IX.

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their
Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail;
The blank gray was not made to blast their hair,
But, like the climes that know nor snow nor hail,
They were all summer: lightning might assail
And shiver them to ashes, but to trail
A long and snake-like life of dull decay
Was not for them-they had too little clay.

X.

They were alone once more; for them to be
Thus was another Eden; they were never
Weary, unless when separate: the tree

Cut from its forest root of years-the river
Damm'd from its fountain-the child from the knee
And breast maternal wean'd at once for ever,
Would wither less than these two torn apart;
Alas! there is no instinct like the heart-

XI.

The heart-which may be broken: happy they! Thrice fortunate! who, of that fragile mould, The precious porcelain of human clay,

Break with the first fall: they can ne'er behold The long year link'd with heavy day on day,

And all which must be borne, and never told; While life's strange principle will often lie Deepest in those who long the most to die.

XII.

Whom the gods love die young," was sai▲ of yore,' And many deaths do they escape by this: [moreThe death of friends, and that which slays even

The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, Except mere breath; and since the silent shore

Awaits at last even those whom longest miss The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave Which men weep over may be meant to save.

XIII.

Haidee and Juan thought not of the dead; [them: The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for They found no fault with time, save that he fled; They saw not in themselves aught to condemn : Each was the other's mirror, and but read

Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem, And knew such brightness was but the reflection Of their exchanging glances of affection.

XIV.

The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch,

The least glance better understood than words, Which still said all, and ne'er could say too much; A language, too, but like to that of birds, Known but to them, at least appearing such, As but to lovers a true sense affords; Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd To those who have ceased to hear such, or ne'er heard:

XV.

All these were theirs, for they were children still,
And children still they should have ever been;
They were not made in the real world to fill
A busy character in the dull scene;
But like two beings born from out a rill,
A nymph and her beloved, all unseen

To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers,
And never know the weight of human hours.

XVI.

Moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless found
Those their bright rise had lighted to such joys
As rarely they beheld throughout their round:
And these were not of the vain kind which cloys
For theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound

By the mere senses; and that which destroys
Most love, possession, unto them appear'd
A thing which each endearment more endear'd.
XVII.

Oh beautiful! and rare as beautiful!

But theirs was love in which the mind delights To lose itself, when the whole world grows dull, And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, Intrigues, adventures of the common school, Its petty passions, marriages, and flights, Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more Whose husband only knows her not a wh-re.

XVIII.

Hard words; harsh truth; a truth which many know.
Enough. The faithful and the fairy pair,
Who never found a single hour too slow,
What was it made them thus exempt from care?
Young innate feelings all have felt below,

Which perish in the rest, but in them were
Inherent; what we mortals call romantic,
And always envy, though we deem it frantic.
ΧΙΧ.

This is in others a factitious state,

An opium dream of too much youth and reading, But was in them their nature or their fate; For Haidee's knowledge was by no means great, No novels e'er had set their young hearts bleeding, And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding, So that there was no reason for their loves, More than for those of nightingales or doves.

XXIII.

She turn'd to him, and smiled, but in that sort
Which makes not others smile; then turn'd aside;
Whatever feeling shook her, it seem'd short,

And master'd by her wisdom or her pride;
When Juan spoke, too-it might be in sport-
Of this their mutual feeling, she replied-
"If it should be so,-but-it cannot be―
Or I at least shall not survive to see."

XXIV.

Juan would question further, but she press'd
His lips to hers, and silenced him with this,
And then dismiss'd the omen from her breast,
Defying augury with that fond kiss ;
And no doubt of all method's 'tis the best:
Some people prefer wine-'tis not amiss:

I have tried both; so those who would a part take May choose between the headache and the heartache.

XXV.

One of the two, according to your choice,
Women or wine, you'll have to undergo;
Both maladies are taxes on our joys:

But which to choose I really hardly know;
And if I had to give a casting voice,

For both sides I could many reasons show, And then decide, without great wrong to either, It were much better to have both than neither.

XXVI.

Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other,

With swimming looks of speechless tenderness, Which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother, All that the best can mingle and express, When two pure hearts are pour'd in one another, And love too much, and yet can not love less; But almost sanctify the sweet excess By the immortal wish and power to bless.

XXVII.

Mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart, Why did they not then die ?-they had lived too long,

Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart; Years could not bring them cruel things or wrong, The world was not for them, nor the world's art

For beings passionate as Sappho's song; Love was born with them, in them, so intense, It was their very spirit-not a sense.

XXVIII.

They should have lived together deep in woods, Unseen as sings the nightingale; they were Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes

Call'd social, where all vice and hatred are: How lonely every freeborn creature broods! The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair; The eagle soars alone; the gull and crow Flock o'er their carrion, just as mortals do.

XXIX.

Now pillow'd, cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,
Haidee and Juan their siesta took,

A gentle slumber, but it was not deep,
For ever and anon a something shook
Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame would creep;
And Haidee's sweet lips murmur'd like a brook

A worldless music, and her face so fair

XXX.

Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind Walks over it, was she shaken by the dreain, The mystical usurper of the mindO'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem

Good to the soul which we no more can bind; Strange state of being! (for 'tis still to be,) Senseless to feel, and with seal'd eyes to see.

XXXI.

She dream'd of being alone on the seashore,

Chain'd to a rock; she knew not how, but stir She could not from the spot, and the loud roar

Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening And o'er her upper lip they seem'd to pour, [her; Until she sobb'd for breath, and soon they were Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die.

XXXII.

Anon-she was released, and then she stray'd
O'er the sharp shingles with her bleeding feet,
And stumbled almost every step she made;
And something roll'd before her in a sheet,
Which she must still pursue howe'er afraid;

'Twas white and indistinct, nor stopp'd to meet Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed and grasp'd, And ran, but it escaped her as she clasp'd.

XXXIII.

The dream chang'd: in a cave she stood, its walls
Were hung with marble icicles; the work
Of ages on its water-fretted halls, [and lurk;
Where waves might wash, and seals might breed
Her hair was dripping, and the very balls

Of her black eyes seem'd turn'd to tears, and murk The sharp rocks look'd below each drop they caught, Which froze to marble as it fell, she thought.

XXXIV.

And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet,

Pale as the foam that froth'd on his dead brow, Which she essay'd in vain to clear, (how sweet Were once her cares, how idle seem'd they now!) Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat

Of his quench'd heart; and the sea-dirges low Rang in her sad ears like a mermaid's song, And that brief dream appear'd a life too long.

XXXV.

And gazing on the dead, she thought his face
Faded, or alter'd into something new-
Like to her father's features, till each trace

More like and like to Lambro's aspect grew
With all his keen worn look and Grecian grace;
And starting, she awoke, and what to view!
Oh! Powers of Heaven! what dark eye meets she
"Tis-'tis her father's-fixed upon the pair! [there?

XXXVI.

Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking fell, With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see Him whom she deem'd a habitant where dwell The ocean-buried, risen from death, to be Perchance the death of one she loved too well; Dear as her father had been to Haidee,

It was a moment of that awful kind

LI.

The world is full of strange vicissitudes,

And here was one exceedingly unpleasant: A gentleman so rich in the world's goods, Handsome and young, enjoying all the present, Just at the very time when he least broods

On such a thing, is suddenly to sea sent, Wounded and chain'd, so that he cannot move, And all because a lady fell in love.

LII.

Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic,

Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea, Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic; For if my pure libations exceed three, I feel my heart become so sympathetic,

That I must have recourse to black Bohea: "Tis pity wine should be so deleterious, For tea and coffee leave us much more serious.

LIII.

Unless when qualified with thee, Cognac !
Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill!
Ah! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,

And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?
I would take refuge in weak punch, but rack,
(In each sense of the word,) whene'er I fill
My mild and midnight beakers to the brim,
Wakes me next morning with its synonym.
LIV.

I leave Don Juan for the present safe

Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded; Yet could his corporal pangs amount to half

Of those with which his Haidee's bosom bounded? She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe, And then give way, subdued because surrounded; Her mother was a Moorish maid, from Fez, Where all is Eden, or a wilderness.

LV.

There the large olive rains its amber store

In marble fonts; there grain, and flower, and fruit, Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er; But there, too, many a poison-tree has root, And midnight listens to the lion's roar, And long, long deserts scorch the camel's foot, Or, heaving, whelm the helpless caravan, And as the soil is, so the heart of man.

LVI.

Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth
Her human clay is kindled: full of power
For good or evil, burning from its birth,

The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour, And like the soil beneath it will bring forth:

Beauty and love were Haidee's mother's dower: But her large dark eye show'd deep passion's force, Though sleeping like a lion near a source,

LVII.

Her daughter, temper'd with a milder ray,
Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair,
Till slowly charged with thunder they display
Terror to earth, and tempest to the air,
Had held till now her soft and milky way;

But, overwrought with passion and despair,
The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,
Even as the simoom sweeps the blasted plains.

LVIII.

The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore, And he himself o'ermaster'd and cut down; His blood was running on the very floor

Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own! Thus much she view'd an instant and no more,

Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan, On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held Her writhing, fell she like a cedar fell'd.

LIX.

A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes, Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er, And her head droop'd as when the lily lies [bore O'ercharged with rain: her summon'd handmaids Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes;

Of herbs and cordials they produced their store, But she defied all means they could employ, Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy.

LX.

Days lay she in that state unchanged, though chill,
With nothing livid, still her lips were red;
She had no pulse, but death seem'd absent still;
No hideous sign proclaim'd her surely dead;
Corruption came not in each mind to kill

All hope; to look upon her sweet face bred
New thoughts of life, for it seem'd full of soul,
She had so much, earth could not claim the whole.

LXI.

The ruling passion, such as marble shows
When exquisitely chisell'd, still lay there,
But fix'd as marble's unchanged aspect throws
O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair;
O'er the Laocoon's all eternal throes,
And ever-dying Gladiator's air,
Their energy like life forms all their fame,
Yet looks not life, for they are still the same.

LXII.

She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake,
Rather the dead, for life seem'd something new,
A strange sensation which she must partake
Perforce, since whatsover met her view
Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache

Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still true, Brought back the sense of pain without the cause, For, for a while, the furies made a pause.

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 cha.
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 recognized 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