LXIII.

She look'd on many a face with vacant eye,
On many a token without knowing what;
She saw them watch her without asking why,
And reck'd not who around her pillow sat;
Not speechless, though she spoke not: not a sigh
Reveal'd her thoughts; dull silence and quick chat
Were tried in vain by those who served; she gave
No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.
LXIV.

Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;
Her father watch'd, she turn'd her eyes away;
She recognised no being, and no spot,

However dear or cherish'd in their day;
They changed from room to room, but all forgot,
Gentle, but without memory, she lay;

And yet those eyes, which they would fain be weaning Back to old thoughts, seem'd full of fearful meaning.

LXV.

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, And sung of love-the fierce name struck through all Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream "If what she was, and is, if ye could call To be so being; in a gushing stream

The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain,
Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.
LXVII.

Short solace, vain relief!-thought came too quick,
And whirl'd her brain to madness; she arose
As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick,
And flew at all she met, as on her foes ;
But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
Although her paroxysm drew towards its close:
Hers was a frenzy which disdain'd to rave,
Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.
LXVIII.

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

Avail'd for either; neither change of place,
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her
Senses to sleep-the power seem'd gone for ever.
LXIX.

Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show
A parting pang, the spirit from her pass'd:

And they who watch'd her nearest could not know The very instant, till the change that cast

fler sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the blackOh • possess such lustre-and then lack!

LXX.

She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle of life, which might
Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin :
But closed its little being without light,
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie wither'd with one blight;
In vain the dews of heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.
LXXI.

Thus lived-thus died she: never more on her,
Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth; her days and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful-such as had not stay'd
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well
By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell.
LXXII.

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 wrong

A 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 lay this sheet of sorrow on the shelf;

I don't much like describing people mad,
For fear of seeming rather touch'd myself-
Besides, I've no more on this head to add:
And as my Muse is a capricious elf,
We'll put about and try another tack
With Juan, left half-kill'd some stanzas back.
LXXV.
Wounded and fetter'd, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined,"
Some days and nights elapsed before that he
Could altogether call the past to mind;

And when he did, he found himself at sea,
Sailing six knots an hour before the wind ;

The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee-Another 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 sea) Entomb'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; 't may be Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus,

All heroes, who if living still would slay us.

XCI.

'They heard, next day, that in the Dardanelles,
Waiting for his sublimity's firman—
The most imperative of sovereign spells,
Which every body does without who can,-
More to secure them in their naval cells,

Lady to lady, well as man to man,
Were to be chained and lotted out per couple
For the slave-market of Constantinople.

XCII.

It seems when this allotment was made out,
There chanced to be an odd male and odd female,
Who (after some discussion and some doubt

If the soprano might be doom'd to be male,
They placed him o'er the women as a scout)

Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male Was Juan, who-an awkward thing at his agel'air'd off with a Bacchante's blooming visage. XCIII.

With Raucocanti lucklessly was chain'd

The tenor; these two hated with a hate Found only on the stage, and each more pain'd With this his tuneful neighbour than his fate; Sad strife arose, for they were so cross-grain'd, Instead of bearing up without debate, That each pull'd different ways with many an oath, “Arcades ambo," id est-blackguards both. XCIV.

Juan's companion was a Romagnole,

But bred within the March of old Ancona, With eyes that look'd into the very soul,

(And other chief points of a "bella donna"), Bright-and as black and burning as a coal ; And through her clear brunette complexion shone a Great wish to please-a most attractive dower, Especially when added to the power.

No matter; we should ne'er too much inquire,
But facts are facts,-no knight could be more true,
And firmer faith no ladye-love desire;

We will omit the proofs, save one or two.
'Tis said no one in hand "can hold a fire
By thought of frosty Caucasus," but few
I really think; yet Juan's then ordeal
Was more triumphant, and not much less real.
XCVII.

Here i might enter on a chaste description,
Having withstood temptation in my youth,
But hear that several people take exception

At the first two books having too much truth;
Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon,
Because the publisher declares, in sooth,
Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is
Io pass, than those two cantos into families.

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 Leaves nothing till the coming of the justSave change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome. CII.

The very generations of the dead

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. CIII.

I canter by the spot each afternoon

Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy, Who lived too long for men, but died too soon For human vanity, the young De Foix!

A broken pillar not uncouthly hewn,

But which neglect is hastening to destroy,
Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,
While weeds and ordure rankle round the base,

CIV.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid;
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid
To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column.
The time must come when both, alike decay'd,

The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death or Homer's birth.

CV.

With human blood that column was cemented,
With human filth that column is defiled,
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented,
To show his loathing of the spot he spoil'd;
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented

Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild
Instinct of gore and glory earth has known
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.

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, ye learned ladies, say of you;

They say your stockings are so (Heaven knows why, I have examined few pair of that hue); Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the patrician left-iegs, which adorn The festal midnight and the levee morn. CXI.

Ye. 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
The last, if late accounts be accurate,
Invented, by some name I have forgot,
As well as the sublime discovery's date,
An airy instrument, with which he sought
To ascertain the atmospheric state,
By measuring "the intensity of blue:"
Oh, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!
CXIII.

But to the narrative.-The vessel bound
With slaves to sell off in the capital,
After the usual process, might be found
At anchor under the seraglio wall;
Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound,
Were landed in the market, one and all,
And there, with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians,
Bought up for different purposes and passions.

CXIV.

Some went off dearly: fifteen hundred dollars For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours

Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven: Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven; But when the offer went beyond, they knew 'Twas for the sultan, and at once withdrew.

CXV.

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price
Which the West-Indian market scarce would bring;
Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice
What 'twas ere abolition; and the thing
Need not seem very wonderful, for vice

Is always much more splendid than a king:
The virtues, even the most exalted, charity,
Are saving-vice spares nothing for a rarity.
CXVI.

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 As renegadoes; while in hapless group,

Hoping no very old vizier might choose, The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim.

CANTO V.

I.

WHEN amatory poets sing their loves

In liquid lines mellifluously bland,

And praise their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, They little think what mischief is in hand;

The greater their success the worse it proves,

As Ovid's verse may make you understand; Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity, Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

II.

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain-simple-short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.
III.

The European with the Asian shore.

Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream,1
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 very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

IV.

I have a passion for the name of "Mary,”
For once it was a magic sound to me,
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;

Ail 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
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades,
"I' is a grand sight, from off' " the Giant's Grave,"2
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

VI.

'I' was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning, When nights are equal, but not so the days; l'he Parcæ then cut short the further spinning Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise The waters, and repentance for past sinning

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.

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,
With resolution in his dark-gray eye,
Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy.
XI.

He had an English look; that is, was square
In make, of a complexion white and ruddy,
Good teeth, with curling rather dark-brown hair,
And, it might be from thought, or toil, or study,
An open brow a little mark'd with care:

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.