Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not; However dear or cherish'd in their day: And yet those eyes, which they would fain be weaning At last a slave bethought her of a harp; The harper came, and tuned his instrument; At the first notes, irregular and sharp, On him her flashing eyes a moment bent, Then to the wall she turn'd, as if to warp Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent, And he began a long low island song Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong. LXVI. Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall In time to his old tune; he changed the theme, The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain, Short solace, vain relief!-thought came too quick, Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense; Nothing could make her meet her father's face, Though on all other things with looks intense She gazed, but none she ever could retrace; Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence Availd for either; neither change of place, Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her Senses to sleep-the power seem'd for ever. gone LXIX. Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last, And they who watch'd her nearest could not know The very instant, till the change that cast Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eves-the beautiful, the blackOh! to possess such Justre-and then lack! LXX. She died, but not alone; she held within Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away; None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay: Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair No stone is there to show, no tongue to say What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea's, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades. LXXIII. But many a Greek maid in a loving song Sighs o'er her name, and many an islander With her sire's story makes the night less long, Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her. If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrongA heavy price must all pay who thus err, In some shape; let none think to fly the danger, For, soon or late, Love is his own avenger. LXXIV. But let me change this theme, which grows too sad. And as my Muse is a capricious elf, And when he did, he found himself at sea, Sailing six knots an hour before the wind: The shores of Iliou lay beneath their leeAnother time he might have liked to see 'em, But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigæum. LXXVI. There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is (Flank'd by the Hellespont and by the sca) intomb d the bravest of the brave, Achilles: They say so-(Bryant says the contrary:) And further downward, tall and towering, still is The tumulus-of whom-Heaven knows! f' may Patrochus, Ajax, o; Protesilaus, All heroes who, if living still, would slay us. 1 LXXVII. High barrows, without marble or a name, A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain, And Ida in the distance, still the same, And old Scamander (if 't is he), remain; The situation seems still form'd for fame A hundred thousand men might fight again With ease; but where I sought for Ilion's walls, The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls; LXXVIII. Troops of untended horses; here and there Some little hamlets with new names uncouth; Some shepherds (unlike Paris), led to stare A moment at the European youth Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear; A Turk, with beads in hand and pipe in mouth, Extremely taken with his own religion, Are what I found there-but the devil a Phrygian. LXXIX. Don Juan, here permitted to emerge From his dull cabin, found himself a slave; Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge, O'ershadow'd there by many a hero's grave: Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge A few brief questions; and the answers gave No very satisfactory information About his past or present situation. LXXX. He saw some fellow-captives, who appear'd In their vocation,-had not been attack'd, By one of these, the buffo of the party, In a few words he told their hapless story, Hail'd a strange brig; Corpo di Caio Mario! LXXXIII. « The prima donna, though a little old, Last carnival she made a deal of strife, LXXXIV. «And then there are the dancers; there's the Nini, And made at least five hundred good zecchini, «As for the figuranti, they are like The rest of all that tribe; with here and there There's one, though tall, and stiffer than a pike, Which might go far, but she don't dance with vigour; «As for the men, they are a middling set; The musico is but a crack'd old basin, But, being qualified in one way yet, May the seraglio do to set his face in, And as a servant some preferment get; His singing I no further trust can place in: From all the pope 4 makes yearly, 't would perplex To find three perfect pipes of the third sex. LXXXVII. << The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow; But being the prima donna's near relation, Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, They hired him, though to hear him you'd believe An ass was practising recitative. LXXXVIII. T would not become myself to dwell upon My own merits, and though young—I see, sir—you Have got a travell'd air, which shows you one To whom the opera is by no means new: You 've heard of Raucocanti?--I'm the man; The time may come when you may hear me too; You was not last year at the fair of Lugo, But next, when I'm engaged to sing there-do go. LXXXIX. << Our barytone I almost had forgot, A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit; With graceful action, science not a jot, A voice of no great compass, and not sweet, He always is complaining of his lot, Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street; In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe, Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth,» XC. Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital Was interrupted by the pirate crew, Who came at stated moments to invite all The captives back to their sad births; each threw A rueful glance upon the waves (which bright all, From the blue skies derived a double blue, Dancing all free and happy in the sun), And then went down the hatchway one by one. XCVIII. T is all the same to me, I'm fond of yielding, Who say strange things for so correct an age. My pen, and liked poetic war to wage, And recollect the time when all this cant XCIX. As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble; Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease While the right hand which wrote it still is able, Or of some centuries to take a lease, The grass upon my grave will grow as long, C. Of poets who come down to us through distance CI. And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory 's but an airy lust, Too often in its fury overcoming all Who would, as 't were, identify their dust From out the wide destruction which, entombing all, Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, The very generations of the derd Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an age is fled, And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom: Where are the epitaphs our fathers read? Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom, Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal death. CV. With human blood that column was cemented, Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild CVI. Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought; And the unquiet feelings, which first woke Song in the world, will seek what then they sought; As on the beach the waves at last are broke, Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought, Dash into poetry, which is but passion, Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion. CVII. If in the course of such a life as was At once adventurous and contemplative, Men who partake all passions as they pass, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give Their images again, as in a glass, And in such colours that they seem to live; You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem. CVIII. Oh! ye, who make the fortunes of all books! Benign ceruleans of the second sex! Who advertise new poems by your looks, Your « imprimatur» will ye not annex? What, must I go to the oblivious cooks,Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks? Ah! must I then the only minstrel be Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea? CIX. What, can I prove « a lion» then no more? A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling, To bear the compliments of many a bore, ་ And sigh I can't get out,» like Yorick's starling. Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore (Because the world won't read him, always snarling), That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie. CX. Oh! « darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,» As some one somewhere sings about the sky, And I, learned ladies. ye of say you; They say your stockings are so (leaven knows why, I have examined few pair of that hue); Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the patrician left-legs, which adorn The festal midnight and the levee morn. CXI. Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures: But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover, You read my stanzas, and I read your features: And-but no matter, all those things are over. Still I have no dislike to learned natures, For sometimes such a world of virtues cover: I know one woman of that purple school, The loveliest, chastest, best, but-quite a fool. CXII. Humboldt, «<the first of travellers,» but not As well as the sublime discovery's date, But to the narrative.-The vessel bound CXIV. Some went off dearly: fifteen hundred dollars Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven: Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price Is always much more splendid than a king: But for the destiny of this young troop, How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews, How some to burdens were obliged to stoop, And others rose to the command of crews Hoping no very old vizier might chuse, CXVII. All this must be reserved for further song; Must be postponed discreetly for the present; I'm sensible redundancy is wrong, But could not for the muse of me put less in 't: And now delay the progress of Don Juan, Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Duan, I therefore do denounce all amorous writing, The European with the Asian shore Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream,' Here and there studded with a seventy-four; Sophia's cupola with golden gleam; The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar; The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream, Far less describe, present the view Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu. IV. very I have a passion for the name of « Mary,» All feelings changed, but this was last to vary, A spell from which even yet I am not quite free: But I grow sad—and let a tale grow cold, Which must not be pathetically told. V. The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave VI. "T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning, In all who o'er the great deep take their ways: They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't; Because if drown'd, they can't-if spared, they won't. A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation, And age, and sex, were in the market ranged; Each bevy with the merchaut in his station: Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly changed. All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation, From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged; The negroes more philosophy display'd,— Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd. VIII. Juan was juvenile, and thus was full, As most at his age are, of hope, and health; Yet I must own he look'd a little dull, And now and then a tear stole down by stealth : Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth, IX. Were things to shake a stoic; ne'ertheless, He was above the vulgar by his mien; X. Like a backgammon-board the place was dotted With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale, Though rather more irregularly spotted: Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale. It chanced, amongst the other people lotted, A man of thirty, rather stout and hale, He had an English look; that is, was square One arm had on a bandage rather bloody; And there he stood with such sang-froid, that greater Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator. XII. But seeing at his elbow a mere lad, Of a high spirit evidently, though At present weigh'd down by a doom which had O'erthrown even men, he soon began to show A kind of blunt compassion for the sad Lot of so young a partner in the woe, Which for himself he seem'd to deem no worse Than any other scrape-a thing of course. XIII My boy!» said he, «amidst this motley crew So let us be acquainted, as we ought: pleasure:-Pray, what is your nation! » |