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The verge of heaven; and in her large eyes A mixture of sensations might be scann'd, [wrought Of half voluptuousness and half command.

CIX.

Her form had all the softness of her sex,

Her features all the sweetness of the devil, When he put on the cherub to perplex

Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet somehow there was something somewhere wantAs if she rather order'd than was granting.- [ing, CX.

Something imperial, or imperious, threw

A chain o'er all she did; that is, a chain Was thrown, as 'twere, about the neck of you,And rapture's self will seem almost a pain With aught which looks like despotism in view: Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in vain We would against them make the flesh obeyThe spirit, in the end, will have its way.

CXI.

Her very smile was haughty, though so sweet;
Her very nod was not an inclination;
There was a self-will even in her small feet, [tion-
As though they were quite conscious of her sta-
They trod as upon necks; and to complete

Her state, (it is the custom of her nation,)

A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign

She was a sultan's bride, (thank Heaven, not mine!)

CXII.

"To hear and to obey" had been from birth
The law of all around her; to fulfil
All phantasies which yielded joy or mirth,

Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, as her will;
Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth;
Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood still;
Had she but been a Christian, I've a notion
We should have found out the "perpetual motion."

CXIII.

Whate'er she saw and coveted was brought;
Whate'er she did not see, if she supposed
It might be seen, with diligence was sought,
And when 'twas found straightway the bargain

closed:

There was no end unto the things she bought,

Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused; Yet even her tyranny had such a grace, The women pardon'd all except her face

CXIV.

Juan, the latest of her whims, had caught
Her eye in passing on his way to sale;
She order'd him directly to be bought,
And Baba, who had ne'er been known to fail
In any kind of mischief to be wrought,

Had his instructions where and how to deal: She had no prudence, but he had; and this Explains the garb which Juan took amiss.

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But to the main point, where we have been tending: I also would suggest the fitting time,
She now conceived all difficulties past,

And deem'd herself extremely condescending
When being made her property at last,
Without more preface, in her blue eyes blending
Passion and power, a glance on him she cast,
And merely saying, "Christian, canst thou love?"
Conceived that phrase was quite enough to move.

CXVII.

And so it was, in proper time and place,

But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face,

Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing, Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace,

And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing: These words went through his soul like Arab spears, So that he spoke not, but burst into tears.

CXVIII.

She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears,
For women shed and use them at their liking;
But there is something when man's eye appears
Wet, still more disagreeable and striking:
A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears,
Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in
His heart, to force it out, for (to be shorter)
To them 'tis a relief, to us a torture.

CXIX.

And she would have consoled, but knew not how;
Having no equals, nothing which had e'er
Infected her with sympathy till now,
And never having dreamt what 'twas to bear
Aught of a serious sorrowing kind, although

There might arise some pouting petty care
To cross her brow, she wonder'd how so near
Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear.

CXX.

But nature teaches more than power can spoil,
And when a strong although a strange sensation
Moves-female hearts are such a genial soil

For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation,
They naturally pour the "wine and oil,"
Samaritans in every situation;

And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why,
Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye.

CXXI.

But tears must stop like all things else; and soon
Juan, who for an instant had been moved
To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone

Of one who dared to ask if "he had loved,"
Call'd back the stoic to his eyes, which shone
Bright with the very weakness he reproved;
And although sensitive to beauty, he
Felt most indignant still at not being free.

To gentlemen in any such like case,
That is to say-in a meridian clime;
With us there is more law given to the case,
But here a small delay forms a great crime:
So recollect that the extremest grace
Is just two minutes for your declaration-
A moment more would hurt your reputation.

CXXIV.

Juan's was good; and might have been still better
But he had got Haidee into his head:
However strange, he could not yet forget her,
Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred.
Gulbeyaz, who look'd on him as her debtor

For having had him to the palace led,
Began to blush up to the eyes, and then
Grow deadly pale, and then blush back again.

CXXV.

At length, in an imperial way, she laid

Her hand on his, and bending on his eyes,
Which needed not an empire to persuade,

Look'd into his for love, where none replies:
Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid,
That being the last thing a proud woman tries:
She rose, and, pausing one chaste moment, threw
Herself upon his breast, and there she grew.

CXXVI.

This was an awkward test, as Juan found,

But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride;
With gentle force her white arms he unwound,

And seated her all drooping by his side.
Then rising haughtily he glanced around,
And looking coldly in her face, he cried,
"The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor I
Serve a sultana's sensual phantasy.

CXXVII.

"Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proof
How much I have loved-that I love not thee!
In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof,
Were fitter for me: love is for the free!

I am not dazzled by this splendid roof;
Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be-
Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne
And hands obey-our hearts are still our own."

CXXVIII.

This was a truth to us extremely trite,

Not so to her who ne'er had heard such things;
She deem'd her least command must yield delight,
Earth being only made for queens and kings;
If hearts lay on the left side or the right

She hardly knew, to such perfection brings
Legitimacy its born votaries, when

Aware of their due royal rights o'er men.

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Remember, or (if you cannot) imagine,

Ye! who have kept your chastity when young,

CXXXVI.

A vulgar tempest 'twere to a typhoon

To match a common fury with her rage,
And yet she did not want to reach the moon,
Like moderate Hotspur on the immortal page;
Her anger pitch'd into a lower tune,

Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and age-
Her wish was but to "kill, kill, kill," like Lear's,
And then her thirst of blood was quench'd in tears.

CXXXVII.

A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd,

Pass'd without words-in fact she could not speak;

While some more desperate dowager has been waging | And then her sex's shame broke in at last,

Love with you, and been in the dog-days stung
By your refusal, recollect her raging!
Or recollect all that was said or sung
On such a subject: then suppose the face
Of a young downright beauty in the case.
CXXXI.

Suppose, but you already have supposed,
The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady Booby,
Phædra, and all which story has disclosed

Of good examples; pity that so few by
Poets and private tutors are exposed,

To educate-ye youth of Europe-you by! But when you have supposed the few we know, You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry brow.

CXXXII.

A tigress robb'd of young, a lioness,
Or any interesting beast of prey,
Are similes at hand for the distress

Of ladies, who can not have their own way;
But though my turn will not be served with less,
These don't express one half what I should say:
For what is stealing young ones, few or many,
To cutting short their hopes of having any?
CXXXIII.

The love of offspring's nature's general law,
From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings;
There's nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw,
Like an invasion on their babes and sucklings;
And all who have seen a human nursery, saw
How mothers love their children's squalls and
chucklings;

This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer
Your patience) shows the cause must still be stronger.
CXXXIV.

If I said fire flash'd from Gulbeyaz' eyes,

'Twere nothing-for her eyes flash'd always fire;
Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest dyes,
I should but bring disgrace upon the dyer,
So supernatural was her passion's rise;

For ne'er till now she knew a check'd desire:
Even ye who know what a check'd woman is,
(Enough, God knows!) would much fall short of this.

CXXXV.

Her rage was but a minute's, and 'twas well-
A moment's more had slain her; but the while
It lasted 'twas like a short glimpse of hell:
Nought's more sublime than energetic bile,
Though horrible to see yet grand to tell,

Like ocean warring 'gainst a rocky isle;
And the deep passions flashing through her form
Made her a beautiful embodied storm.

A sentiment till then in her but weak,
But now it flow'd in natural and fast,

As water through an unexpected leak,
For she felt humbled-and humiliation
Is sometimes good for people in her station.
CXXXVIII.

It teaches them that they are flesh and blood,
It also gently hints to them that others,
Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud;
That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers,
And works of the same pottery, bad or good,

Though not all born of the same sires and mothers
It teaches-Heaven knows only what it teaches,
But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches.

CXXXIX.

Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head;
Her second, to cut only his-acquaintance;
Her third, to ask him where he had been bred;
Her fourth, to rally him into repentance;
Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed;

Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence
The lash to Baba :-but her grand resource
Was to sit down again, and cry of course.

CXL.

She thought to stab herself, but then she had
For Eastern stays are little made to pad,
The dagger close at hand, which made it awk-
[ward;

So that a poniard pierces if 'tis struck hard:
She thought of killing Juan-but, poor lad!
Though he deserved it well for being so backward,
The cutting off his head was not the art
Most likely to attain her aim-his heart.

CXLI.

Juan was moved: he had made up his mind
To be impaled, or quarter'd as a dish
For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined,

Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish,
And thus heroically stood resign'd,

Rather than sin,-except to his own wish:
But all his great preparatives for dying
Dissolved like snow before a woman crying.

CXLII.

As through his palms Bob Acres' valor oozed,
So Juan's virtue ebb'd, I know not how;
And first he wonder'd why he had refused;
And then, if matters could be made up now;
And next his savage virtue he accused,

Just as a friar may accuse his vow,
Or as a dame repents her of her oath,
Which mostly ends in some small breach of both.

CXLIII.

So he began to stammer some excuses;

But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses

Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter,
Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses;

Just as a languid smile began to flatter
His peace was making, but before he ventured
Further, old Baba rather briskly enter'd.

CXLIV.

"Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!"
('Twas thus he spake,) "and Empress of the Earth!
Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune,
Whose smile makes all the planets dance with
mirth,

Your slave brings tidings-he hopes not too soon-
Which your sublime attention may be worth:
The Sun himself has sent me like a ray,
To hint that he is coming up this way."

CXLV.

"Is it," exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, "as you say?
I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning!
But bid my women form the milky way. [ing-
Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warn-
And, Christian! mingle with them as you may,

CL.

He saw with his own eyes the moon was round
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular any where;
His empire also was without a bound:

'Tis true, a little troubled here and there,
By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to "the Seven Towers;"

CLI.

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent

To lodge there when a war broke out, according
To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant
Those scoundrels who have never had a sword in
Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent

Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording
Their lics, yclept despatches, without risk, or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.

CLII.

He had fifty daughters and four dozens sons,
Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd,
The former in a palace, where like nuns

They lived till some bashaw was sent abroad, When she, whose turn it was, wedded at once, Sometimes at six years old-though this seems odd, And as you'd have me pardon your past scorn- 'Tis true; the reason is, that the bashaw Here they were interrupted by a humming [ing-"Must make a present to his sire in law. Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's coming!"

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CLVII.
The Turks do well to shut-at least, sometimes
The women up-because, in sad reality,
Their chastity in these unhappy climes

Is not a thing of that astringent quality,
Which in the North prevents precocious crimes,
And makes our snow less pure than our morality;
The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice,
Has quite the contrary effect on vice.

CLVIII.

Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,
Though not for want of matter; but 'tis time,
According to the ancient epic laws,

To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.
Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,

The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.

cease.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

CANTOS VI. VII. AND VIII.

[papers-and the harangue of the coroner in ar eulogy, over the bleeding body of the deceased-(an Antony worthy of such a Cæsar)—and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere or honorable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law-a felon or a madman-and in either case no great subject for panegyric. In his life he waswhat all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejanit of Europe. It may at least serve as a consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind.-Let us hear no more of this man, and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the Patriot of Humanity repose by the Werther of Politics!!!

With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire :

"La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres."

"Plus les mœurs sont depravées, plus les expressions devienment mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the and hypocritical mass which leavens the present following cantos (i. e. the 7th and 8th) are taken English generation, and is the only answer they from a French work, entitled, "Histoire de la Nou- deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of velle Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to blasphemer-which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circum- reformer, &c., are the changes which the hirelings stance of his saving the infant, which was the actual are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young should be welcome to all who recollect on whom volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and memory can never cease to be regarded with and so have been and may be many who dare to reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not Londonderry, but written some time before his de- refutation, nor even triumph: the wretched infidel, Had that person's oligarchy died with him, as he is called, is probably happier in his prison they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am than the proudest of his assailants. With his aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions or wrong-but he has suffered for them, and that of all whom his whole existence was consumed in very suffering for conscience' sake will make more endeavoring to enslave. That he was an amiable proselytes to Deism than the example of heterodox man in private life, may or may not be true; but prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to opwith this the public have nothing to do: and as to pression, or over-pensioned homicides to the imlamenting his death, it will be time enough when pious alliance which insults the world with the Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a name of "Holy!" I have no wish to trample minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as on the dishonored or the dead; but it would be the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect that ever tyrannized over a country. It is the first time, indeed, since the Normans, that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop.

well if the adherents to the classes from whence those persons sprung, should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, andbut enough for the present.

I say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; Of the manner of his death little need be said, but as the legitimates have always the law in their own mouths, let them make except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington the most of it. ↑ From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genins, or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been almost a universal one: an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C. If ever of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an man saved his country, Canning can; but will he? 1, for one, hope so. elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide-he merely orthodoxy and heterodoxy,"-Warburton, the bishop, replied, “Orthodoxy, cut the "carotid artery" (blessings on their learn-my lord, is my dory, and heterodoxy is another's man's doxy." A prelate ing!) and lo! the pageant, and the abbey, and of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which has "the syllables of dolor yelled forth" by the news-Church-of-Englandism"

When Lord Sandwich said "be did not know the difference between

not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect, that which Bentham cal

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