Canto III

Hail, Muse! et cetera.—We left Juan sleeping,Pillow’d upon a fair and happy breast,And watch’d by eyes that never yet knew weeping,And loved by a young heart, too deeply blestTo feel the poison through her spirit creeping,Or know who rested there, a foe to rest,Had soil’d the current of her sinless years,And turn’d her pure heart’s purest blood to tears!

O, Love! what is it in this world of oursWhich makes it fatal to be loved? Ah, whyWith cypress branches hast thou Wreathed thy bowers,And made thy best interpreter a sigh?As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers,And place them on their breast—but place to die—Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherishAre laid within our bosoms but to perish.

In her first passion woman loves her lover,In all the others all she loves is love,Which grows a habit she can ne’er get over,And fits her loosely—like an easy glove,As you may find, whene’er you like to prove her:One man alone at first her heart can move;She then prefers him in the plural number,Not finding that the additions much encumber.

I know not if the fault be men’s or theirs;But one thing ’s pretty sure; a woman planted(Unless at once she plunge for life in prayers)After a decent time must be gallanted;Although, no doubt, her first of love affairsIs that to which her heart is wholly granted;Yet there are some, they say, who have had none,But those who have ne’er end with only one.

’Tis melancholy, and a fearful signOf human frailty, folly, also crime,That love and marriage rarely can combine,Although they both are born in the same clime;Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine—A sad, sour, sober beverage—by timeIs sharpen’d from its high celestial flavourDown to a very homely household savour.

There’s something of antipathy, as ’twere,Between their present and their future state;A kind of flattery that ’s hardly fairIs used until the truth arrives too late—Yet what can people do, except despair?The same things change their names at such a rate;For instance—passion in a lover ’s glorious,But in a husband is pronounced uxorious.

Men grow ashamed of being so very fond;They sometimes also get a little tired(But that, of course, is rare), and then despond:The same things cannot always be admired,Yet ’tis ‘so nominated in the bond,’That both are tied till one shall have expired.Sad thought! to lose the spouse that was adorningOur days, and put one’s servants into mourning.

There’s doubtless something in domestic doingsWhich forms, in fact, true love’s antithesis;Romances paint at full length people’s wooings,But only give a bust of marriages;For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,There’s nothing wrong in a connubial kiss:Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife,He would have written sonnets all his life?

All tragedies are finish’d by a death,All comedies are ended by a marriage;The future states of both are left to faith,For authors fear description might disparageThe worlds to come of both, or fall beneath,And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage;So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready,They say no more of Death or of the Lady.

The only two that in my recollectionHave sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, areDante and Milton, and of both the affectionWas hapless in their nuptials, for some barOf fault or temper ruin’d the connection(Such things, in fact, it don’t ask much to mar):But Dante’s Beatrice and Milton’s EveWere not drawn from their spouses, you conceive.

Some persons say that Dante meant theologyBy Beatrice, and not a mistress—I,Although my opinion may require apology,Deem this a commentator’s fantasy,Unless indeed it was from his own knowledge heDecided thus, and show’d good reason why;I think that Dante’s more abstruse ecstaticsMeant to personify the mathematics.

Haidee and Juan were not married, butThe fault was theirs, not mine; it is not fair,Chaste reader, then, in any way to putThe blame on me, unless you wish they were;Then if you’d have them wedded, please to shutThe book which treats of this erroneous pair,Before the consequences grow too awful;’Tis dangerous to read of loves unlawful.

Yet they were happy,—happy in the illicitIndulgence of their innocent desires;But more imprudent grown with every visit,Haidee forgot the island was her sire’s;When we have what we like, ’tis hard to miss it,At least in the beginning, ere one tires;Thus she came often, not a moment losing,Whilst her piratical papa was cruising.

Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange,Although he fleeced the flags of every nation,For into a prime minister but changeHis title, and ’tis nothing but taxation;But he, more modest, took an humbler rangeOf life, and in an honester vocationPursued o’er the high seas his watery journey,And merely practised as a sea-attorney.

The good old gentleman had been detain’dBy winds and waves, and some important captures;And, in the hope of more, at sea remain’d,Although a squall or two had damp’d his raptures,By swamping one of the prizes; he had chain’dHis prisoners, dividing them like chaptersIn number’d lots; they all had cuffs and collars,And averaged each from ten to a hundred dollars.

Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan,Among his friends the Mainots; some he soldTo his Tunis correspondents, save one manToss’d overboard unsaleable (being old);The rest—save here and there some richer one,Reserved for future ransom—in the holdWere link’d alike, as for the common people heHad a large order from the Dey of Tripoli.

The merchandise was served in the same way,Pieced out for different marts in the Levant;Except some certain portions of the prey,Light classic articles of female want,French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, teapot, tray,Guitars and castanets from Alicant,All which selected from the spoil he gathers,Robb’d for his daughter by the best of fathers.

A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw,Two parrots, with a Persian cat and kittens,He chose from several animals he saw—A terrier, too, which once had been a Briton’s,Who dying on the coast of Ithaca,The peasants gave the poor dumb thing a pittance;These to secure in this strong blowing weather,He caged in one huge hamper altogether.

Then having settled his marine affairs,Despatching single cruisers here and there,His vessel having need of some repairs,He shaped his course to where his daughter fairContinued still her hospitable cares;But that part of the coast being shoal and bare,And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile,His port lay on the other side o’ the isle.

And there he went ashore without delay,Having no custom-house nor quarantineTo ask him awkward questions on the wayAbout the time and place where he had been:He left his ship to be hove down next day,With orders to the people to careen;So that all hands were busy beyond measure,In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and treasure.

Arriving at the summit of a hillWhich overlook’d the white walls of his home,He stopp’d.—What singular emotions fillTheir bosoms who have been induced to roam!With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill—With love for many, and with fears for some;All feelings which o’erleap the years long lost,And bring our hearts back to their starting-post.

The approach of home to husbands and to sires,After long travelling by land or water,Most naturally some small doubt inspires—A female family ’s a serious matter(None trusts the sex more, or so much admires—But they hate flattery, so I never flatter);Wives in their husbands’ absences grow subtler,And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

An honest gentleman at his returnMay not have the good fortune of Ulysses;Not all lone matrons for their husbands mourn,Or show the same dislike to suitors’ kisses;The odds are that he finds a handsome urnTo his memory—and two or three young missesBorn to some friend, who holds his wife and riches,—And that his Argus—bites him by the breeches.

If single, probably his plighted fairHas in his absence wedded some rich miser;But all the better, for the happy pairMay quarrel, and the lady growing wiser,He may resume his amatory careAs cavalier servente, or despise her;And that his sorrow may not be a dumb one,Write odes on the Inconstancy of Woman.

And oh! ye gentlemen who have alreadySome chaste liaison of the kind—I meanAn honest friendship with a married lady—The only thing of this sort ever seenTo last—of all connections the most steady,And the true Hymen (the first ’s but a screen)—Yet for all that keep not too long away,I’ve known the absent wrong’d four times a day.

Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who hadMuch less experience of dry land than ocean,On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt glad;But not knowing metaphysics, had no notionOf the true reason of his not being sad,Or that of any other strong emotion;He loved his child, and would have wept the loss of her,But knew the cause no more than a philosopher.

He saw his white walls shining in the sun,His garden trees all shadowy and green;He heard his rivulet’s light bubbling run,The distant dog-bark; and perceived betweenThe umbrage of the wood so cool and dunThe moving figures, and the sparkling sheenOf arms (in the East all arm)—and various dyesOf colour’d garbs, as bright as butterflies.

And as the spot where they appear he nears,Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling,He hears—alas! no music of the spheres,But an unhallow’d, earthly sound of fiddling!A melody which made him doubt his ears,The cause being past his guessing or unriddling;A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly after,A most unoriental roar of laughter.

And still more nearly to the place advancing,Descending rather quickly the declivity,Through the waved branches o’er the greensward glancing,’Midst other indications of festivity,Seeing a troop of his domestics dancingLike dervises, who turn as on a pivot, hePerceived it was the Pyrrhic dance so martial,To which the Levantines are very partial.

And further on a group of Grecian girls,The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,Were strung together like a row of pearls,Link’d hand in hand, and dancing; each too havingDown her white neck long floating auburn curls(The least of which would set ten poets raving);Their leader sang—and bounded to her song,With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.

And here, assembled cross-legg’d round their trays,Small social parties just begun to dine;Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze,And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine,And sherbet cooling in the porous vase;Above them their dessert grew on its vine,The orange and pomegranate nodding o’erDropp’d in their laps, scarce pluck’d, their mellow store.

A band of children, round a snow-white ram,There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers;While peaceful as if still an unwean’d lamb,The patriarch of the flock all gently cowersHis sober head, majestically tame,Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowersHis brow, as if in act to butt, and thenYielding to their small hands, draws back again.

Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses,Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks,Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses,The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks,The innocence which happy childhood blesses,Made quite a picture of these little Greeks;So that the philosophical beholderSigh’d for their sakes—that they should e’er grow older.

Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling talesTo a sedate grey circle of old smokers,Of secret treasures found in hidden vales,Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers,Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails,Of rocks bewitch’d that open to the knockers,Of magic ladies who, by one sole act,Transform’d their lords to beasts (but that ’s a fact).

Here was no lack of innocent diversionFor the imagination or the senses,Song, dance, wine, music, stories from the Persian,All pretty pastimes in which no offence is;But Lambro saw all these things with aversion,Perceiving in his absence such expenses,Dreading that climax of all human ills,The inflammation of his weekly bills.

Ah! what is man? what perils still environThe happiest mortals even after dinner—A day of gold from out an age of ironIs all that life allows the luckiest sinner;Pleasure (whene’er she sings, at least) ’s a siren,That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner;Lambro’s reception at his people’s banquetWas such as fire accords to a wet blanket.

He—being a man who seldom used a wordToo much, and wishing gladly to surprise(In general he surprised men with the sword)His daughter—had not sent before to adviseOf his arrival, so that no one stirr’d;And long he paused to re-assure his eyesIn fact much more astonish’d than delighted,To find so much good company invited.

He did not know (alas! how men will lie)That a report (especially the Greeks)Avouch’d his death (such people never die),And put his house in mourning several weeks,—But now their eyes and also lips were dry;The bloom, too, had return’d to Haidee’s cheeks,Her tears, too, being return’d into their fount,She now kept house upon her own account.

Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, and fiddling,Which turn’d the isle into a place of pleasure;The servants all were getting drunk or idling,A life which made them happy beyond measure.Her father’s hospitality seem’d middling,Compared with what Haidee did with his treasure;’Twas wonderful how things went on improving,While she had not one hour to spare from loving.

Perhaps you think in stumbling on this feastHe flew into a passion, and in factThere was no mighty reason to be pleased;Perhaps you prophesy some sudden act,The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the least,To teach his people to be more exact,And that, proceeding at a very high rate,He show’d the royal penchants of a pirate.

You’re wrong.—He was the mildest manner’d manThat ever scuttled ship or cut a throat:With such true breeding of a gentleman,You never could divine his real thought;No courtier could, and scarcely woman canGird more deceit within a petticoat;Pity he loved adventurous life’s variety,He was so great a loss to good society.

Advancing to the nearest dinner tray,Tapping the shoulder of the nighest guest,With a peculiar smile, which, by the way,Boded no good, whatever it express’d,He ask’d the meaning of this holiday;The vinous Greek to whom he had address’dHis question, much too merry to divineThe questioner, fill’d up a glass of wine,

And without turning his facetious head,Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air,Presented the o’erflowing cup, and said,‘Talking ’s dry work, I have no time to spare.’A second hiccup’d, ‘Our old master ’s dead,You’d better ask our mistress who ’s his heir.’‘Our mistress!’ quoth a third: ‘Our mistress!—pooh!—You mean our master—not the old, but new.’

These rascals, being new comers, knew not whomThey thus address’d—and Lambro’s visage fell—And o’er his eye a momentary gloomPass’d, but he strove quite courteously to quellThe expression, and endeavouring to resumeHis smile, requested one of them to tellThe name and quality of his new patron,Who seem’d to have turn’d Haidee into a matron.

‘I know not,’ quoth the fellow, ‘who or whatHe is, nor whence he came—and little care;But this I know, that this roast capon ’s fat,And that good wine ne’er wash’d down better fare;And if you are not satisfied with that,Direct your questions to my neighbour there;He’ll answer all for better or for worse,For none likes more to hear himself converse.’

I said that Lambro was a man of patience,And certainly he show’d the best of breeding,Which scarce even France, the paragon of nations,E’er saw her most polite of sons exceeding;He bore these sneers against his near relations,His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding,The insults, too, of every servile glutton,Who all the time was eating up his mutton.

Now in a person used to much command—To bid men come, and go, and come again—To see his orders done, too, out of hand—Whether the word was death, or but the chain—It may seem strange to find his manners bland;Yet such things are, which I can not explain,Though doubtless he who can command himselfIs good to govern—almost as a Guelf.

Not that he was not sometimes rash or so,But never in his real and serious mood;Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow,He lay coil’d like the boa in the wood;With him it never was a word and blow,His angry word once o’er, he shed no blood,But in his silence there was much to rue,And his one blow left little work for two.

He ask’d no further questions, and proceededOn to the house, but by a private way,So that the few who met him hardly heeded,So little they expected him that day;If love paternal in his bosom pleadedFor Haidee’s sake, is more than I can say,But certainly to one deem’d dead, returning,This revel seem’d a curious mode of mourning.

If all the dead could now return to life(Which God forbid!) or some, or a great many,For instance, if a husband or his wife(Nuptial examples are as good as any),No doubt whate’er might be their former strife,The present weather would be much more rainy—Tears shed into the grave of the connectionWould share most probably its resurrection.

He enter’d in the house no more his home,A thing to human feelings the most trying,And harder for the heart to overcome,Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;To find our hearthstone turn’d into a tomb,And round its once warm precincts palely lyingThe ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief,Beyond a single gentleman’s belief.

He enter’d in the house—his home no more,For without hearts there is no home; and feltThe solitude of passing his own doorWithout a welcome; there he long had dwelt,There his few peaceful days Time had swept o’er,There his worn bosom and keen eye would meltOver the innocence of that sweet child,His only shrine of feelings undefiled.

He was a man of a strange temperament,Of mild demeanour though of savage mood,Moderate in all his habits, and contentWith temperance in pleasure, as in food,Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meantFor something better, if not wholly good;His country’s wrongs and his despair to save herHad stung him from a slave to an enslaver.

The love of power, and rapid gain of gold,The hardness by long habitude produced,The dangerous life in which he had grown old,The mercy he had granted oft abused,The sights he was accustom’d to behold,The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised,Had cost his enemies a long repentance,And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance.

But something of the spirit of old GreeceFlash’d o’er his soul a few heroic rays,Such as lit onward to the Golden FleeceHis predecessors in the Colchian days;T is true he had no ardent love for peace—Alas! his country show’d no path to praise:Hate to the world and war with every nationHe waged, in vengeance of her degradation.

Still o’er his mind the influence of the climeShed its Ionian elegance, which show’dIts power unconsciously full many a time,—A taste seen in the choice of his abode,A love of music and of scenes sublime,A pleasure in the gentle stream that flow’dPast him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,Bedew’d his spirit in his calmer hours.

But whatsoe’er he had of love reposedOn that beloved daughter; she had beenThe only thing which kept his heart unclosedAmidst the savage deeds he had done and seen;A lonely pure affection unopposed:There wanted but the loss of this to weanHis feelings from all milk of human kindness,And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.

The cubless tigress in her jungle ragingIs dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;The ocean when its yeasty war is wagingIs awful to the vessel near the rock;But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,Their fury being spent by its own shock,Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ireOf a strong human heart, and in a sire.

It is a hard although a common caseTo find our children running restive—theyIn whom our brightest days we would retrace,Our little selves re-form’d in finer clay,Just as old age is creeping on apace,And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day,They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,But in good company—the gout or stone.

Yet a fine family is a fine thing(Provided they don’t come in after dinner);’Tis beautiful to see a matron bringHer children up (if nursing them don’t thin her);Like cherubs round an altar-piece they clingTo the fire-side (a sight to touch a sinner).A lady with her daughters or her niecesShines like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces.

Old Lambro pass’d unseen a private gate,And stood within his hall at eventide;Meantime the lady and her lover sateAt wassail in their beauty and their pride:An ivory inlaid table spread with stateBefore them, and fair slaves on every side;Gems, gold, and silver, form’d the service mostly,Mother of pearl and coral the less costly.

The dinner made about a hundred dishes;Lamb and pistachio nuts—in short, all meats,And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fishesWere of the finest that e’er flounced in nets,Drest to a Sybarite’s most pamper’d wishes;The beverage was various sherbetsOf raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice,Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best for use.

These were ranged round, each in its crystal ewer,And fruits, and date-bread loaves closed the repast,And Mocha’s berry, from Arabia pure,In small fine China cups, came in at last;Gold cups of filigree made to secureThe hand from burning underneath them placed,Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were boil’dUp with the coffee, which (I think) they spoil’d.

The hangings of the room were tapestry, madeOf velvet panels, each of different hue,And thick with damask flowers of silk inlaid;And round them ran a yellow border too;The upper border, richly wrought, display’d,Embroider’d delicately o’er with blue,Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters,From poets, or the moralists their betters.

These Oriental writings on the wall,Quite common in those countries, are a kindOf monitors adapted to recall,Like skulls at Memphian banquets, to the mindThe words which shook Belshazzar in his hall,And took his kingdom from him: You will find,Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure,There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.

A beauty at the season’s close grown hectic,A genius who has drunk himself to death,A rake turn’d methodistic, or Eclectic(For that ’s the name they like to pray beneath)—But most, an alderman struck apoplectic,Are things that really take away the breath,—And show that late hours, wine, and love are ableTo do not much less damage than the table.

Haidee and Juan carpeted their feetOn crimson satin, border’d with pale blue;Their sofa occupied three parts completeOf the apartment—and appear’d quite new;The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet)Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grewA sun emboss’d in gold, whose rays of tissue,Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,Had done their work of splendour; Indian matsAnd Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain,Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats,And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, that gainTheir bread as ministers and favourites (that ’sTo say, by degradation) mingled thereAs plentiful as in a court, or fair.

There was no want of lofty mirrors, andThe tables, most of ebony inlaidWith mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand,Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made,Fretted with gold or silver:—by command,The greater part of these were ready spreadWith viands and sherbets in ice—and wine—Kept for all comers at all hours to dine.

Of all the dresses I select Haidee’s:She wore two jelicks—one was of pale yellow;Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise—’Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow;With buttons form’d of pearls as large as peas,All gold and crimson shone her jelick’s fellow,And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her,Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flow’d round her.

One large gold bracelet clasp’d each lovely arm,Lockless—so pliable from the pure goldThat the hand stretch’d and shut it without harm,The limb which it adorn’d its only mould;So beautiful—its very shape would charm;And, clinging as if loath to lose its hold,The purest ore enclosed the whitest skinThat e’er by precious metal was held in.

Around, as princess of her father’s land,A like gold bar above her instep roll’dAnnounced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand;Her hair was starr’d with gems; her veil’s fine foldBelow her breast was fasten’d with a bandOf lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told;Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furl’dAbout the prettiest ankle in the world.

Her hair’s long auburn waves down to her heelFlow’d like an Alpine torrent which the sunDyes with his morning light,—and would concealHer person if allow’d at large to run,And still they seem resentfully to feelThe silken fillet’s curb, and sought to shunTheir bonds whene’er some Zephyr caught beganTo offer his young pinion as her fan.

Round her she made an atmosphere of life,The very air seem’d lighter from her eyes,They were so soft and beautiful, and rifeWith all we can imagine of the skies,And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife—Too pure even for the purest human ties;Her overpowering presence made you feelIt would not be idolatry to kneel.

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged(It is the country’s custom), but in vain;For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed,The glossy rebels mock’d the jetty stain,And in their native beauty stood avenged:Her nails were touch’d with henna; but againThe power of art was turn’d to nothing, forThey could not look more rosy than before.

The henna should be deeply dyed to makeThe skin relieved appear more fairly fair;She had no need of this, day ne’er will breakOn mountain tops more heavenly white than her:The eye might doubt if it were well awake,She was so like a vision; I might err,But Shakspeare also says, ’tis very silly‘To gild refined gold, or paint the lily’

Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,But a white baracan, and so transparentThe sparkling gems beneath you might behold,Like small stars through the milky way apparent;His turban, furl’d in many a graceful fold,An emerald aigrette with Haidee’s hair in ’tSurmounted as its clasp—a glowing crescent,Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.

And now they were diverted by their suite,Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet,Which made their new establishment complete;The last was of great fame, and liked to show it:His verses rarely wanted their due feet;And for his theme—he seldom sung below it,He being paid to satirize or flatter,As the psalm says, ‘inditing a good matter.’

He praised the present, and abused the past,Reversing the good custom of old days,An Eastern anti-jacobin at lastHe turn’d, preferring pudding to no praise—For some few years his lot had been o’ercastBy his seeming independent in his lays,But now he sung the Sultan and the PachaWith truth like Southey, and with verse like Crashaw.

He was a man who had seen many changes,And always changed as true as any needle;His polar star being one which rather ranges,And not the fix’d—he knew the way to wheedle:So vile he ’scaped the doom which oft avenges;And being fluent (save indeed when fee’d ill),He lied with such a fervour of intention—There was no doubt he earn’d his laureate pension.

But he had genius,—when a turncoat has it,The ‘Vates irritabilis’ takes careThat without notice few full moons shall pass it;Even good men like to make the public stare:—But to my subject—let me see—what was it?—O!—the third canto—and the pretty pair—Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and modeOf living in their insular abode.

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no lessIn company a very pleasant fellow,Had been the favourite of full many a messOf men, and made them speeches when half mellow;And though his meaning they could rarely guess,Yet still they deign’d to hiccup or to bellowThe glorious meed of popular applause,Of which the first ne’er knows the second cause.

But now being lifted into high society,And having pick’d up several odds and endsOf free thoughts in his travels for variety,He deem’d, being in a lone isle, among friends,That, without any danger of a riot, heMight for long lying make himself amends;And, singing as he sung in his warm youth,Agree to a short armistice with truth.

He had travell’d ’mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,And knew the self-loves of the different nations;And having lived with people of all ranks,Had something ready upon most occasions—Which got him a few presents and some thanks.He varied with some skill his adulations;To ‘do at Rome as Romans do,’ a pieceOf conduct was which he observed in Greece.

Thus, usually, when he was ask’d to sing,He gave the different nations something national;’Twas all the same to him—‘God save the king,’Or ‘Ca ira,’ according to the fashion all:His muse made increment of any thing,From the high lyric down to the low rational:If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinderHimself from being as pliable as Pindar?

In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;In England a six canto quarto tale;In Spain, he’d make a ballad or romance onThe last war—much the same in Portugal;In Germany, the Pegasus he’d prance onWould be old Goethe’s (see what says De Stael);In Italy he’d ape the ‘Trecentisti;’In Greece, he sing some sort of hymn like this t’ ye:

The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!Where burning Sappho loved and sung,Where grew the arts of war and peace,Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!Eternal summer gilds them yet,But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,Have found the fame your shores refuse;Their place of birth alone is muteTo sounds which echo further westThan your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’

The mountains look on Marathon—And Marathon looks on the sea;And musing there an hour alone,I dream’d that Greece might still be free;For standing on the Persians’ grave,I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sate on the rocky browWhich looks o’er sea-born Salamis;And ships, by thousands, lay below,And men in nations;—all were his!He counted them at break of day—And when the sun set where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,My country? On thy voiceless shoreThe heroic lay is tuneless now—The heroic bosom beats no more!And must thy lyre, so long divine,Degenerate into hands like mine?

’Tis something, in the dearth of fame,Though link’d among a fetter’d race,To feel at least a patriot’s shame,Even as I sing, suffuse my face;For what is left the poet here?For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o’er days more blest?Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled.Earth! render back from out thy breastA remnant of our Spartan dead!Of the three hundred grant but three,To make a new Thermopylae!

What, silent still? and silent all?Ah! no;—the voices of the deadSound like a distant torrent’s fall,And answer, ‘Let one living head,But one arise,—we come, we come!’’Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain—in vain: strike other chords;Fill high the cup with Samian wine!Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!Hark! rising to the ignoble call—How answers each bold Bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?Of two such lessons, why forgetThe nobler and the manlier one?You have the letters Cadmus gave—Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!We will not think of themes like these!It made Anacreon’s song divine:He served—but served Polycrates—A tyrant; but our masters thenWere still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the ChersoneseWas freedom’s best and bravest friend;That tyrant was Miltiades!O! that the present hour would lendAnother despot of the kind!Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,Exists the remnant of a lineSuch as the Doric mothers bore;And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks—They have a king who buys and sells;In native swords, and native ranks,The only hope of courage dwells;But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,Would break your shield, however broad.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!Our virgins dance beneath the shade—I see their glorious black eyes shine;But gazing on each glowing maid,My own the burning tear-drop laves,To think such breasts must suckle slaves

Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,Where nothing, save the waves and I,May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;There, swan-like, let me sing and die:A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung,The modern Greek, in tolerable verse;If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young,Yet in these times he might have done much worse:His strain display’d some feeling—right or wrong;And feeling, in a poet, is the sourceOf others’ feeling; but they are such liars,And take all colours—like the hands of dyers.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,Falling like dew, upon a thought, producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;’Tis strange, the shortest letter which man usesInstead of speech, may form a lasting linkOf ages; to what straits old Time reducesFrail man, when paper—even a rag like this,Survives himself, his tomb, and all that ’s his.

And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank,His station, generation, even his nation,Become a thing, or nothing, save to rankIn chronological commemoration,Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank,Or graven stone found in a barrack’s stationIn digging the foundation of a closet,May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.

And glory long has made the sages smile;’Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind—Depending more upon the historian’s styleThan on the name a person leaves behind:Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:The present century was growing blindTo the great Marlborough’s skill in giving knocks,Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe.

Milton ’s the prince of poets—so we say;A little heavy, but no less divine:An independent being in his day—Learn’d, pious, temperate in love and wine;But, his life falling into Johnson’s way,We’re told this great high priest of all the NineWas whipt at college—a harsh sire—odd spouse,For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.

All these are, certes, entertaining facts,Like Shakspeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes;Like Titus’ youth, and Caesar’s earliest acts;Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);Like Cromwell’s pranks;—but although truth exactsThese amiable descriptions from the scribes,As most essential to their hero’s story,They do not much contribute to his glory.

All are not moralists, like Southey, whenHe prated to the world of ‘Pantisocracy;’Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who thenSeason’d his pedlar poems with democracy;Or Coleridge, long before his flighty penLet to the Morning Post its aristocracy;When he and Southey, following the same path,Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).

Such names at present cut a convict figure,The very Botany Bay in moral geography;Their loyal treason, renegado rigour,Are good manure for their more bare biography.Wordsworth’s last quarto, by the way, is biggerThan any since the birthday of typography;A drowsy frowzy poem, call’d the ‘Excursion.’Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

He there builds up a formidable dykeBetween his own and others’ intellect;But Wordsworth’s poem, and his followers, likeJoanna Southcote’s Shiloh, and her sect,Are things which in this century don’t strikeThe public mind,—so few are the elect;And the new births of both their stale virginitiesHave proved but dropsies, taken for divinities.

But let me to my story: I must own,If I have any fault, it is digression—Leaving my people to proceed alone,While I soliloquize beyond expression;But these are my addresses from the throne,Which put off business to the ensuing session:Forgetting each omission is a loss toThe world, not quite so great as Ariosto.

I know that what our neighbours call ‘longueurs’(We’ve not so good a word, but have the thingIn that complete perfection which ensuresAn epic from Bob Southey every spring),Form not the true temptation which alluresThe reader; but ’twould not be hard to bringSome fine examples of the epopee,To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.

We learn from Horace, ‘Homer sometimes sleeps;’We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes,—To show with what complacency he creeps,With his dear ‘Waggoners,’ around his lakes.He wishes for ‘a boat’ to sail the deeps—Of ocean?—No, of air; and then he makesAnother outcry for ‘a little boat,’And drivels seas to set it well afloat.

If he must fain sweep o’er the ethereal plain,And Pegasus runs restive in his ‘Waggon,’Could he not beg the loan of Charles’s Wain?Or pray Medea for a single dragon?Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,He fear’d his neck to venture such a nag on,And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

‘Pedlars,’ and ‘Boats,’ and ‘Waggons!’ Oh! ye shadesOf Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?That trash of such sort not alone evadesContempt, but from the bathos’ vast abyssFloats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack CadesOf sense and song above your graves may hiss—The’little boatman’ and his ‘Peter Bell’Can sneer at him who drew ‘Achitophel’!

T’ our tale.—The feast was over, the slaves gone,The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;The Arab lore and poet’s song were done,And every sound of revelry expired;The lady and her lover, left alone,The rosy flood of twilight’s sky admired;—Ave Maria! o’er the earth and sea,That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oftHave felt that moment in its fullest powerSink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,And not a breath crept through the rosy air,And yet the forest leaves seem’d stirr’d with prayer.

Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of prayer!Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of love!Ave Maria! may our spirits dareLook up to thine and to thy Son’s above!Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove—What though ’tis but a pictured image?—strike—That painting is no idol,—’tis too like.

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,In nameless print—that I have no devotion;But set those persons down with me to pray,And you shall see who has the properest notionOf getting into heaven the shortest way;My altars are the mountains and the ocean,Earth, air, stars,—all that springs from the great Whole,Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.

Sweet hour of twilight!—in the solitudeOf the pine forest, and the silent shoreWhich bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow’d o’er,To where the last Caesarean fortress stood,Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio’s loreAnd Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me,How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

The shrill cicadas, people of the pine,Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,Were the sole echoes, save my steed’s and mine,And vesper bell’s that rose the boughs along;The spectre huntsman of Onesti’s line,His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throngWhich learn’d from this example not to flyFrom a true lover,—shadow’d my mind’s eye.

O, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things—Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings,The welcome stall to the o’erlabour’d steer;Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings,Whate’er our household gods protect of dear,Are gather’d round us by thy look of rest;Thou bring’st the child, too, to the mother’s breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heartOf those who sail the seas, on the first dayWhen they from their sweet friends are torn apart;Or fills with love the pilgrim on his wayAs the far bell of vesper makes him start,Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay;Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

When Nero perish’d by the justest doomWhich ever the destroyer yet destroy’d,Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,Of nations freed, and the world overjoy’d,Some hands unseen strew’d flowers upon his tomb:Perhaps the weakness of a heart not voidOf feeling for some kindness done, when powerHad left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

But I’m digressing; what on earth has Nero,Or any such like sovereign buffoons,To do with the transactions of my hero,More than such madmen’s fellow man—the moon’s?Sure my invention must be down at zero,And I grown one of many ‘wooden spoons’Of verse (the name with which we Cantabs pleaseTo dub the last of honours in degrees).

I feel this tediousness will never do—’Tis being too epic, and I must cut down(In copying) this long canto into two;They’ll never find it out, unless I ownThe fact, excepting some experienced few;And then as an improvement ’twill be shown:I’ll prove that such the opinion of the critic isFrom Aristotle passim.—See poietikes.