or might not be so.
But Juan, sitting silent in his nook,
Observing little in his reverie,
Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.

CVII
The ghost at least had done him this much good,
In making him as silent as a ghost,
If in the circumstances which ensued
He gain'd esteem where it was worth the most.
And certainly Aurora had renew'd
In him some feelings he had lately lost,
Or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal,
Are so divine, that I must deem them real: --

CVIII
The love of higher things and better days;
The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways;
The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another's bosom is the zone.

CIX
Who would not sigh Ai ai Tan Kytherheian
That hath a memory, or that had a heart?
Alas! her star must fade like that of Dian:
Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart.
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an
Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart
Of Eros: but though thou hast play'd us many tricks,
Still we respect thee, "Alma Venus Genetrix!"

CX
And full of sentiments, sublime as billows
Heaving between this world and worlds beyond,
Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows
Arrived, retired to his; but to despond
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows
Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

CXI
The night was as before: he was undrest,
Saving his night-gown, which is an undress;
Completely sans culotte, and without vest;
In short, he hardly could be clothed with less:
But apprehensive of his spectral guest,
He sate with feelings awkward to express
(By those who have not had such visitations),
Expectant of the ghost's fresh operations.

CXII
And not in vain he listen'd; -- Hush! what's that?
I see -- I see -- Ah, no! -- 't is not -- yet 't is --
Ye powers! it is the -- the -- the -- Pooh! the cat!
The devil may take that stealthy pace of his!
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat,
Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss,
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous,
And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.

CXIII
Again -- what is 't? The wind? No, no -- this time
It is the sable friar as before,
With awful footsteps regular as rhyme,
Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more.
Again through shadows of the night sublime,
When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore
The starry darkness round her like a girdle
Spangled with gems -- the monk made his blood curdle.

CXIV
A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,
Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter,
Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,
Sounding like very supernatural water,
Came over Juan's ear, which throbb'd, alas!
For immaterialism's a serious matter;
So that even those whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tête-à-tête.

CXV
Were his eyes open? -- Yes! and his mouth too.
Surprise has this effect -- to make one dumb,
Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through
As wide as if a long speech were to come.
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,
Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:
His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What open'd next? -- the door.

CXVI
It open'd with a most infernal creak,
Like that of hell. "Lasciate ogni speranza
Voi che entrate!" The hinge seem'd to speak,
Dreadful as Dante's rima, or this stanza;
Or -- but all words upon such themes are weak:
A single shade's sufficient to entrance
Hero -- for what is substance to a spirit?
Or how is 't matter trembles to come near it?

CXVII
The door flew wide, -- not swiftly, but, as fly
The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight, --
And then swung back; nor close -- but stood awry,
Half letting in long shadows on the light,
Which still in Juan's candlesticks burn'd high,
For he had two, both tolerably bright,
And in the door-way, darkening darkness, stood
The sable friar in his solemn hood.

CXVIII
Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken
The night before; but being sick of shaking,
He first inclined to think he had been mistaken;
And then to be ashamed of such mistaking;
His own internal ghost began to awaken
Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking --
Hinting that soul and body on the whole
Were odds against a disembodied soul.

CXIX
And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce,
And he arose, advanced -- the shade retreated;
But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,
Follow'd, his veins no longer cold, but heated,
Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,
At whatsoever risk of being defeated:
The ghost stopp'd, menaced, then retired, until
He reach'd the ancient wall, then stood stone still.

CXX
Juan put forth one arm -- Eternal powers!
It touched no soul, nor body, but the wall,
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers,
Chequer'd with all the tracery of the hall;
He shudder'd, as no doubt the bravest cowers
When he can't tell what 't is that doth appal.
How odd, a single hobgoblin's non-entity
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity.

CXXI
But still the shade remain'd: the blue eyes glared,
And rather variably for stony death:
Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,
The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl show'd he had been fair-hair'd;
A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,
Gleam'd forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peep'd, just escaped from a grey cloud.

CXXII
And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust
His other arm forth -- Wonder upon wonder!
It press'd upon a hard but glowing bust,
Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.
He found, as people on most trials must,
That he had made at first a silly blunder,
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought.

CXXIII
The ghost, if ghost it were, seem'd a sweet soul
As ever lurk'd beneath a holy hood:
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole
Forth into something much like flesh and blood;
Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,
And they reveal'd -- alas! that e'er they should!
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,
The phantom of her frolic Grace -- Fitz-Fulke!

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!

The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 15

Ac after my wakynge it was wonder longe
Er I koude kyndely knowe what was Dowel.
And so my wit weex and wanyed til I a fool weere;
And some lakked my lif - allowed it fewe -
And leten me for a lorel and looth to reverencen
Lordes or ladies or any lif ellis -
As persons in pelure with pendaunts of silver;
To sergeaunts ne to swiche seide noght ones,
' God loke yow, lordes!' - ne loutede faire,
That folk helden me a fool; and in that folie I raved,
Til reson hadde ruthe on me and rokked me aslepe,
Til I seigh, as it sorcerie were, a sotil thyng withalle -
Oon withouten tonge and teeth, tolde me whider I sholde
And wherof I cam and of what kynde. I conjured hym at the laste,
If he were Cristes creature for Cristes love me to tellen.
' I am Cristes creature,' quod he, 'and Cristene in many a place,
In Cristes court yknowe wel, and of his kyn a party.
Is neither Peter the Porter, ne Poul with the fauchon,
That wole defende me the dore, dynge I never so late.
At mydnyght, at mydday, my vois is so yknowe
That ech a creature of his court welcometh me faire.'
'What are ye called?' quod I, 'in that court among Cristes peple?'
'The whiles I quykne the cors,' quod he, 'called am I Anima;
And whan I wilne and wolde, Animus ich hatte;
And for that I kan and knowe, called am I Mens;
And whan I make mone to God, Memoria is my name;
And whan I deme domes and do as truthe techeth,
Thanne is Racio my righte name - ''reson'' on Englissh;
And whan I feele that folk telleth, my firste name is Sensus -
And that is wit and wisdom, the welle of alle craftes;
And whan I chalange or chalange noght, chepe or refuse,

Thanne am I Conseience ycalled, Goddes clerk and his notarie;
And whan I love leelly Oure Lord and alle othere,
Thanne is ''lele Love'' my name, and in Latyn Amor;
And whan I flee fro the flessh and forsake the careyne,
Thanne am I spirit spechelees - and Spiritus thanne ich hatte.
Austyn and Ysodorus, either of hem bothe
Nempnede me thus to name - now thow myght chese
How thow coveitest to calle me, now thow knowest alle my names.
Anima pro diversis accionibus diversa nomina sortiturdum
vivificat corpus, anima est; dum vult, animus est; dum scit,
mens est; dum recolit, memoria est; dum iudicat, racio est;
dum sentit, sensus est; dum amat, Amor est ; dum negat vel
consentit, consciencia est; dum spirat, spiritus est.'
'Ye ben as a bisshop,' quod I, al bourdynge that tyme,
' For bisshopes yblessed, thei bereth manye names -
Presul and Pontifex and Metropolitanus,
And othere names an heep, Episcopus and Pastor.'
'That is sooth,' seide he, 'now I se thi wille!
Thow woldest knowe and konne the cause of alle hire names,
And of myne, if thow myghtest, me thynketh by thi speche!'
' Ye, sire,' I seide, 'by so no man were greved,
Alle the sciences under sonne and alle the sotile craftes
I wolde I knewe and kouthe kyndely in myn herte!'
'Thanne artow inparfit,' quod he, 'and oon of Prides knyghtes!
For swich a lust and likyng Lucifer fel from hevene
Ponam pedem meum in aquilone et similis ero Altissimo.
'It were ayeins kynde,' quod he, 'and alle kynnes reson
That any creature sholde konne al, except Crist oone.
Ayein swiche Salomon speketh, and despiseth hir wittes,
And seith, Sicut qui mel comedit multum non est ei bonum,
Sic qui scrutator est maiestatis opprimitur a gloria.
'To Englisshe men this is to mene, that mowen speke and here,

The man that muche hony eteth his mawe it engleymeth,
And the moore that a man of good matere hereth,
But he do therafter it dooth hym doubie scathe.
'' Beatus est,' seith Seint Bernard, '' qui scripturas iegit
Et verba vertit in opera fulliche to his power.'
Coveitise to konne and to knowe science
Putte out of Paridis Adam and Eve
Sciencie appetitus hominem inmortalitatis gloriam spoliavit.
'And right as hony is yvel to defie and engleymeth the mawe,
Right so that thorugh reson wolde the roote knowe
Of God and of hise grete myghtes - hise graces it letteth.
For in the likynge lith a pride and licames coveitise
Ayein Cristes counseil and alle clerkes techynge -
That is Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere.
' Freres and fele othere maistres that to the lewed men prechen,
Ye moeven materes unmesurable to tellen of the Trinite,
That oftetymes the lewed peple of hir bileve doute.
Bettre it were by many doctours to bileven swich techyng
And tellen men of the ten comaundements, and touchen the sevene synnes,
And of the braunches that burjoneth of hem and bryngen men to helle,
And how that folk in folies mysspenden hir fyve wittes -
As wel freres as oother folk, foliliche spenden
In housynge, in haterynge, in to heigh clergie shewynge
Moore for pompe than for pure charite - the peple woot the sothe!
That I lye noght, loo! - for lordes ye plesen,
And reverencen the riche the rather for hir silver
Confundantur omnes qui adorant sculptilia. Et alibi,
Ut quid diligitis vanitatem, et queritis mendacium?
'Goeth to the glose of the vers, ye grete clerkes;

If I lye on yow to my lewed wit, ledeth me to brennyng!
For as it semeth ye forsaketh no mannes almesse -
Of usurers, of hoores, of varouse chapmen -
And louten to thise lordes that mowen lene yow nobles
Aye in youre rule and religion - I take record at Jesus,
That seide to hise disciples, '' Ne sitis acceptores personarum.''
Of this matere I myghte make a long bible;
Ac of curatours of Cristen peple, as clerkes bereth witnesse,
I shal tellen it for truthes sake - take hede whoso liketh!
'As holynesse and honeste out of Holy Chirche spredeth
Thorugh lele libbynge men that Goddes lawe techen,
Right so out of Holy Chirche alle yveles spredeth
There inparfit preesthode is, prechours and techeris.
And se it by ensaumple in somer tyme on trowes
Ther some bowes ben leved and some bereth none,
Ther is a meschief in the more of swiche manere bowes.
Right so persons and preestes and prechours of Holi Chirche
Is the roote of the right feith to rule the peple;
Ac ther the roote is roten, reson woot the sothe,
Shal nevere fiour ne fruyt, ne fair leef be grene.
'Forthi wolde ye lettrede leve the lecherie of clothyng,
And be kynde as bifel for clerkes and curteise of Cristes goodes,
Trewe of youre tonge and of youre tail bothe,
And hatien to here harlotrie, and aught to underfonge
Tithes of untrewe thyng ytilied or chaffared -
Lothe were lewed men but thei youre loore folwede
And amenden hem that thei mysdoon, moore for youre ensaumples
Than for to prechen and to preven it noght - ypocrisie it semeth!
For ypocrisie in Latyn is likned to a dongehill
That were bisnewed with snow, and snakes withinne,

Or to a wal that were whitlymed and were foul withinne.
Right so manye preestes, prechours and prelates -
Ye [b]en enblaunched with bele paroles and with clothes,
Ac youre werkes and wordes therunder aren ful w[o]lveliche.
Johannes Crisostomus of clerkes speketh and preestes
Sicut de templo omne bonum progreditur, sic de templo omne
malum procedit. Si sacerdocium integrum fuerit, tota floret
ecclesia; si autem corruptum fuerit, omnium fides marcida est.
Si sacerdocium fuerit in peccatis, totus populus convertitur
ad peccandum. Sicut cum videris arborem pallidam et marcidam
intelligis quod vicium habet in radice, ita cum videris
populum indisciplinatum et irreligiosum, sine dubio
sacerdocium eius non est sanum.
'If lewed men wiste what this Latyn meneth,
And who was myn auctour, muche wonder me thinketh
But if many preest beere, for hir baselardes and hir broches,
A peire of bedes in hir hand and a book under hir arme.
Sire Johan and Sire Geffrey hath a girdel of silver,
A baselard or a ballok-knyf with botons overgilte.
Ac a porthors that sholde be his plow, Placebo to sigge,
Hadde he nevere, [his] service to [h]ave,
[And save he have] silver therto, seith it with ydel wille.
'Allas, ye lewed men, muche lese ye on preestes!
Ac thing that wikkedly is wonne, and with false sleightes,
Wolde nevere the wit of witty God but wikkede men it hadde -

The whiche arn preestes inparfite and prechours after silver,
Executours and sodenes, somonours and hir lemmannes.
This that with gile was geten, ungraciousliche is spended.
So harlotes and hores arn holpe with swiche goodes,
Ac Goddes folk for defaute therof forfaren and spillen.
'Curatours of Holy Kirke, and clerkes that ben avarouse,
Lightliche that thei leven, losels it habbeth,
Or deieth intestate, and thanne [entreth the bisshop]
And maketh murthe therwith, and hise meyne both,
And seyen, ''He was a nygard, that no good myghte aspare
To frend ne to fremmed - the fend have his soule!
For a wrecehede hous he held al his lif tyme,
And that he spared and bispered, spende we in murthe!''
'By lered, by lewed, that looth is to spende -
Thus goon hire goodes, be the goost faren.
Ac for goode men, God woot, greet doel men maken,
And bymeneth goode meteyyveres, and in mynde haveth
In preieres and in penaunces and in parfit charite.'
' What is charite?' quod I tho. 'A childissh thyng,' he seide -
' Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum celorum -
Withouten fauntelte or folie a fre liberal wille.'
'Where sholde men fynde swich a frend with so fre an herte?
I have lyved in londe,' quod I, 'my name is Longe Wille -
And fond I nevere ful charite, bifore ne bihynde.
Men beth merciable to mendinaunts and to poore,
And wollen lenc ther thei leve lelly to ben paied.
Ac charite that Poul preiseth best and moost plesaunt to Oure Saveour -
As Non inflatur, non est ambiciosa, non querit que sua sunt -
I seigh nevere swich a man, so me God helpe,

That he ne wolde aske after his, and outherwhile coveite
Thyng that neded hym noght - and nyme it, if he myghte!
'Clerkes kenne me that Crist is in alle places;
Ac I seigh hym nevere soothly but as myself in a mirour
Hic in enigmate, tunc facie ad faciem.
And so I trowe trewely, by that men telleth of charite,
It is noght chaumpions fight, ne chaffare, as I trowe.'
'Charite,' quod he, 'ne chaffareth noght, ne chalangeth, ne craveth;
As proud of a peny as of a pound of golde,
And is as glad of a gowne of a gray russet
As of a tunycle of Tarse of of trie scarlet.
He is glad with alle glade and good til alle wikkede,
And leneth and loveth alle that Oure Lord made.
Corseth he no creature, ne he kan bere no wrathe,
Ne no likynge hath to lye ne laughe men to scorne.
Al that men seyn, he leet it sooth, and in solace taketh,
And alle manere meschiefs in myldenesse he suffreth.
Coveiteth he noon erthely good but heveneriche blisse.'
'Hath he any rentes or richesse, or any riche frendes?'
'Of rentes ne of richesse rekketh he nevere,
For a frend that fyndeth hym, failed hym nevere at nede
Fiat voluntas tua fynt hym everemoore,
And if he soupeth, eteth but a sop of Spera in Deo.
He kan portreye wel the Paternoster and peynte it with Aves,
And outherwhile he is woned to wenden on pilgrymages
Ther poore men and prisons liggeth, hir pardon to have;
Though he bere hem no breed, he bereth hem swetter liflode,
Loveth hem as Oure Lord biddeth and loketh how thei fare.
'And whan he is wery of that werk than wole he som tyme
Labouren in a lavendrye wel the lengthe of a mile,
And yerne into youthe, and yepeliche seche
Pride, with al the appurtenaunces, and pakken hem togideres,
And bouken hem at his brest and beten hern clene,
And leggen on longe with Laboravi in gemitu meo,

And with warm water at hise eighen wasshen hem after.
Thanne he syngeth whan he doth so, and som tyme seith wepynge,
Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.'
'By Crist! I wolde that I knewe hym,' quod I, 'no creature levere!'
'Withouten help of Piers Plowman,' quod he, 'his persone sestow nevere.'
'Wheither clerkes knowen hym,' quod I, 'that kepen Holi Kirke?'
'Clerkes have no knowyng,' quod he, 'but by werkes and by wordes.
Ac Piers the Plowman parceyveth moore depper
What is the wille, and wherfore that many wight suffreth
Et vidit Deus cogitaciones eorum.
For ther are ful proude herted men, pacient of tonge
And buxome as of berynge to burgeises and to lordes,
And to poore peple han pepir in the nose,
And as a lyoun he loketh ther men lakken hise werkes.
' For ther are beggeris and bidderis, bedemen as it were,
Loken as lambren and semen lif-holy -
Ac it is moore to have hir mete on swich an esy manere
Than for penaunce and parfitnesse, the poverte that swiche taketh.
'Therfore by colour ne by clergie knowe shaltow hym nevere,
Neither thorugh wordes ne werkes, but thorugh wil oone,
And that knoweth no clerk ne creature on erthe
But Piers the Plowman - Petrus, id est, Christus.
For he nys noght in lolleris ne in londleperis heremytes,
Ne at ancres there a box hangeth - alle swiche thei faiten.
Fy on faitours and infautores suos!
For Charite is Goddes champion, and as a good child hende,
And the murieste of mouth at mete where he sitteth.
The love that lith in his herte maketh hym light of speche,
And is compaignable and confortatif, as Crist bit hymselve
Nolite fieri sicut ypocrite tristes .
For I have seyen hym in silk and som tyme in russet,
Bothe in grey, and in grys, and in gilt harneis -
And as gladliche he it gaf to gomes that it neded.
'Edmund and Edward, either were kynges

And seintes yset - [s]til[le] charite hem folwede.
'I have yseyen charite also syngen and reden,
Riden, and rennen in raggede wedes;
Ac biddynge as beggeris biheld I hym nevere.
Ac in riche robes rathest he walketh,
Ycalled and ycrymyled and his crowne yshave.
And in a freres frokke he was yfounden ones -
Ac it is fern ago, in Seint Fraunceis tyme;
In that secte siththe to selde hath he ben knowen.
'Riche men he recomendeth, and of hir robes taketh
That withouten wiles ledeth hir lyves
Beatus est dives qui, .
'In kynges court he cometh ofte, ther the counseil is trewe;
Ac if coveitise be of the counseil he wol noght come therinne.
In court amonges japeris he cometh but selde,
For braulynge and bakbitynge and berynge of fals witnesse.
'In the consistorie bifore the commissarie he corneth noght ful ofte,
For hir lawe dureth overlonge but if thei lacchen silver,
And matrimoyne for moneie maken and unmaken,
And that conseience and Crist hath yknyt faste,
Thei undoon it un[digne]ly, tho doctours of lawe.
'Amonges erchebisshopes and other bisshopes and prelates of Holy Chirche,
For to wonye with hem his wone was som tyme,
And Cristes patrimonye to the poore parcelmele dele.
Ac avarice hath the keyes now and kepeth for his kynnesmen
And for his seketoures and his servaunts, and som for hir children.
'Ac I ne lakke no lif, but, Lord, amende us alle.
And gyve us grace, goode God, charite to folwe!
For whoso myghte meete with hym, swiche maneres hym eileth -

Neither he blameth ne banneth, bosteth ne preiseth,
Lakketh, ne loseth, ne loketh up sterne,
Craveth, ne coveiteth, ne crieth after moore
In pace in idipsum dormiam .
The mooste liflode that he lyveth by is love in Goddes passion;
Neither he biddeth, ne beggeth, ne borweth to yelde;
Misdooth he no man, ne with his mouth greveth.
'Amonges Cristene men this myldenesse sholde laste,
In alle manere angres have this at herte -
That theigh thei suffrede al this, God suffrede for us moore
In ensample we sholde do so, and take no vengeaunce
Of oure foes that dooth us falsnesse - that is oure fadres wille.
For wel may every man wite, if God hadde wold hymselve,
Sholde nevere Judas ne Jew have Jesu doon on roode,
Ne han martired Peter ne Poul, ne in prison holden.
Ac he suffre in ensample that we sholde suffren also,
And seide to swiche that suffre wolde that Pacientes vincunt.
' Verbi gratia,' quod he - and verred ensamples manye.
'In Legenda Sanctorum, the lif of holy seintes,
What penaunce and poverte and passion thei suffrede -
In hunger, in hete, in alle manere angres.
'Antony and Egidie and othere holy fadres
Woneden in wildernesse among wilde beestes;
Monkes and mendinaunts. men by hemselve
In spekes and in spelonkes, selde speken togideres.
Ac neither Antony ne Egidie ne heremyte that tyme
Of leons ne of leopardes no liflode ne toke,
But of foweles that fleeth - thus fyndeth men in bokes -
Except that Egidie after an hynde cride,
And thorugh the mylk of that mylde beest the man was sustened;
And day bi day hadde he hire noght his hunger for to slake,
But selden and sondry tymes, as seith the book and techeth.
Antony adayes aboute noon tyme
Hadde a brid that broughte hym breed that he by lyvede;
And though the gome hadde a gest, God fond hem bothe.
'Poul primus heremita hadde parroked hymselve,

That no man myghte hym se for mosse and for leves.
Foweles hym fedde fele wyntres with alle
Til he foundede freres of Austynes ordre.
Poul, after his prechyng, paniers he made,
And wan with hise hondes that his wornbe neded.
Peter fisshed for his foode, and his felawe Andrew
Som thei solde and som thei soden, and so thei lyved bothe.
And also Marie Maudeleyne by mores lyvede and dewes,
Ac moost thorugh devocion and mynde of God Almyghty.
I sholde noght thise seven daies siggen hem alle
That lyveden thus for Oure Lordes love many longe yeres.
'Ac ther ne was leoun ne leopard that on laundes wenten,
Neither bere, ne boor, ne oother beest wilde
That ne fil to hir feet and fawned with the tailles;
And if thei kouthe han ycarped, by Crist, as I trowe,
Thei wolde have yfed that folk bifore wilde foweles.
For al the curteisie that beestes konne, thei kidde that folk ofte,
In likkyng and in lowynge, there thei on laundes yede.
Ac God sente hem foode by foweles, and by no fierse beestes,
In menynge that meke thyng mylde thyng sholde fede.
As who seith religious rightfulle men sholde fynde,
And lawefulle men to lif-holy rnen liflode brynge;
And thanne wolde lordes and ladies be looth to agulte,
And to taken of hir tenaunts more than trouthe wolde,
Founde thei that freres wolde forsake hir almesses,
And bidden hem bere it there it was yborwed.
For we ben Goddes foles and abiden alwey,
Til briddes brynge us that we sholde [by lyve].
For hadde ye potage and payn ynogh, and peny ale to drynke,
And a mees thermyd of o maner kynde,

Ye hadde right ynogh ye religiouse - and so youre rule me tolde.
Numquid, dicit Job rugiet onager cum habuerit herbam ?
Aut mugiet bos cum ante plenum presepe steterit ? Brutorum
animalium natura te condempnat, quia cum eis pabulum commune
sufficiat; ex adipe prodiit iniquitas tua.
'If lewed men knewe this Latyn, thei wolde loke whom thei yeve,
And avisen hem bifore a fyve dayes or sixe
Er thei amortisede [moore] to monkes or chanons hir rentes.
Allas! lordes and ladies, lewed counseil have ye
To yyve from youre heires that youre aiels you lefte,
And yyveth to bidde for yow to swiche that ben riche,
And ben founded and feffed ek to bidde for othere!
'Who parfourneth this prophecie, of the peple that now libbeth -
Dispersit, dedit pauperibus ?
If any peple parfourne that tent, it are thise poore freres
For that thei beggen aboute, in buyldynge thei spende,
And on hemself som, and swiche as ben hir laborers;
And of hem that habbeth thei taken, and yyveth hem that ne habbeth!
'Ac clerkes and knyghtes, and communers that ben riche,
Fele of yow fareth as if I a forest hadde
That were ful of faire trees, and I fondede and caste
How I myghte mo therinne amonges hem sette.
Right so ye riche - ye robeth that ben riche,
And helpeth hem that helpeth yow, and yyveth ther no nede is;
As whoso filled a tonne ful of a fressh ryver,
And wente forth with that water to woke with Themese.
Right so ye riche, ye robeth and fedeth

Hem that han as ye han - hem ye make at ese.
'Ac religiouse that riche ben sholde rather feeste beggeris
Than burgeises that riche ben, as the book techeth
Quia sacrilegium est res pauperum non pauperibus dare.
Itempeccatoribus dare est demonibus immolare.
Itemmonache, si indiges et accipis, pocius das quam accipis;
Si autem non eges et accipis, rapis.
Porro non indiget monachus, si habeat quod nature sufficit.
' Forthi I counseille alle Cristene to conformen hem to charite -
For charite withouten chalangynge unchargeth the soule,
And many a prison fram purgatorie thorugh hise preieres he delivereth.
Ac ther is a defaute in the folk that the feith kepeth,
Wherfore folk is the febler, and noght ferm of bileve.
As in lussheburwes is a luther alay, and yet loketh he lik a sterlyng
The merk of that monee is good, ac the metal is feble.
And so it fareth by som folk nowthci han a fair speche,
Crowne and Cristendom, the kynges mark of hevene,
Ac the metal, that is mannes soule, with [many] synne is foule[d].
Bothe lettred and lewed beth alayed now with synne,
That no lif loveth oother, ne Oure Lord, as it semeth.
For what thorugh werre and wikkede werkes and wederes unresonable,
Wederwise shipmen and witty clerkes also
Have no bileve to the lifte, ne to the loore of philosophres.
'Astronomiens alday in hir art faillen
That whilom warned bifore what sholde falle after;
Shipmen and shepherdes, that with ship and sheep wenten,
Wisten by the walkne what sholde bitide,
Tilieris that tiled the erthe tolden hir maistres
By the seed that thei sewe whit thei selle myghte,
And what to leve and to lyve by, the lond was so trewe;

Now failleth the folk of the flood and of the lond bothe -
Shepherdes and shipmen, and so do thise tilieris
Neither thei konneth ne knoweth oon cours bifore another.
'Astronomyens also aren at hir wittes ende
Of that was calculed of the clem[a]t, the contrarie thei fynde.
Grammer, the ground of al, bigileth now children
For is noon of thise newe clerkes - whoso nymeth hede -
That kan versifye faire ne formaliche enditen,
Ne naught oon among an hundred that an auctour kan construwe,
Ne rede a lettre in any langage but in Latyn or in Englissh.
'Go now to any degree, and but if gile be maister,
And flaterere his felawe [to fourmen under hym],
Muche wonder me thynketh amonges us alle!
Doctours of decrees and of divinite maistres,
That sholde konne and knowe alle kynnes clergie,
And answere to arguments and also to a quodlibet -
I dar noght siggen it for shame - if swiche were apposed,
Thei sholde faillen of hir Philosophie, and in Phisik bothe.
'Wherfore I am afered of folk of Holy Kirke,
Lest thei overhuppen, as oothere doon, in Office and in Houres.
Ac if thei overhuppe - as I hope noght - oure bileve suffiseth;
As clerkes in Corpus Christi feeste syngen and reden
That sola fides sufficit to save with lewed peple -
And so may Sarsens be saved, scribes and Jewes.
'Allas thanne! but oure looresmen lyve as thei leren us,
And for hir lyvynge that lewed men be the lother God agulten.
For Sarsens han somwhat semynge to oure bileve,
For thei love and bileve in o [Lede] almyghty,
And we, lered and lewed, [bileveth in oon God] -
Cristene and uncristene on oon [creatour] bileveth.

Ac oon Makometh, a man, in mysbileve
Broughte Sarsens of Surree - and see in what manere.
'This Makometh was a Cristene man and for he moste noght ben a pope,
Into Surrie he soughte. and thorugh hise sotile wittes
Daunted a dowve, and day and nyght hire fedde.
The corn that she croppede, he caste it in his ere;
And if he among the peple preched, or in places come,
Thanne wolde the colvere come to the clerkes ere
Menynge as after mete - thus Makometh hire enchauntede,
And dide folk thanne falle on knees, for he swoor in his prechyng
That the colvere that com so com from God of hevene
As messager to Makometh, men for to teche.
And thus thorugh wiles of his wit and a whit dowve
Makometh in mysbileve men and wommen broughte,
That lered there and lewed yit leeven on hise lawes.
'And siththe Oure Saveour suffred the Sarsens so bigiled
Thorugh a Cristene clerk acorsed in his soule -
Ac for drede of the deeth I dar noght telle truthe,
How Englisshe clerkes a colvere fede that Coveitise highte,
And ben manered after Makometh, that no man useth trouthe.
'Ancres and heremytes, and monkes and freres
Peeren to Apostles thorugh hire parfit lyvynge.
Wolde nevere the feithful Fader that hise ministres sholde
Of tiraunts that teneth trewe men taken any almesse,
But doon as Antony dide, Dominyk and Fraunceys,
Beneit and Bernard [bo]the, whiche hem first taughte
To lyve by litel and in lowe houses by lele mennes almesse.
Grace sholde growe and be grene thorugh hir goode lyvynge,
And folkes sholden fynde, that ben in diverse siknesse,
The bettre for hir biddynges in body and in soule.
Hir preieres and hir penaunces to pees sholde brynge
Alle that ben at debaat, and bedemen were trewe
Petite et accipietis .

' Salt saveth catel,' siggen thise wyves ;
Vos estis sal terre .
The hevedes of Holy Chirche - and thei holy were -
Crist calleth hem salt for Cristene soules,
Et si sal evanuerit, in quo salietur ?
Ac fressh flessh outher fissh, whan it salt failleth,
It is unsavory, for sothe, ysoden or ybake;
So is mannes soule, soothly, that seeth no good ensample
Of hem of Holi Chirche that the heighe wey sholde teche
And be gide, and go bifore as a good banyer,
And hardie hem that bihynde ben, and yyve hem good evidence.
' Ellevene holy men al the world tornede
Into lele bileve; the lightloker, me thynketh.
Sholde alle maner men, we han so manye maistres-
Preestes and prechours, and a pope above,
That Goddes salt sholde be, to save mannes soule.
'Al was hethynesse som tyme Engelond and Walis,
Til Gregory garte clerkes to go here and preche.
Austyn [cristnede the kyng at Caunterbury],
And thorugh miracles, as men mow rede, al that marche he tornede
To Crist and to Cristendom, and cros to honoure,
And follede folk faste, and the feith taughte
Moore thorugh miracles than thorugh muche prechyng,
As wel thorugh hise werkes as with hise holy wordes,
And [fourmed] what fullynge and feith was to mene.
'Clooth that cometh fro the wevyng is noght comly to were
Til it be fulled under foot or in fullyng stokkes,
Wasshen wel with water and with taseles cracched,
Ytouked and yteynted and under taillours hande;
And so it fareth by a barn that born is of wombe
Til it be cristned in Cristes name and confermed of the bisshop,
It is hethene as to heveneward, and helplees to the soule.
' Hethen' is to mene after heeth and untiled erthe -
As In wilde wildernesse wexeth wilde beess,

Rude and unresonable, rennynge withouten keperes.
'Ye mynnen wel how Mathew seith, how a man made a feste
He fedde hem with no venyson, ne fesaunts ybake,
But with foweles that fram hym nolde, but folwede his whistlyng
Ecce altilia mea et omnia parata sunt -
And with calves flessh he fedde the folk that he lovede.
'The calf bitokneth clennesse in hem that kepeth lawes;
For as the cow thorugh kynde mylk the calf norisseth til an oxe,
So love and leaute lele men susteneth;
And maidenes and mylde men mercy desiren
Right as the cow-calf coveiteth swete melk -
So [muche] don rightfulle men mercy and truthe.
And by the hond-fedde foweles his folk understonde
That looth ben to lovye withouten lernynge of ensaumples.
Right as capons in a court cometh to mennes whistlynge -
In menynge after mete folweth men that whistlen -
Right so rude men that litel reson konneth
Loven and bileven by lettred mennes doynges,
And by hire wordes and werkes wenen and trowen
And as tho foweles to fynde foode after whistlynge,
So hope thei to have hevene thorugh hir [wiss]ynge.
And the man that made the feste the mageste bymeneth -
That is God, of his grace gyveth alle men blisse.
With wederes and with wondres he warneth us with a whistlere
Where that his wil is, to worshipen us alle,
And feden us and festen us for everemoore at oones.
'Ac who beth that excuseth hem that arn persons and preestes
(That hevedes of Holy Chirche ben) that han hir wil here
Withouten travaille the tithe deel that trewe men biswynken -
Thei wol be wrooth for I write thus-ac to witnesse I take

Bothe Mathew and Mark and Memento Domine David
Ecce audivimus e[a]m in Effrata .
What pope or prelate now parfourneth that Crist highte-
Ite in universum mundum et predicate ?
'Allas, that men so longe on Makometh sholde bileve!
So manye prelates to preche as the Pope maketh -
Of Nazareth, of Nynyve, of Neptalym and Damaske.
That thei ne wente as Crist wisseth - sithen thei wilne a name -
To be pastours and preche the passion of Jesus,
And as hymself seide, so to lyve and dye
Bonus pastor animam suam ponit ,
And seide it in salvacion of Sarsens and othere -
For Cristene and uncristene, Crist seide to prechours,
Ite vos in vineam meam .
'And sith that thise Sarsens, scribes and Jewes
Han a lippe of oure bileve, the lightloker, me thynketh, .
Thei sholde turne, whoso travaile wolde to teche hem of the Trinite
Querite et invenietis .
For alle paynymes preieth and parfitly bileweth
In the [grete holy] God, and his grace asken,
And make hir mone to Makometh, hir message to shewe.
Thus in a feith leveth that folk, and in a fals mene,
And that is routhe for rightful men that in the reawme wonyen,
And a peril to the Pope and prelates that he maketh,
That bere bisshopes names of Bethleem and Babiloigne.

'Whan the hye kyng of hevene sente his sone to erthe,
Many miracles he wroughte man for to turne,
In ensaumple that men sholde se by sadde reson
Men myghte noght be saved but thorugh mercy and grace,
And thorugh penaunce, and passion, and parfit byleve;
And bicam man of a mayde, and metropolitanus,
And baptised and bishined with the blode of his herte
Alle that wilned and wolde with inwit bileve it.
Many a seynt siththen hath suffred to deye,
Al for to enforme the feith in fele contrees deyeden -
In Inde, and in Alisaundre, in Ermonye and in Spayne,
In doelful deth deyeden for hir feith sake.
In savacion of the feith Seint Thomas was ymartired
Amonges unkynde Cristene for Cristes love he deyede,
And for the right of al this reume and alle reumes Cristene.
Holy Chirche is honoured heighliche thorugh his deying;
He is a forbisene to alle bisshopes and a bright myrour,
And sovereynliche to swiche that of Surrye bereth the name,
And naught to huppe aboute in Engelond to halwe mennes auteres,
And crepe in amonges curatours and confessen ageyn the lawe
Nolite mittere falsem in messem alienam .
Many man for Cristes love was martired amonges Romaynes
Er Cristendom were knowe ther or any cros honoured.
'It is ruthe to rede how rihtwise men lyved -

How thei defouled hir flessh, forsoke hir owene wille,
Fer fro kyth and fro kyn yvele yclothed yeden,
Baddely ybedded, no book but conscience,
Ne no richesse but the roode to rejoisse hem inne
Absit nobis gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri .
'And tho was plentee and pees amonges poore and riche;
And now is routhe to rede how the rede noble
Is reverenced er the roode, receyved for the worthier
Than Cristes cros that overcam deeth and dedly synne.
And now is werre and wo, and whoso why asketh -
For coveitise after cros; the croune stant in golde.
Bothe richc and religious, that roode thei honoure
That in grotes is ygrave and in gold nobles.
For coveitise of that cros [clerkes] of Holy Kirke
Shul torne as Templers dide - the tyme approcheth faste.
' [Mynne] ye noght, wise men, how tho men honoured
Moore tresor than trouthe? I dar noght telle the sothe;
Reson and rightful doom tho religious demede.
Right so, ye clerkes, for youre coveitise, er [come aught] longe,
Shal thei demen dos ecclesie, and [depose youre pride]
Deposuit potentes de sede .
'If knyghthod and kynde wit, and the commune and conscience
Togideres love leelly, leveth it wel, ye bisshopes -
The lordshipe of londes [lese ye shul for evere],
And lyven as Levitici, as Oure Lord yow techeth
Per primicias et decimas .
'Whan Costantyn of curteisie Holy Kirke dowed
With londes and ledes, lordshipes and rentes,
An aungel men herden an heigh at Rome crye,

' Dos ecclesie this day hath ydronke venym,
And tho that han Petres power arn apoisoned alle!'
A medicyne moot therto that may amende prelates,
That sholden preie for the pees; possession hem letteth.
Taketh hire landes, ye lordes, and leteth hem lyve by dymes;
If possession be poison, and inparfite hem make,
Good were to deschargen hem for Holy Chirehes sake,
And purgen hem of poison, er moore peril falle.
If preesthode were parfit, the peple sholde amende,
That contrarien Cristes lawe, and Cristendom dispise.
'Every bisshop that bereth cros, by that he is holden
Thorugh his province to passe, and to his peple to shewe hym,
Tellen hem and techen hem on the Trinite to bileve,
And feden hem with goostly foode, and nedy folk to fynden.
Ac Ysaie of yow speketh and Osias bothe,
That no man sholde be bisshop but if he hadde bothe
Bodily foode and goostly foode to gyve there it nedeth
In domo mea non est panis neque vestimentum, et ideo nolite constituere me regem
Osias seith for swiche that sike ben and feble,
Inferte omnes decimas in orreum meum, ut sit cibus in domo mea.
'Ac we Cristene creatures, that on the cros bileven,
Arn ferme as in the feith-Goddes forbode ellis! -
And han clerkes to kepen us therinne, and hem that shul come after us.
And Jewes lyven in lele lawe-Oure Lord wroot it hymselve
In stoon, for it stedefast was, and stonde sholde evere -
Dilige Deum et proximum, is parfit Jewen lawe -
And teok it Moyses to teche men, til Messie coom
And on that lawe thei leve, and leten it for the beste.

And yit knewe thei Crist, that Cristendom taughte,
And for a parfit prophete that muche peple savede
Of selkouthe sores; thei seighen it ofte -
Bothe of miracles and merveilles, and how he men festede,
With two fisshes and fyve loves fyve thousand peple -
And by that mangerie thei myghte wel se that Messie he semede;
And whan he lifte up Lazar, that leid was in grave,
And under stoon deed and stank, with stif vois hym callede,
Lazare, veni foras,
Dide hym rise and rome right bifore the Jewes.
Ac thei seiden and sworen, with sorcerie he wroughte,
And studieden to struyen hym - and struyden hemselve,
And thorugh his pacience hir power to pure noght he broughte
Pacientes vincunt.
'Daniel of hire undoynge devyned and seide,
Cum sanctus sanctorum veniat cessabit unxio vestra.
And yit wenen tho wrecches that he were pseudo-propheta
And that his loore be lesynges, and lakken it alle,
And hopen that he be to come that shal hem releve -
Moyses eft or Messie hir maistres devyneth.
'Ac pharisees and sarsens, scribes and Jewes
Arn folk of oon feith - the fader God thei honouren.
And sithen that the Sarsens and also the Jewes
Konne the firste clause of oure bileve, Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem,
Prelates of Cristene provinces sholde preve, if thei myghte,
Lere hem litlum and litlum Et in Jesum Chrisium filium,
Til thei kouthe speke and spelle Et in Spiritum santum,
And rendren it and recorden it with remissionem peccatorum,
Carnis resurreccionem et vitam eternam. Amen.'

poem by William Langland
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;
So may they flourish in their due degrees,
On our sweet earth and in their unplaced sky.
If any cares for the weak words here written,
It must be some one desolate, Fate-smitten,
Whose faith and hopes are dead, and who would die.

Yes, here and there some weary wanderer
In that same city of tremendous night,
Will understand the speech and feel a stir
Of fellowship in all-disastrous fight;
"I suffer mute and lonely, yet another
Uplifts his voice to let me know a brother
Travels the same wild paths though out of sight."

O sad Fraternity, do I unfold
Your dolorous mysteries shrouded from of yore?
Nay, be assured; no secret can be told
To any who divined it not before:
None uninitiate by many a presage
Will comprehend the language of the message,
Although proclaimed aloud for evermore.

I

The City is of Night; perchance of Death
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
After the dewy dawning's cold grey air:
The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity
The sun has never visited that city,
For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.

Dissolveth like a dream of night away;
Though present in distempered gloom of thought
And deadly weariness of heart all day.
But when a dream night after night is brought
Throughout a week, and such weeks few or many
Recur each year for several years, can any
Discern that dream from real life in aught?

For life is but a dream whose shapes return,
Some frequently, some seldom, some by night
And some by day, some night and day: we learn,
The while all change and many vanish quite,
In their recurrence with recurrent changes
A certain seeming order; where this ranges
We count things real; such is memory's might.

A river girds the city west and south,
The main north channel of a broad lagoon,
Regurging with the salt tides from the mouth;
Waste marshes shine and glister to the moon
For leagues, then moorland black, then stony ridges;
Great piers and causeways, many noble bridges,
Connect the town and islet suburbs strewn.

Upon an easy slope it lies at large
And scarcely overlaps the long curved crest
Which swells out two leagues from the river marge.
A trackless wilderness rolls north and west,
Savannahs, savage woods, enormous mountains,
Bleak uplands, black ravines with torrent fountains;
And eastward rolls the shipless sea's unrest.

The city is not ruinous, although
Great ruins of an unremembered past,
With others of a few short years ago
More sad, are found within its precincts vast.
The street-lamps always burn; but scarce a casement
In house or palace front from roof to basement
Doth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast.

The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms,
Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.
The silence which benumbs or strains the sense
Fulfils with awe the soul's despair unweeping:
Myriads of habitants are ever sleeping,
Or dead, or fled from nameless pestilence!

Yet as in some necropolis you find
Perchance one mourner to a thousand dead,
So there: worn faces that look deaf and blind
Like tragic masks of stone. With weary tread,
Each wrapt in his own doom, they wander, wander,
Or sit foredone and desolately ponder
Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head.

Mature men chiefly, few in age or youth,
A woman rarely, now and then a child:
A child! If here the heart turns sick with ruth
To see a little one from birth defiled,
Or lame or blind, as preordained to languish
Through youthless life, think how it bleeds with anguish
To meet one erring in that homeless wild.

They often murmur to themselves, they speak
To one another seldom, for their woe
Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak
Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow
To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour,
Unless there waits some victim of like glamour,
To rave in turn, who lends attentive show.

The City is of Night, but not of Sleep;
There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;
The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,
A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain
Of thought and consciousness which never ceases,
Or which some moments' stupor but increases,
This, worse than woe, makes wretches there insane.

They leave all hope behind who enter there:
One certitude while sane they cannot leave,
One anodyne for torture and despair;
The certitude of Death, which no reprieve
Can put off long; and which, divinely tender,
But waits the outstretched hand to promptly render
That draught whose slumber nothing can bereave

II

Because he seemed to walk with an intent
I followed him; who, shadowlike and frail,
Unswervingly though slowly onward went,
Regardless, wrapt in thought as in a veil:
Thus step for step with lonely sounding feet
We travelled many a long dim silent street.

At length he paused: a black mass in the gloom,
A tower that merged into the heavy sky;
Around, the huddled stones of grave and tomb:
Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty:
He murmured to himself with dull despair,
Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.

Then turning to the right went on once more
And travelled weary roads without suspense;
And reached at last a low wall's open door,
Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense:
He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair,
Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair.

Then turning to the right resumed his march,
And travelled street and lanes with wondrous strength,
Until on stooping through a narrow arch
We stood before a squalid house at length:
He gazed, and whispered with a cold despair,
Here Hope died, starved out in its utmost lair.

When he had spoken thus, before he stirred,
I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs
Of desolation I had seen and heard
In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:
Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed,
Can Life still live? By what doth it proceed?

As whom his one intense thought overpowers,
He answered coldly, Take a watch, erase
The signs and figures of the circling hours,
Detach the hands, remove the dial-face;
The works proceed until run down; although
Bereft of purpose, void of use, still go.

Then turning to the right paced on again,
And traversed squares and travelled streets whose glooms
Seemed more and more familiar to my ken;
And reached that sullen temple of the tombs;
And paused to murmur with the old despair,
Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.

I ceased to follow, for the knot of doubt
Was severed sharply with a cruel knife:
He circled thus forever tracing out
The series of the fraction left of Life;
Perpetual recurrence in the scope
Of but three terms, dead Faith, dead Love, dead Hope. [ 1]

LXX

[1] Life divided by that persistent three = --- = .210.

333

III
Although lamps burn along the silent streets,
Even when moonlight silvers empty squares
The dark holds countless lanes and close retreats;
But when the night its sphereless mantle wears
The open spaces yawn with gloom abysmal,
The sombre mansions loom immense and dismal,
The lanes are black as subterranean lairs.

And soon the eye a strange new vision learns:
The night remains for it as dark and dense,
Yet clearly in this darkness it discerns
As in the daylight with its natural sense;
Perceives a shade in shadow not obscurely,
Pursues a stir of black in blackness surely,
Sees spectres also in the gloom intense.

The ear, too, with the silence vast and deep
Becomes familiar though unreconciled;
Hears breathings as of hidden life asleep,
And muffled throbs as of pent passions wild,
Far murmurs, speech of pity or derision;
but all more dubious than the things of vision,
So that it knows not when it is beguiled.

No time abates the first despair and awe,
But wonder ceases soon; the weirdest thing
Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law
Where Death-in-Life is the eternal king;
Crushed impotent beneath this reign of terror,
Dazed with mysteries of woe and error,
The soul is too outworn for wondering.

IV

He stood alone within the spacious square
Declaiming from the central grassy mound,
With head uncovered and with streaming hair,
As if large multitudes were gathered round:
A stalwart shape, the gestures full of might,
The glances burning with unnatural light:--

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: All was black,
In heaven no single star, on earth no track;
A brooding hush without a stir or note,
The air so thick it clotted in my throat;
And thus for hours; then some enormous things
Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings:
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Eyes of fire
Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire;
The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath
Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death;
Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold
Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Lo you, there,
That hillock burning with a brazen glare;
Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow
Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro;
A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell
For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Meteors ran
And crossed their javelins on the black sky-span;
The zenith opened to a gulf of flame,
The dreadful thunderbolts jarred earth's fixed frame;
The ground all heaved in waves of fire that surged
And weltered round me sole there unsubmerged:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Air once more,
And I was close upon a wild sea-shore;
Enormous cliffs arose on either hand,
The deep tide thundered up a league-broad strand;
White foambelts seethed there, wan spray swept and flew;
The sky broke, moon and stars and clouds and blue:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: On the left
The sun arose and crowned a broad crag-cleft;
There stopped and burned out black, except a rim,
A bleeding eyeless socket, red and dim;
Whereon the moon fell suddenly south-west,
And stood above the right-hand cliffs at rest:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: From the right
A shape came slowly with a ruddy light;
A woman with a red lamp in her hand,
Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand;
O desolation moving with such grace!
O anguish with such beauty in thy face!
I fell as on my bier,
Hope travailed with such fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: I was twain,
Two selves distinct that cannot join again;
One stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark in swoon and her;
And she came on, and never turned aside,
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
And as she came more near
My soul grew mad with fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Hell is mild
And piteous matched with that accursed wild;
A large black sign was on her breast that bowed,
A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud;
That lamp she held was her own burning heart,
Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart:
The mystery was clear;
Mad rage had swallowed fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: By the sea
She knelt and bent above that senseless me;
Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there,
She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair;
She murmured words of pity, love, and woe,
Shee heeded not the level rushing flow:
And mad with rage and fear,
I stood stonebound so near.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: When the tide
Swept up to her there kneeling by my side,
She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne
Away, and this vile me was left forlorn;
I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart,
Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart:
They love; their doom is drear,
Yet they nor hope nor fear;
But I, what do I here?

V

How he arrives there none can clearly know;
Athwart the mountains and immense wild tracts,
Or flung a waif upon that vast sea-flow,
Or down the river's boiling cataracts:
To reach it is as dying fever-stricken
To leave it, slow faint birth intense pangs quicken;
And memory swoons in both the tragic acts.

But being there one feels a citizen;
Escape seems hopeless to the heart forlorn:
Can Death-in-Life be brought to life again?
And yet release does come; there comes a morn
When he awakes from slumbering so sweetly
That all the world is changed for him completely,
And he is verily as if new-born.

He scarcely can believe the blissful change,
He weeps perchance who wept not while accurst;
Never again will he approach the range
Infected by that evil spell now burst:
Poor wretch! who once hath paced that dolent city
Shall pace it often, doomed beyond all pity,
With horror ever deepening from the first.

Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife,
A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered,
And love them more than death or happy life,
They shall avail not; he must dree his weird;
Renounce all blessings for that imprecation,
Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation,
Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared.

VI

I sat forlornly by the river-side,
And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars
Above the blackness of the swelling tide,
Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars;
And heard the heave and plashing of the flow
Against the wall a dozen feet below.

Large elm-trees stood along that river-walk;
And under one, a few steps from my seat,
I heard strange voices join in stranger talk,
Although I had not heard approaching feet:
These bodiless voices in my waking dream
Flowed dark words blending with sombre stream:--

And you have after all come back; come back.
I was about to follow on your track.
And you have failed: our spark of hope is black.

That I have failed is proved by my return:
The spark is quenched, nor ever more will burn,
But listen; and the story you shall learn.

I reached the portal common spirits fear,
And read the words above it, dark yet clear,
"Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here:"

And would have passed in, gratified to gain
That positive eternity of pain
Instead of this insufferable inane.

A demon warder clutched me, Not so fast;
First leave your hopes behind!--But years have passed
Since I left all behind me, to the last:

You cannot count for hope, with all your wit,
This bleak despair that drives me to the Pit:
How could I seek to enter void of it?

He snarled, What thing is this which apes a soul,
And would find entrance to our gulf of dole
Without the payment of the settled toll?

Outside the gate he showed an open chest:
Here pay their entrance fees the souls unblest;
Cast in some hope, you enter with the rest.

This is Pandora's box; whose lid shall shut,
And Hell-gate too, when hopes have filled it; but
They are so thin that it will never glut.

I stood a few steps backwards, desolate;
And watched the spirits pass me to their fate,
And fling off hope, and enter at the gate.

When one casts off a load he springs upright,
Squares back his shoulders, breathes will all his might,
And briskly paces forward strong and light:

But these, as if they took some burden, bowed;
The whole frame sank; however strong and proud
Before, they crept in quite infirm and cowed.

And as they passed me, earnestly from each
A morsel of his hope I did beseech,
To pay my entrance; but all mocked my speech.

No one would cede a little of his store,
Though knowing that in instants three or four
He must resign the whole for evermore.

So I returned. Our destiny is fell;
For in this Limbo we must ever dwell,
Shut out alike from heaven and Earth and Hell.

The other sighed back, Yea; but if we grope
With care through all this Limbo's dreary scope,
We yet may pick up some minute lost hope;

And sharing it between us, entrance win,
In spite of fiends so jealous for gross sin:
Let us without delay our search begin.

VII

Some say that phantoms haunt those shadowy streets,
And mingle freely there with sparse mankind;
And tell of ancient woes and black defeats,
And murmur mysteries in the grave enshrined:
But others think them visions of illusion,
Or even men gone far in self-confusion;
No man there being wholly sane in mind.

And yet a man who raves, however mad,
Who bares his heart and tells of his own fall,
Reserves some inmost secret good or bad:
The phantoms have no reticence at all:
The nudity of flesh will blush though tameless
The extreme nudity of bone grins shameless,
The unsexed skeleton mocks shroud and pall.

I have seen phantoms there that were as men
And men that were as phantoms flit and roam;
Marked shapes that were not living to my ken,
Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam:
The City rests for man so weird and awful,
That his intrusion there might seem unlawful,
And phantoms there may have their proper home.

VIII

While I still lingered on that river-walk,
And watched the tide as black as our black doom,
I heard another couple join in talk,
And saw them to the left hand in the gloom
Seated against an elm bole on the ground,
Their eyes intent upon the stream profound.

"I never knew another man on earth
But had some joy and solace in his life,
Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife:
My doom has been unmitigated dearth."

"We gaze upon the river, and we note
The various vessels large and small that float,
Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat."

"And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil
Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth;
But homely love with common food and health,
And nightly sleep to balance daily toil."

"This all-too-humble soul would arrogate
Unto itself some signalising hate
From the supreme indifference of Fate!"

"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?
I think myself; yet I would rather be
My miserable self than He, than He
Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace.

"The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou
From whom it had its being, God and Lord!
Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred
Malignant and implacable! I vow

"That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled,
For all the temples to Thy glory built,
Would I assume the ignominious guilt
Of having made such men in such a world."

"As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign,
At once so wicked, foolish and insane,
As to produce men when He might refrain!

"The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

"While air of Space and Time's full river flow
The mill must blindly whirl unresting so:
It may be wearing out, but who can know?

"Man might know one thing were his sight less dim;
That it whirls not to suit his petty whim,
That it is quite indifferent to him.

"Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?
It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath,
Then grinds him back into eternal death."

IX

It is full strange to him who hears and feels,
When wandering there in some deserted street,
The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels,
The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet:
Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth?
Who in this city of the stars abideth
To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet?

The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky
As it comes on; the horses snort and strain,
The harness jingles, as it passes by;
The hugeness of an overburthened wain:
A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges
Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges:
And so it rolls into the night again.

What merchandise? whence, whither, and for whom?
Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse,
Bearing away to some mysterious tomb
Or Limbo of the scornful universe
The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions
Of all things good which should have been our portions,
But have been strangled by that City's curse.

X

The mansion stood apart in its own ground;
In front thereof a fragrant garden-lawn,
High trees about it, and the whole walled round:
The massy iron gates were both withdrawn;
And every window of its front shed light,
Portentous in that City of the Night.

But though thus lighted it was deadly still
As all the countless bulks of solid gloom;
Perchance a congregation to fulfil
Solemnities of silence in this doom,
Mysterious rites of dolour and despair
Permitting not a breath or chant of prayer?

Broad steps ascended to a terrace broad
Whereon lay still light from the open door;
The hall was noble, and its aspect awed,
Hung round with heavy black from dome to floor;
And ample stairways rose to left and right
Whose balustrades were also draped with night.

I paced from room to room, from hall to hall,
Nor any life throughout the maze discerned;
But each was hung with its funereal pall,
And held a shrine, around which tapers burned,
With picture or with statue or with bust,
all copied from the same fair form of dust:

A woman very young and very fair;
Beloved by bounteous life and joy and youth,
And loving these sweet lovers, so that care
And age and death seemed not for her in sooth:
Alike as stars, all beautiful and bright,
these shapes lit up that mausolean night.

At length I heard a murmur as of lips,
And reached an open oratory hung
With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse;
Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung;
And one lay there upon a low white bed,
With tapers burning at the foot and head:

The Lady of the images, supine,
Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay:
And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine
A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray:
A crucifix of dim and ghostly white
Surmounted the large altar left in night:--

The chambers of the mansion of my heart,
In every one whereof thine image dwells,
Are black with grief eternal for thy sake.

The inmost oratory of my soul,
Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead,
Is black with grief eternal for thy sake.

I kneel beside thee and I clasp the cross,
With eyes forever fixed upon that face,
So beautiful and dreadful in its calm.

I kneel here patient as thou liest there;
As patient as a statue carved in stone,
Of adoration and eternal grief.

While thou dost not awake I cannot move;
And something tells me thou wilt never wake,
And I alive feel turning into stone.

Most beautiful were Death to end my grief,
Most hateful to destroy the sight of thee,
Dear vision better than all death or life.

But I renounce all choice of life or death,
For either shall be ever at thy side,
And thus in bliss or woe be ever well.--

He murmured thus and thus in monotone,
Intent upon that uncorrupted face,
Entranced except his moving lips alone:
I glided with hushed footsteps from the place.
This was the festival that filled with light
That palace in the City of the Night.

XI

What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms,
And fill their living mouths with dust of death,
And make their habitations in the tombs,
And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath,
And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error
To reach that void of darkness and old terror
Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith?

They have much wisdom yet they are not wise,
They have much goodness yet they do not well,
(The fools we know have their own paradise,
The wicked also have their proper Hell);
They have much strength but still their doom is stronger,
Much patience but their time endureth longer,
Much valour but life mocks it with some spell.

They are most rational and yet insane:
And outward madness not to be controlled;
A perfect reason in the central brain,
Which has no power, but sitteth wan and cold,
And sees the madness, and foresees as plainly
The ruin in its path, and trieth vainly
To cheat itself refusing to behold.

And some are great in rank and wealth and power,
And some renowned for genius and for worth;
And some are poor and mean, who brood and cower
And shrink from notice, and accept all dearth
Of body, heart and soul, and leave to others
All boons of life: yet these and those are brothers,
The saddest and the weariest men on earth.

XII

Our isolated units could be brought
To act together for some common end?
For one by one, each silent with his thought,
I marked a long loose line approach and wend
Athwart the great cathedral's cloistered square,
And slowly vanish from the moonlit air.

Then I would follow in among the last:
And in the porch a shrouded figure stood,
Who challenged each one pausing ere he passed,
With deep eyes burning through a blank white hood:
Whence come you in the world of life and light
To this our City of Tremendous Night?--

From pleading in a senate of rich lords
For some scant justice to our countless hordes
Who toil half-starved with scarce a human right:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From wandering through many a solemn scene
Of opium visions, with a heart serene
And intellect miraculously bright:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From making hundreds laugh and roar with glee
By my transcendent feats of mimicry,
And humour wanton as an elvish sprite:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From prayer and fasting in a lonely cell,
Which brought an ecstasy ineffable
Of love and adoration and delight:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From ruling on a splendid kingly throne
A nation which beneath my rule has grown
Year after year in wealth and arts and might:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From preaching to an audience fired with faith
The Lamb who died to save our souls from death,
Whose blood hath washed our scarlet sins wool-white:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From drinking fiery poison in a den
Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men,
Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From picturing with all beauty and all grace
First Eden and the parents of our race,
A luminous rapture unto all men's sight:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From writing a great work with patient plan
To justify the ways of God to man,
And show how ill must fade and perish quite:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

From desperate fighting with a little band
Against the powerful tyrants of our land,
To free our brethren in their own despite:
I wake from daydreams to this real night.

Thus, challenged by that warder sad and stern,
Each one responded with his countersign,
Then entered the cathedral; and in turn
I entered also, having given mine;
But lingered near until I heard no more,
And marked the closing of the massive door.

XIII

Of all things human which are strange and wild
This is perchance the wildest and most strange,
And showeth man most utterly beguiled,
To those who haunt that sunless City's range;
That he bemoans himself for aye, repeating
How Time is deadly swift, how life is fleeting,
How naught is constant on the earth but change.

The hours are heavy on him and the days;
The burden of the months he scarce can bear;
And often in his secret soul he prays
To sleep through barren periods unaware,
Arousing at some longed-for date of pleasure;
Which having passed and yielded him small treasure,
He would outsleep another term of care.

Yet in his marvellous fancy he must make
Quick wings for Time, and see it fly from us;
This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake,
Wounded and slow and very venomous;
Which creeps blindwormlike round the earth and ocean,
Distilling poison at each painful motion,
And seems condemned to circle ever thus.

And since he cannot spend and use aright
The little time here given him in trust,
But wasteth it in weary undelight
Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust,
He naturally claimeth to inherit
The everlasting Future, that his merit
May have full scope; as surely is most just.

O length of the intolerable hours,
O nights that are as aeons of slow pain,
O Time, too ample for our vital powers,
O Life, whose woeful vanities remain
Immutable for all of all our legions
Through all the centuries and in all the regions,
Not of your speed and variance WE complain.

WE do not ask a longer term of strife,
Weakness and weariness and nameless woes;
We do not claim renewed and endless life
When this which is our torment here shall close,
An everlasting conscious inanition!
We yearn for speedy death in full fruition,
Dateless oblivion and divine repose.

XIV

Large glooms were gathered in the mighty fane,
With tinted moongleams slanting here and there;
And all was hush: no swelling organ-strain,
No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer;
No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed,
And the high altar space was unillumed.

Around the pillars and against the walls
Leaned men and shadows; others seemed to brood
Bent or recumbent in secluded stalls.
Perchance they were not a great multitude
Save in that city of so lonely streets
Where one may count up every face he meets.

All patiently awaited the event
Without a stir or sound, as if no less
Self-occupied, doomstricken while attent.
And then we heard a voice of solemn stress
From the dark pulpit, and our gaze there met
Two eyes which burned as never eyes burned yet:

Two steadfast and intolerable eyes
Burning beneath a broad and rugged brow;
The head behind it of enormous size.
And as black fir-groves in a large wind bow,
Our rooted congregation, gloom-arrayed,
By that great sad voice deep and full were swayed:--

O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!

My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope
To find some solace for your wild unrest.

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

We finish thus; and all our wretched race
Shall finish with its cycle, and give place
To other beings with their own time-doom:
Infinite aeons ere our kind began;
Infinite aeons after the last man
Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb.

We bow down to the universal laws,
Which never had for man a special clause
Of cruelty or kindness, love or hate:
If toads and vultures are obscene to sight,
If tigers burn with beauty and with might,
Is it by favour or by wrath of Fate?

All substance lives and struggles evermore
Through countless shapes continually at war,
By countless interactions interknit:
If one is born a certain day on earth,
All times and forces tended to that birth,
Not all the world could change or hinder it.

I find no hint throughout the Universe
Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse;
I find alone Necessity Supreme;
With infinite Mystery, abysmal, dark,
Unlighted ever by the faintest spark
For us the flitting shadows of a dream.

O Brothers of sad lives! they are so brief;
A few short years must bring us all relief:
Can we not bear these years of laboring breath?
But if you would not this poor life fulfil,
Lo, you are free to end it when you will,
Without the fear of waking after death.--

The organ-like vibrations of his voice
Thrilled through the vaulted aisles and died away;
The yearning of the tones which bade rejoice
Was sad and tender as a requiem lay:
Our shadowy congregation rested still
As brooding on that "End it when you will."

XV

Wherever men are gathered, all the air
Is charged with human feeling, human thought;
Each shout and cry and laugh, each curse and prayer,
Are into its vibrations surely wrought;
Unspoken passion, wordless meditation,
Are breathed into it with our respiration
It is with our life fraught and overfraught.

So that no man there breathes earth's simple breath,
As if alone on mountains or wide seas;
But nourishes warm life or hastens death
With joys and sorrows, health and foul disease,
Wisdom and folly, good and evil labours,
Incessant of his multitudinous neighbors;
He in his turn affecting all of these.

That City's atmosphere is dark and dense,
Although not many exiles wander there,
With many a potent evil influence,
Each adding poison to the poisoned air;
Infections of unutterable sadness,
Infections of incalculable madness,
Infections of incurable despair.

XVI

Our shadowy congregation rested still,
As musing on that message we had heard
And brooding on that "End it when you will;"
Perchance awaiting yet some other word;
When keen as lightning through a muffled sky
Sprang forth a shrill and lamentable cry:--

The man speaks sooth, alas! the man speaks sooth:
We have no personal life beyond the grave;
There is no God; Fate knows nor wrath nor ruth:
Can I find here the comfort which I crave?

In all eternity I had one chance,
One few years' term of gracious human life:
The splendours of the intellect's advance,
The sweetness of the home with babes and wife;

The social pleasures with their genial wit:
The fascination of the worlds of art,
The glories of the worlds of nature, lit
By large imagination's glowing heart;

The rapture of mere being, full of health;
The careless childhood and the ardent youth,
The strenuous manhood winning various wealth,
The reverend age serene with life's long truth:

All the sublime prerogatives of Man;
The storied memories of the times of old,
The patient tracking of the world's great plan
Through sequences and changes myriadfold.

This chance was never offered me before;
For me this infinite Past is blank and dumb:
This chance recurreth never, nevermore;
Blank, blank for me the infinite To-come.

And this sole chance was frustrate from my birth,
A mockery, a delusion; and my breath
Of noble human life upon this earth
So racks me that I sigh for senseless death.

My wine of life is poison mixed with gall,
My noonday passes in a nightmare dream,
I worse than lose the years which are my all:
What can console me for the loss supreme?

Speak not of comfort where no comfort is,
Speak not at all: can words make foul things fair?
Our life's a cheat, our death a black abyss:
Hush and be mute envisaging despair.--

This vehement voice came from the northern aisle
Rapid and shrill to its abrupt harsh close;
And none gave answer for a certain while,
For words must shrink from these most wordless woes;
At last the pulpit speaker simply said,
With humid eyes and thoughtful drooping head:--

My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus;
This life itself holds nothing good for us,
But ends soon and nevermore can be;
And we knew nothing of it ere our birth,
And shall know nothing when consigned to earth:
I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me.

XVII

How the moon triumphs through the endless nights!
How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel
Their thick processions of supernal lights
Around the blue vault obdurate as steel!
And men regard with passionate awe and yearning
The mighty marching and the golden burning,
And think the heavens respond to what they feel.

Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream
Are glorified from vision as they pass
The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream;
Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass
To restless crystals; cornice dome and column
Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn;
Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass.

With such a living light these dead eyes shine,
These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze
We read a pity, tremulous, divine,
Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays:
Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender;
There is no heart or mind in all their splendour,
They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze.

If we could near them with the flight unflown,
We should but find them worlds as sad as this,
Or suns all self-consuming like our own
Enringed by planet worlds as much amiss:
They wax and wane through fusion and confusion;
The spheres eternal are a grand illusion,
The empyrean is a void abyss.

XVIII

I wandered in a suburb of the north,
And reached a spot whence three close lanes led down,
Beneath thick trees and hedgerows winding forth
Like deep brook channels, deep and dark and lown:
The air above was wan with misty light,
The dull grey south showed one vague blur of white.

I took the left-hand path and slowly trod
Its earthen footpath, brushing as I went
The humid leafage; and my feet were shod
With heavy languor, and my frame downbent,
With infinite sleepless weariness outworn,
So many nights I thus had paced forlorn.

After a hundred steps I grew aware
Of something crawling in the lane below;
It seemed a wounded creature prostrate there
That sobbed with pangs in making progress slow,
The hind limbs stretched to push, the fore limbs then
To drag; for it would die in its own den.

But coming level with it I discerned
That it had been a man; for at my tread
It stopped in its sore travail and half-turned,
Leaning upon its right, and raised its head,
And with the left hand twitched back as in ire
Long grey unreverend locks befouled with mire.

A haggard filthy face with bloodshot eyes,
An infamy for manhood to behold.
He gasped all trembling, What, you want my prize?
You leave, to rob me, wine and lust and gold
And all that men go mad upon, since you
Have traced my sacred secret of the clue?

You think that I am weak and must submit
Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade,
And you are dead as if I clove with it
That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed! betrayed!
I fling this phial if you seek to pass,
And you are forthwith shrivelled up like grass.

And then with sudden change, Take thought! take thought!
Have pity on me! it is mine alone.
If you could find, it would avail you naught;
Seek elsewhere on the pathway of your own:
For who of mortal or immortal race
The lifetrack of another can retrace?

Did you but know my agony and toil!
Two lanes diverge up yonder from this lane;
My thin blood marks the long length of their soil;
Such clue I left, who sought my clue in vain:
My hands and knees are worn both flesh and bone;
I cannot move but with continual moan.

But I am in the very way at last
To find the long-lost broken golden thread
Which unites my present with my past,
If you but go your own way. And I said,
I will retire as soon as you have told
Whereunto leadeth this lost thread of gold.

And so you know it not! he hissed with scorn;
I feared you, imbecile! It leads me back
From this accursed night without a morn,
And through the deserts which have else no track,
And through vast wastes of horror-haunted time,
To Eden innocence in Eden's clime:

And I become a nursling soft and pure,
An infant cradled on its mother's knee,
Without a past, love-cherished and secure;
Which if it saw this loathsome present Me,
Would plunge its face into the pillowing breast,
And scream abhorrence hard to lull to rest.

He turned to grope; and I retiring brushed
Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face,
And mused, His life would grow, the germ uncrushed;
He should to antenatal night retrace,
And hide his elements in that large womb
Beyond the reach of man-evolving Doom.

And even thus, what weary way were planned,
To seek oblivion through the far-off gate
Of birth, when that of death is close at hand!
For this is law, if law there be in Fate:
What never has been, yet may have its when;
The thing which has been, never is again.

XIX

The mighty river flowing dark and deep,
With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides
Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep,
Is named the River of the Suicides;
For night by night some lorn wretch overweary,
And shuddering from the future yet more dreary,
Within its cold secure oblivion hides.

One plunges from a bridge's parapet,
As if by some blind and sudden frenzy hurled;
Another wades in slow with purpose set
Until the waters are above him furled;
Another in a boat with dreamlike motion
Glides drifting down into the desert ocean,
To starve or sink from out the desert world.

They perish from their suffering surely thus,
For none beholding them attempts to save,
The while thinks how soon, solicitous,
He may seek refuge in the self-same wave;
Some hour when tired of ever-vain endurance
Impatience will forerun the sweet assurance
Of perfect peace eventual in the grave.

When this poor tragic-farce has palled us long,
Why actors and spectators do we stay?--
To fill our so-short roles out right or wrong;
To see what shifts are yet in the dull play
For our illusion; to refrain from grieving
Dear foolish friends by our untimely leaving:
But those asleep at home, how blest are they!

Yet it is but for one night after all:
What matters one brief night of dreary pain?
When after it the weary eyelids fall
Upon the weary eyes and wasted brain;
And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish
In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish,
That one best sleep which never wakes again.

XX

I sat me weary on a pillar's base,
And leaned against the shaft; for broad moonlight
O'erflowed the peacefulness of cloistered space,
A shore of shadow slanting from the right:
The great cathedral's western front stood there,
A wave-worn rock in that calm sea of air.

Before it, opposite my place of rest,
Two figures faced each other, large, austere;
A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast,
An angel standing in the moonlight clear;
So mighty by magnificence of form,
They were not dwarfed beneath that mass enorm.

Upon the cross-hilt of the naked sword
The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held;
His vigilant intense regard was poured
Upon the creature placidly unquelled,
Whose front was set at level gaze which took
No heed of aught, a solemn trance-like look.

And as I pondered these opposed shapes
My eyelids sank in stupor, that dull swoon
Which drugs and with a leaden mantle drapes
The outworn to worse weariness. But soon
A sharp and clashing noise the stillness broke,
And from the evil lethargy I woke.

The angel's wings had fallen, stone on stone,
And lay there shattered; hence the sudden sound:
A warrior leaning on his sword alone
Now watched the sphinx with that regard profound;
The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware
Of nothing in the vast abyss of air.

Again I sank in that repose unsweet,
Again a clashing noise my slumber rent;
The warrior's sword lay broken at his feet:
An unarmed man with raised hands impotent
Now stood before the sphinx, which ever kept
Such mien as if open eyes it slept.

My eyelids sank in spite of wonder grown;
A louder crash upstartled me in dread:
The man had fallen forward, stone on stone,
And lay there shattered, with his trunkless head
Between the monster's large quiescent paws,
Beneath its grand front changeless as life's laws.

The moon had circled westward full and bright,
And made the temple-front a mystic dream,
And bathed the whole enclosure with its light,
The sworded angel's wrecks, the sphinx supreme:
I pondered long that cold majestic face
Whose vision seemed of infinite void space.

XXI

Anear the centre of that northern crest
Stands out a level upland bleak and bare,
From which the city east and south and west
Sinks gently in long waves; and throned there
An Image sits, stupendous, superhuman,
The bronze colossus of a winged Woman,
Upon a graded granite base foursquare.

Low-seated she leans forward massively,
With cheek on clenched left hand, the forearm's might
Erect, its elbow on her rounded knee;
Across a clasped book in her lap the right
Upholds a pair of compasses; she gazes
With full set eyes, but wandering in thick mazes
Of sombre thought beholds no outward sight.

Words cannot picture her; but all men know
That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought
Three centuries and threescore years ago,
With phantasies of his peculiar thought:
The instruments of carpentry and science
Scattered about her feet, in strange alliance
With the keen wolf-hound sleeping undistraught;

Scales, hour-glass, bell, and magic-square above;
The grave and solid infant perched beside,
With open winglets that might bear a dove,
Intent upon its tablets, heavy-eyed;
Her folded wings as of a mighty eagle,
But all too impotent to lift the regal
Robustness of her earth-born strength and pride;

And with those wings, and that light wreath which seems
To mock her grand head and the knotted frown
Of forehead charged with baleful thoughts and dreams,
The household bunch of keys, the housewife's gown
Voluminous, indented, and yet rigid
As if a shell of burnished metal frigid,
The feet thick-shod to tread all weakness down;

The comet hanging o'er the waste dark seas,
The massy rainbow curved in front of it
Beyond the village with the masts and trees;
The snaky imp, dog-headed, from the Pit,
Bearing upon its batlike leathern pinions
Her name unfolded in the sun's dominions,
The "MELENCOLIA" that transcends all wit.

Thus has the artist copied her, and thus
Surrounded to expound her form sublime,
Her fate heroic and calamitous;
Fronting the dreadful mysteries of Time,
Unvanquished in defeat and desolation,
Undaunted in the hopeless conflagration
Of the day setting on her baffled prime.

Baffled and beaten back she works on still,
Weary and sick of soul she works the more,
Sustained by her indomitable will:
The hands shall fashion and the brain shall pore,
And all her sorrow shall be turned to labour,
Till Death the friend-foe piercing with his sabre
That mighty heart of hearts ends bitter war.

But as if blacker night could dawn on night,
With tenfold gloom on moonless night unstarred,
A sense more tragic than defeat and blight,
More desperate than strife with hope debarred,
More fatal than the adamantine Never
Encompassing her passionate endeavour,
Dawns glooming in her tenebrous regard:

To sense that every struggle brings defeat
Because Fate holds no prize to crown success;
That all the oracles are dumb or cheat
Because they have no secret to express;
That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain
Because there is no light beyond the curtain;
That all is vanity and nothingness.

Titanic from her high throne in the north,
That City's sombre Patroness and Queen,
In bronze sublimity she gazes forth
Over her Capital of teen and threne,
Over the river with its isles and bridges,
The marsh and moorland, to the stern rock-ridges,
Confronting them with a coeval mien.

The moving moon and stars from east to west
Circle before her in the sea of air;
Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest.
Her subjects often gaze up to her there:
The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance,
The weak new terrors; all, renewed assurance
And confirmation of the old despair.

poem by James Thomson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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