Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up!
How the new worldlings of the then new East
Will wonder where such animals could sup!
For they themselves will be but of the least
Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup
And every new creation hath decreased
In size, from overworking the material
Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.

How will to these young people, just thrust out
From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough
And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about
And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow
Till all the arts at length are brought about
Especially of war and taxing, how
I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em
Look like the monsters of a new museum?

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical
'the time is out of joint,' and so am I
I quite forget this poem 's merely quizzical
And deviate into matters rather dry.
I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I cal
Much too poetical men should know why
they write, and for what end but, note or text
I never know the word which will come next.

So on I ramble, now and then narrating
Now pondering it is time we should narrate.
I left Don Juan with his horses baiting
Now we 'll get o'er the ground at a great rate.
I shall not be particular in stating
His journey, we 've so many tours of late
Suppose him then at Petersburgh suppose
That pleasant capital of painted snows

Suppose him in a handsome uniform
A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume
Waving, like sails new shiver'd in a storm
Over a cock'd hat in a crowded room
And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme
Of yellow casimere we may presume
White stocking drawn uncurdled as new milk
O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand
Made up by youth, fame, and an army tailor
That great enchanter, at whose rod's command
Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler
Seeing how Art can make her work more grand
When she don't pin men's limbs in like a gaoler
Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He
Seems Love turn'd a lieutenant of artillery

His bandage slipp'd down into a cravat
His wings subdued to epaulettes his quiver
Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at
His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever
His bow converted into a cock'd hat
But still so like, that Psyche were more clever
Than some wives who make blunders no less stupid
If she had not mistaken him for Cupid.

the courtiers stared, the ladies whisper'd, and
the empress smiled the reigning favourite frown'd
I quite forget which of them was in hand
Just then as they are rather numerous found
Who took by turns that difficult command
Since first her majesty was singly crown'd
But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows
All fit to make a Patagonian jealous.

Juan was none of these, but slight and slim
Blushing and beardless and yet ne'ertheless
there was a something in his turn of limb
And still more in his eye, which seem'd to express
That though he look'd one of the seraphim
there lurk'd a man beneath the spirit's dress.
Besides, the empress sometimes liked a boy
And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi.

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff
Or Scherbatoff, or any other off
Or on, might dread her majesty had not room enough
Within her bosom which was not too tough
For a new flame a thought to cast of gloom enough
Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough
Of him who, in the language of his station
then held that 'high official situation.'

O, gentle ladies! should you seek to know
the import of this diplomatic phrase
Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess show
His parts of speech and in the strange displays
Of that odd string of words, all in a row
Which none divine, and every one obeys
Perhaps you may pick out some queer no meaning
Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning.

I think I can explain myself without
That sad inexplicable beast of prey
That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt
Did not his deeds unriddle them each day
That monstrous hieroglyphic that long spout
Of blood and water, leaden Castlereagh!
And here I must an anecdote relate
But luckily of no great length or weight.

An English lady ask'd of an Italian
What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing some women set a value on
Which hovers oft about some married beauties
Called 'Cavalier servente?' a Pygmalion
Whose statues warm I fear, alas! too true 't is
Beneath his art. the dame, press'd to disclose them
Said 'Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.'

And thus I supplicate your supposition
And mildest, matron-like interpretation
Of the imperial favourite's condition.
'T was a high place, the highest in the nation
In fact, if not in rank and the suspicion
Of any one's attaining to his station
No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders
If rather broad, made stocks rise and their holders.

Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy
And had retain'd his boyish look beyond
the usual hirsute seasons which destroy
With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond
Parisian aspect which upset old Troy
And founded Doctors' Commons I have conn'd
the history of divorces, which, though chequer'd
Calls Ilion's the first damages on record.

And Catherine, who loved all things save her lord
Who was gone to his place, and pass'd for much
Admiring those by dainty dames abhorr'd
Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch
Of sentiment and he she most adored
Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such
A lover as had cost her many a tear
And yet but made a middling grenadier.

O thou 'teterrima causa' of all 'belli'
Thou gate of life and death thou nondescript!
Whence is our exit and our entrance, well I
May pause in pondering how all souls are dipt
In thy perennial fountain how man fell I
Know not, since knowledge saw her branches stript
Of her first fruit but how he falls and rises
Since, thou hast settled beyond all surmises.

Some call thee 'the worst cause of war,' but I
Maintain thou art the best for after all
From thee we come, to thee we go, and why
To get at thee not batter down a wall
Or waste a world? since no one can deny
Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small
With, or without thee, all things at a stand
Are, or would be, thou sea of life's dry land!

Catherine, who was the grand epitome
Of that great cause of war, or peace, or what
You please it causes all the things which be
So you may take your choice of this or that
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see
the handsome herald, on whose plumage sat
Victory and pausing as she saw him kneel
With his despatch, forgot to break the seal.

then recollecting the whole empress, nor
forgetting quite the woman which composed
At least three parts of this great whole, she tore
the letter open with an air which posed
the court, that watch'd each look her visage wore
Until a royal smile at length disclosed
Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.

Great joy was hers, or rather joys the first
Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand slain.
Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst
As an East Indian sunrise on the main.
these quench'd a moment her ambition's thirst
So Arab deserts drink in summer's rain
In vain! As fall the dews on quenchless sands
Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!

Her next amusement was more fanciful
She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw
Into a Russian couplet rather dull
the whole gazette of thousands whom he slew.
Her third was feminine enough to annul
the shudder which runs naturally through
Our veins, when things call'd sovereigns think it best
To kill, and generals turn it into jest.

the two first feelings ran their course complete
And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth
the whole court look'd immediately most sweet
Like flowers well water'd after a long drouth.
But when on the lieutenant at her feet
Her majesty, who liked to gaze on youth
Almost as much as on a new despatch
Glanced mildly, all the world was on the watch.

Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent
When wroth while pleased, she was as fine a figure
As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent
Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.
She could repay each amatory look you lent
With interest, and in turn was wont with rigour
To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount
At sight, nor would permit you to discount.

With her the latter, though at times convenient
Was not so necessary for they tell
That she was handsome, and though fierce look'd lenient
And always used her favourites too well.
If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went
Your 'fortune' was in a fair way 'to swell
A man' as Giles says for though she would widow all
Nations, she liked man as an individual.

What a strange thing is man? and what a stranger
Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her! Whether wed
Or widow, maid or mother, she can change her
Mind like the wind whatever she has said
Or done, is light to what she 'll say or do
the oldest thing on record, and yet new!

O Catherine! for of all interjections
To thee both oh! and ah! belong of right
In love and war how odd are the connections
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!
Just now yours were cut out in different sections
First Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite
Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch
And thirdly he who brought you the despatch!

Shakspeare talks of 'the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill'
And some such visions cross'd her majesty
While her young herald knelt before her still.
'T is very true the hill seem'd rather high
For a lieutenant to climb up but skill
Smooth'd even the Simplon's steep, and by God's blessing
With youth and health all kisses are 'heaven-kissing.'

Her majesty look'd down, the youth look'd up
And so they fell in love she with his face
His grace, his God-knows-what for Cupid's cup
With the first draught intoxicates apace
A quintessential laudanum or 'black drop,'
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base
Expedient of full bumpers for the eye
In love drinks all life's fountains save tears dry.

He, on the other hand, if not in love
Fell into that no less imperious passion
Self-love which, when some sort of thing above
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion
Or duchess, princess, empress, 'deigns to prove'
'T is Pope's phrase a great longing, though a rash one
For one especial person out of many
Makes us believe ourselves as good as any.

Besides, he was of that delighted age
Which makes all female ages equal when
We don't much care with whom we may engage
As bold as Daniel in the lion's den
So that we can our native sun assuage
In the next ocean, which may flow just then
To make a twilight in, just as Sol's heat is
Quench'd in the lap of the salt sea, or thetis.

And Catherine we must say thus much for Catherine
Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering
Because each lover look'd a sort of king
Made up upon an amatory pattern
A royal husband in all save the ring
Which, being the damn'dest part of matrimony
Seem'd taking out the sting to leave the honey.

And when you add to this, her womanhood
In its meridian, her blue eyes or gray
the last, if they have soul, are quite as good
Or better, as the best examples say
Napoleon's, Mary's queen of Scotland, should
Lend to that colour a transcendent ray
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue
Too wise to look through optics black or blue

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension
Her preference of a boy to men much bigger
Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour
With other extras, which we need not mention
All these, or any one of these, explain
Enough to make a stripling very vain.

And that 's enough, for love is vanity
Selfish in its beginning as its end
Except where 't is a mere insanity
A maddening spirit which would strive to blend
Itself with beauty's frail inanity
On which the passion's self seems to depend
And hence some heathenish philosophers
Make love the main spring of the universe.

Besides Platonic love, besides the love
Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving
Of faithful pairs I needs must rhyme with dove
That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving
'Gainst reason Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove
With rhyme, but always leant less to improving
the sound than sense beside all these pretences
To love, there are those things which words name senses

Those movements, those improvements in our bodies
Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess
For such all women are at first no doubt.
How beautiful that moment! and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our sensations! What a curious way
the whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!

the noblest kind of love is love Platonical
To end or to begin with the next grand
Is that which may be christen'd love canonical
Because the clergy take the thing in hand
the third sort to be noted in our chronicle
As flourishing in every Christian land
Is when chaste matrons to their other ties
Add what may be call'd marriage in disguise.

Well, we won't analyse our story must
Tell for itself the sovereign was smitten
Juan much flatter'd by her love, or lust
I cannot stop to alter words once written
And the two are so mix'd with human dust
That he who names one, both perchance may hit on
But in such matters Russia's mighty empress
Behaved no better than a common sempstress.

the whole court melted into one wide whisper
And all lips were applied unto all ears!
the elder ladies' wrinkles curl'd much crisper
As they beheld the younger cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper
Smiled as she talk'd the matter o'er but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army who stood by.

All the ambassadors of all the powers
Enquired, Who was this very new young man
Who promised to be great in some few hours?
Which is full soon though life is but a span.
Already they beheld the silver showers
Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can
Upon his cabinet, besides the presents
Of several ribands, and some thousand peasants.

Catherine was generous, all such ladies are
Love, that great opener of the heart and all
the ways that lead there, be they near or far
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small
Love though she had a cursed taste for war
And was not the best wife, unless we call
Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 't is better
That one should die, than two drag on the fetter

Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth
Whose avarice all disbursements did importune
If history, the grand liar, ever saith
the truth and though grief her old age might shorten
Because she put a favourite to death
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation
And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station.

But when the levee rose, and all was bustle
In the dissolving circle, all the nations'
Ambassadors began as 't were to hustle
Round the young man with their congratulations.
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle
Of gentle dames, among whose recreations
It is to speculate on handsome faces
Especially when such lead to high places.

Juan, who found himself, he knew not how
A general object of attention, made
His answers with a very graceful bow
As if born for the ministerial trade.
Though modest, on his unembarrass'd brow
Nature had written 'gentleman.' He said
Little, but to the purpose and his manner
Flung hovering graces o'er him like a banner.

An order from her majesty consign'd
Our young lieutenant to the genial care
Of those in office all the world look'd kind
As it will look sometimes with the first stare
Which youth would not act ill to keep in mind
As also did Miss Protasoff then there
Named from her mystic office 'l'Eprouveuse,'
A term inexplicable to the Muse.

With her then, as in humble duty bound
Juan retired, and so will I, until
My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.
We have just lit on a 'heaven-kissing hill,'
So lofty that I feel my brain turn round
And all my fancies whirling like a mill
Which is a signal to my nerves and brain
To take a quiet ride in some green Lane.

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation
'T is said for I 'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation
A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round
In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation'
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple
Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose
If this be true for we must deem the mode
In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose
Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road
A thing to counterbalance human woes
For ever since immortal man hath glow'd
With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon
Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.

And wherefore this exordium? Why, just now
In taking up this paltry sheet of paper
My bosom underwent a glorious glow
And my internal spirit cut a caper
And though so much inferior, as I know
To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour
Discover stars and sail in the wind's eye
I wish to do as much by poesy.

In the wind's eye I have sail'd, and sail but for
the stars, I own my telescope is dim
But at least I have shunn'd the common shore
And leaving land far out of sight, would skim
the ocean of eternity the roar
Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim
But still sea-worthy skiff and she may float
Where ships have founder'd, as doth many a boat.

We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom
Of favouritism, but not yet in the blush
And far be it from my Muses to presume
For I have more than one Muse at a push
To follow him beyond the drawing-room
It is enough that Fortune found him flush
Of youth, and vigour, beauty, and those things
Which for an instant clip enjoyment's wings.

But soon they grow again and leave their nest.
'Oh!' saith the Psalmist, 'that I had a dove's
Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!'
And who that recollects young years and loves
Though hoary now, and with a withering breast
And palsied fancy, which no longer roves
Beyond its dimm'd eye's sphere, but would much rather
Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?

But sighs subside, and tears even widows' shrink
Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow
So narrow as to shame their wintry brink
Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!
Such difference doth a few months make. You 'd think
Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow
No more it doth, its ploughs but change their boys
Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.

But coughs will come when sighs depart and now
And then before sighs cease for oft the one
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow
Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the sun
Of life reach'd ten o'clock and while a glow
Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done
O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die, how happy they!

But Juan was not meant to die so soon.
We left him in the focus of such glory
As may be won by favour of the moon
Or ladies' fancies rather transitory
Perhaps but who would scorn the month of June
Because December, with his breath so hoary
Must come? Much rather should he court the ray
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.

Besides, he had some qualities which fix
Middle-aged ladies even more than young
the former know what 's what while new-fledged chicks
Know little more of love than what is sung
In rhymes, or dreamt for fancy will play tricks
In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung.
Some reckon women by their suns or years
I rather think the moon should date the dears.

And why? because she 's changeable and chaste.
I know no other reason, whatsoe'er
Suspicious people, who find fault in haste
May choose to tax me with which is not fair
Nor flattering to 'their temper or their taste,'
As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air
However, I forgive him, and I trust
He will forgive himself if not, I must.

Old enemies who have become new friends
Should so continue 't is a point of honour
And I know nothing which could make amends
For a return to hatred I would shun her
Like garlic, howsoever she extends
Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.
Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes
Converted foes should scorn to join with those.

This were the worst desertion renegadoes
Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie
Would scarcely join again the 'reformadoes,'
Whom he forsook to fill the laureate's sty
And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes
Whether in Caledon or Italy
Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize
To pain, the moment when you cease to please.

the lawyer and the critic but behold
the baser sides of literature and life
And nought remains unseen, but much untold
By those who scour those double vales of strife.
While common men grow ignorantly old
the lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife
Dissecting the whole inside of a question
And with it all the process of digestion.

A legal broom 's a moral chimney-sweeper
And that 's the reason he himself 's so dirty
the endless soot bestows a tint far deeper
Than can be hid by altering his shirt he
Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper
At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty
In all their habits not so you, I own
As Caesar wore his robe you wear your gown.

And all our little feuds, at least all mine
Dear Jefferson, once my most redoubted foe
As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below
Are over Here 's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!'
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

And when I use the phrase of 'Auld Lang Syne!'
'T is not address'd to you the more 's the pity
For me, for I would rather take my wine
With you, than aught save Scott in your proud city.
But somehow, it may seem a schoolboy's whine
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head

As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and all
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams
the Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall
Like Banquo's offspring floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine
I care not 't is a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.'

And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly
I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit
Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly
Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit
they cannot quench young feelings fresh and early
I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood
And love the land of 'mountain and of flood.'

Don Juan, who was real, or ideal
For both are much the same, since what men think
Exists when the once thinkers are less real
Than what they thought, for mind can never sink
And 'gainst the body makes a strong appeal
And yet 't is very puzzling on the brink
Of what is call'd eternity, to stare
And know no more of what is here, than there

Don Juan grew a very polish'd Russian
How we won't mention, why we need not say
Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion
Of any slight temptation in their way
But his just now were spread as is a cushion
Smooth'd for a monarch's seat of honour gay
Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money
Made ice seem paradise, and winter sunny.

the favour of the empress was agreeable
And though the duty wax'd a little hard
Young people at his time of life should be able
To come off handsomely in that regard.
He was now growing up like a green tree, able
For love, war, or ambition, which reward
their luckier votaries, till old age's tedium
Make some prefer the circulating medium.

About this time, as might have been anticipated
Seduced by youth and dangerous examples
Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated
Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples
On our fresh feelings, but as being participated
With all kinds of incorrigible samples
Of frail humanity must make us selfish
And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish.

This we pass over. We will also pass
the usual progress of intrigues between
Unequal matches, such as are, alas!
A young lieutenant's with a not old queen
But one who is not so youthful as she was
In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.
Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter

And Death, the sovereign's sovereign, though the great
Gracchus of all mortality, who levels
With his Agrarian laws the high estate
Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels
To one small grass-grown patch which must await
Corruption for its crop with the poor devils
Who never had a foot of land till now
Death 's a reformer, all men must allow.

He lived not Death, but Juan in a hurry
Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter
In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry
Which though I hate to say a thing that 's bitter
Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry
Through all the 'purple and fine linen,' fitter
For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot
And neutralize her outward show of scarlet.

And this same state we won't describe we would
Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection
But getting nigh grim Dante's 'obscure wood,'
That horrid equinox, that hateful section
Of human years, that half-way house, that rude
Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circumspection
Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier
Of age, and looking back to youth, give one tear

I won't describe, that is, if I can help
Description and I won't reflect, that is
If I can stave off thought, which as a whelp
Clings to its teat sticks to me through the abyss
Of this odd labyrinth or as the kelp
Holds by the rock or as a lover's kiss
Drains its first draught of lips but, as I said
I won't philosophise, and will be read.

Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted
A thing which happens rarely this he owed
Much to his youth, and much to his reported
Valour much also to the blood he show'd
Like a race-horse much to each dress he sported
Which set the beauty off in which he glow'd
As purple clouds befringe the sun but most
He owed to an old woman and his post.

He wrote to Spain and all his near relations
Perceiving fie was in a handsome way
Of getting on himself, and finding stations
For cousins also, answer'd the same day.
Several prepared themselves for emigrations
And eating ices, were o'erheard to say
That with the addition of a slight pelisse
Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a piece.

His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too
That in the lieu of drawing on his banker
Where his assets were waxing rather few
He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor
Replied, 'that she was glad to see him through
Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker
As the sole sign of man's being in his senses
Is, learning to reduce his past expenses.

'She also recommended him to God
And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother
Warn'd him against Greek worship, which looks odd
In Catholic eyes but told him, too, to smother
Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad
Inform'd him that he had a little brother
Born in a second wedlock and above
All, praised the empress's maternal love.

'She could not too much give her approbation
Unto an empress, who preferr'd young men
Whose age, and what was better still, whose nation
And climate, stopp'd all scandal now and then
At home it might have given her some vexation
But where thermometers sunk down to ten
Or five, or one, or zero, she could never
Believe that virtue thaw'd before the river.'

O for a forty-parson power to chant
Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn
Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt
Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim!
Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt
Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim
Drew quiet consolation through its hint
When she no more could read the pious print.

She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul
But went to heaven in as sincere a way
As any body on the elected roll
Which portions out upon the judgment day
Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll
Such as the conqueror William did repay
His knights with, lotting others' properties
Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees.

I can't complain, whose ancestors are there
Erneis, Radulphus eight-and-forty manors
If that my memory doth not greatly err
Were their reward for following Billy's banners
And though I can't help thinking 't was scarce fair
To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners
Yet as they founded churches with the produce
You 'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use.

the gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times
He felt like other plants called sensitive
Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes
Save such as Southey can afford to give.
Perhaps he long'd in bitter frosts for climes
In which the Neva's ice would cease to live
Before May-day perhaps, despite his duty
In royalty's vast arms he sigh d for beauty

Perhaps but, sans perhaps, we need not seek
For causes young or old the canker-worm
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek
As well as further drain the wither'd form
Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week
His bills in, and however we may storm
they must be paid though six days smoothly run
the seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.

I don't know how it was, but he grew sick
the empress was alarm'd, and her physician
the same who physick'd Peter found the tick
Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition
Which augur'd of the dead, however quick
Itself, and show'd a feverish disposition
At which the whole court was extremely troubled
the sovereign shock'd, and all his medicines doubled.

Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours
Some said he had been poison'd by Potemkin
Others talk'd learnedly of certain tumours
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin
Some said 't was a concoction of the humours
Which with the blood too readily will claim kin
Others again were ready to maintain
''T was only the fatigue of last campaign.'

But here is one prescription out of many
'Sodae sulphat. 3vj. 3fs. Mannae optim.
Aq. fervent. f. 3ifs. 3ij. tinct. Sennae
Haustus' And here the surgeon came and cupp'd him
'Rx Pulv Com gr. iij. Ipecacuanhae'
With more beside if Juan had not stopp'd 'em.
'Bolus Potassae Sulphuret. sumendus
Et haustus ter in die capiendus.'

This is the way physicians mend or end us
Secundum artem but although we sneer
In health when ill, we call them to attend us
Without the least propensity to jeer
While that 'hiatus maxime deflendus'
To be fill'd up by spade or mattock's near
Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe
We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.

Juan demurr'd at this first notice to
Quit and though death had threaten'd an ejection
His youth and constitution bore him through
And sent the doctors in a new direction.
But still his state was delicate the hue
Of health but flicker'd with a faint reflection
Along his wasted cheek, and seem'd to gravel
the faculty who said that he must travel.

the climate was too cold, they said, for him
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion
Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim
Who did not like at first to lose her minion
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim
And drooping like an eagle's with clipt pinion
She then resolved to send him on a mission
But in a style becoming his condition.

there was just then a kind of a discussion
A sort of treaty or negotiation
Between the British cabinet and Russian
Maintain'd with all the due prevarication
With which great states such things are apt to push on
Something about the Baltic's navigation
Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of thetis
Which Britons deem their 'uti possidetis.'

So Catherine, who had a handsome way
Of fitting out her favourites, conferr'd
This secret charge on Juan, to display
At once her royal splendour, and reward
His services. He kiss'd hands the next day
Received instructions how to play his card
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours
Which show'd what great discernment was the donor's.

But she was lucky, and luck 's all. Your queens
Are generally prosperous in reigning
Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means.
But to continue though her years were waning
Her climacteric teased her like her teens
And though her dignity brook'd no complaining
So much did Juan's setting off distress her
She could not find at first a fit successor.

But time, the comforter, will come at last
And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number
Of candidates requesting to be placed
Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber
Not that she meant to fix again in haste
Nor did she find the quantity encumber
But always choosing with deliberation
Kept the place open for their emulation.

While this high post of honour 's in abeyance
For one or two days, reader, we request
You 'll mount with our young hero the conveyance
Which wafted him from Petersburgh the best
Barouche, which had the glory to display once
the fair czarina's autocratic crest
When, a new lphigene, she went to Tauris
Was given to her favourite, and now bore his.

A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine
All private favourites of Don Juan for
Let deeper sages the true cause determine
He had a kind of inclination, or
Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin
Live animals an old maid of threescore
For cats and birds more penchant ne'er display'd
Although he was not old, nor even a maid

the animals aforesaid occupied
their station there were valets, secretaries
In other vehicles but at his side
Sat little Leila, who survived the parries
He made 'gainst Cossacque sabres, in the wide
Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies
Her note, she don't forget the infant girl
Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl

Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile
And with that gentle, serious character
As rare in living beings as a fossile
Man, 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, 'grand Cuvier!'
Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle
With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err
But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore
Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.

Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.
I cannot tell exactly what it was
He was not yet quite old enough to prove
Parental feelings, and the other class
Call'd brotherly affection, could not move
His bosom, for he never had a sister
Ah! if he had, how much he would have miss'd her!

And still less was it sensual for besides
That he was not an ancient debauchee
Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides
As acids rouse a dormant alkali
Although 't will happen as our planet guides
His youth was not the chastest that might be
there was the purest Platonism at bottom
Of all his feelings only he forgot 'em.

Just now there was no peril of temptation
He loved the infant orphan he had saved
As patriots now and then may love a nation
His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved
Owing to him as also her salvation
Through his means and the church's might be paved.
But one thing 's odd, which here must be inserted
the little Turk refused to be converted.

'T was strange enough she should retain the impression
Through such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter
But though three bishops told her the transgression
She show'd a great dislike to holy water
She also had no passion for confession
Perhaps she had nothing to confess no matter
Whate'er the cause, the church made little of it
She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet.

In fact, the only Christian she could bear
Was Juan whom she seem'd to have selected
In place of what her home and friends once were.
He naturally loved what he protected
And thus they form'd a rather curious pair
A guardian green in years, a ward connected
In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender
And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender.

they journey'd on through Poland and through Warsaw
Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron
Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw
Which gave her dukes the graceless name of 'Biron.'
'T is the same landscape which the modern Mars saw
Who march'd to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren!
To lose by one month's frost some twenty years
Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers.

Let this not seem an anti-climax 'Oh!
My guard! my old guard exclaim'd!' exclaim'd that god of day.
Think of the Thunderer's falling down below
Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!
Alas, that glory should be chill'd by snow!
But should we wish to warm us on our way
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name
Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame.

From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper
And Konigsberg the capital, whose vaunt
Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper
Has lately been the great Professor Kant.
Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper
About philosophy, pursued his jaunt
To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions
Have princes who spur more than their postilions.

And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like
Until he reach'd the castellated Rhine
Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike
All phantasies, not even excepting mine
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line
Between the present and past worlds, and hover
Upon their airy confine, half-seas-over.

But Juan posted on through Manheim, Bonn
Which Drachenfels frowns over like a spectre
Of the good feudal times forever gone
On which I have not time just now to lecture.
From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne
A city which presents to the inspector
Eleven thousand maidenheads of bone
the greatest number flesh hath ever known.

From thence to Holland's Hague and Helvoetsluys
That water-land of Dutchmen and of ditches
Where juniper expresses its best juice
the poor man's sparkling substitute for riches.
Senates and sages have condemn'd its use
But to deny the mob a cordial, which is
Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel
Good government has left them, seems but cruel.

Here he embark'd, and with a flowing sail
Went bounding for the island of the free
Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale
High dash'd the spray, the bows dipp'd in the sea
And sea-sick passengers turn'd somewhat pale
But Juan, season'd, as he well might be
By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs
Which pass'd, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs.

At length they rose, like a white wall along
the blue sea's border and I Don Juan felt
What even young strangers feel a little strong
At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt
A kind of pride that he should be among
Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt
their goods and edicts out from pole to pole
And made the very billows pay them toll.

I 've no great cause to love that spot of earth
Which holds what might have been the noblest nation
But though I owe it little but my birth
I feel a mix'd regret and veneration
For its decaying fame and former worth.
Seven years the usual term of transportation
Of absence lay one's old resentments level
When a man's country 's going to the devil.

Alas! could she but fully, truly, know
How her great name is now throughout abhorr'd
How eager all the earth is for the blow
Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword
How all the nations deem her their worst foe
That worse than worst of foes, the once adored
False friend, who held out freedom to mankind
And now would chain them, to the very mind

Would she be proud, or boast herself the free
Who is but first of slaves? the nations are
In prison, but the gaoler, what is he?
No less a victim to the bolt and bar.
Is the poor privilege to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? He 's as far
From the enjoyment of the earth and air
Who watches o'er the chain, as they who wear.

Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest beauties
Thy cliffs, dear Dover! harbour, and hotel
Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties
Thy waiters running mucks at every bell
Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties
To those who upon land or water dwell
And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed
Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted.

Juan, though careless, young, and magnifique
And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, and credit
Who did not limit much his bills per week
Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it
His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle Greek
Before him summ'd the awful scroll and read it
But doubtless as the air, though seldom sunny
Is free, the respiration's worth the money.

On with the horses! Off to Canterbury!
Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, splash through puddle
Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!
Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle
Along the road, as if they went to bury
their fare and also pause besides, to fuddle
With 'schnapps' sad dogs! whom 'Hundsfot,' or 'Verflucter,'
Affect no more than lightning a conductor.

Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits
Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry
As going at full speed no matter where its
Direction be, so 't is but in a hurry
And merely for the sake of its own merits
For the less cause there is for all this flurry
the greater is the pleasure in arriving
At the great end of travel which is driving.

they saw at Canterbury the cathedral
Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone
Were pointed out as usual by the bedral
In the same quaint, uninterested tone
there 's glory again for you, gentle reader! All
Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone
Half-solved into these sodas or magnesias
Which form that bitter draught, the human species.

the effect on Juan was of course sublime
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw
That casque, which never stoop'd except to Time.
Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe
Who died in the then great attempt to climb
O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law
Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed
And ask'd why such a structure had been raised

And being told it was 'God's house,' she said
He was well lodged, but only wonder'd how
He suffer'd Infidels in his homestead
the cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low
His holy temples in the lands which bred
the True Believers and her infant brow
Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign
A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.

O! oh! through meadows managed like a garden
A paradise of hops and high production
For after years of travel by a bard in
Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction
A green field is a sight which makes him pardon
the absence of that more sublime construction
Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices
Glaciers, volcanos, oranges, and ices.

And when I think upon a pot of beer
But I won't weep! and so drive on, postilions!
As the smart boys spurr'd fast in their career
Juan admired these highways of free millions
A country in all senses the most dear
To foreigner or native, save some silly ones
Who 'kick against the pricks' just at this juncture
And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.

What a delightful thing 's a turnpike road!
So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving
the earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad
Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.
Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the god
Had told his son to satisfy his craving
With the York mail but onward as we roll
'Surgit amari aliquid' the toll

Alas, how deeply painful is all payment!
Take lives, take wives, take aught except men's purses
As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment
Such is the shortest way to general curses.
they hate a murderer much less than a claimant
On that sweet ore which every body nurses
Kill a man's family, and he may brook it
But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket.

So said the Florentine ye monarchs, hearken
To your instructor. Juan now was borne
Just as the day began to wane and darken
O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn
Toward the great city. Ye who have a spark in
Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn
According as you take things well or ill
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!

the sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from
A half-unquench'd volcano, o'er a space
Which well beseem'd the 'Devil's drawing-room,'
As some have qualified that wondrous place
But Juan felt, though not approaching home
As one who, though he were not of the race
Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother
Who butcher'd half the earth, and bullied t' other.

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head and there is London Town!

But Juan saw not this each wreath of smoke
Appear'd to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke
the wealth of worlds a wealth of tax and paper
the gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke
Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.

He paused and so will I as doth a crew
Before they give their broadside. By and by
My gentle countrymen, we will renew
Our old acquaintance and at least I 'll try
To tell you truths you will not take as true
Because they are so a male Mrs. Fry
With a soft besom will I sweep your halls
And brush a web or two from off the walls.

O Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin
With Carlton, or with other houses? Try
Your head at harden'd and imperial sin.
To mend the people 's an absurdity
A jargon, a mere philanthropic din
Unless you make their betters better Fy!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

Teach them the decencies of good threescore
Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses
Tell them that youth once gone returns no more
That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses
Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore
Too dull even for the dullest of excesses
the witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal
A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all.

Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late
On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated
To set up vain pretence of being great
'T is not so to be good and be it stated
the worthiest kings have ever loved least state
And tell them But you won't, and I have prated
Just now enough but by and by I 'll prattle
Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle.

When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,'
And proved it 't was no matter what he said
they say his system 't is in vain to batter
Too subtle for the airiest human head
And yet who can believe it? I would shatter
Gladly all matters down to stone or lead
Or adamant, to find the world a spirit
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.

What a sublime discovery 't was to make the
Universe universal egotism
That all 's ideal all ourselves I 'll stake the
World be it what you will that that 's no schism.
O Doubt! if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee
But which I doubt extremely thou sole prism
Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit!
Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.

For ever and anon comes Indigestion
Not the most 'dainty Ariel' and perplexes
Our soarings with another sort of question
And that which after all my spirit vexes
Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes
Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder
the world, which at the worst 's a glorious blunder

If it be chance or if it be according
To the old text, still better lest it should
Turn out so, we 'll say nothing 'gainst the wording
As several people think such hazards rude.
they 're right our days are too brief for affording
Space to dispute what no one ever could
Decide, and every body one day will
Know very clearly or at least lie still.

And therefore will I leave off metaphysical
Discussion, which is neither here nor there
If I agree that what is, is then this I call
Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair
the truth is, I 've grown lately rather phthisical
I don't know what the reason is the air
Perhaps but as I suffer from the shocks
Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.

the first attack at once proved the Divinity
But that I never doubted, nor the Devil
the next, the Virgin's mystical virginity
the third, the usual Origin of Evil
the fourth at once establish'd the whole Trinity
On so uncontrovertible a level
That I devoutly wish'd the three were four
On purpose to believe so much the more.

To our theme. the man who has stood on the Acropolis
And look'd down over Attica or he
Who has sail'd where picturesque Constantinople is
Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis
Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh
May not think much of London's first appearance
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?

Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill
Sunset the time, the place the same declivity
Which looks along that vale of good and ill
Where London streets ferment in full activity
While every thing around was calm and still
Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he
Heard, and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum
Of cities, that boil over with their scum

I say, Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation
Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit
And lost in wonder of so great a nation
Gave way to 't, since he could not overcome it.
'And here,' he cried, 'is Freedom's chosen station
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.

'Here are chaste wives, pure lives here people pay
But what they please and if that things be dear
'T is only that they love to throw away
their cash, to show how much they have a-year.
Here laws are all inviolate none lay
Traps for the traveller every highway 's clear
Here-' he was interrupted by a knife
With, 'Damn your eyes! your money or your life!'

these freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads
In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter
Behind his carriage and, like handy lads
Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre
In which the heedless gentleman who gads
Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter
May find himself within that isle of riches
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.

Juan, who did not understand a word
Of English, save their shibboleth, 'God damn!'
And even that he had so rarely heard
He sometimes thought 't was only their 'Salam,'
Or 'God be with you!' and 't is not absurd
To think so for half English as I am
To my misfortune, never can I say
I heard them wish 'God with you,' save that way

Juan yet quickly understood their gesture
And being somewhat choleric and sudden
Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture
And fired it into one assailant's pudding
Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture
And roar'd out, as he writhed his native mud in
Unto his nearest follower or henchman
'Oh Jack! I 'm floor'd by that 'ere bloody Frenchman!'

On which Jack and his train set off at speed
And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance
Came up, all marvelling at such a deed
And offering, as usual, late assistance.
Juan, who saw the moon's late minion bleed
As if his veins would pour out his existence
Stood calling out for bandages and lint
And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint.

'Perhaps,' thought he, 'it is the country's wont
To welcome foreigners in this way now
I recollect some innkeepers who don't
Differ, except in robbing with a bow
In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front.
But what is to be done? I can't allow
the fellow to lie groaning on the road
So take him up I 'll help you with the load.'

But ere they could perform this pious duty
the dying man cried, 'Hold! I 've got my gruel!
O for a glass of max! We 've miss'd our booty
Let me die where I am!' And as the fuel
Of life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty
the drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew ill
His breath, he from his swelling throat untied
A kerchief, crying, 'Give Sal that!' and died.

the cravat stain'd with bloody drops fell down
Before Don Juan's feet he could not tell
Exactly why it was before him thrown
Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell.
Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town
A thorough varmint, and a real swell
Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled
His pockets first and then his body riddled.

Don Juan, having done the best he could
In all the circumstances of the case
As soon as 'Crowner's quest' allow'd, pursued
His travels to the capital apace
Esteeming it a little hard he should
In twelve hours' time, and very little space
Have been obliged to slay a freeborn native
In self-defence this made him meditative.

He from the world had cut off a great man
Who in his time had made heroic bustle.
Who in a row like Tom could lead the van
Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle?
Who queer a flat? Who spite of Bow Street's ban
On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle?
Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal his blowing
So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?

But Tom's no more and so no more of Tom.
Heroes must die and by God's blessing 't is
Not long before the most of them go home.
Hail! Thamis, Hail! Upon thy verge it is
That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum
In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss
Through Kennington and all the other 'tons,'
Which makes us wish ourselves in town at once

Through Groves, so call'd as being void of trees
Like lucus from no light through prospects named
Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please
Nor much to climb through little boxes framed
Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease
With 'To be let' upon their doors proclaim'd
Through 'Rows' most modestly call'd 'Paradise,'
Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice

Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl
Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion
Here taverns wooing to a pint of 'purl,'
there mails fast flying off like a delusion
there barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl
In windows here the lamplighter's infusion
Slowly distill'd into the glimmering glass
For in those days we had not got to gas

Through this, and much, and more, is the approach
Of travellers to mighty Babylon
Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach
With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one.
I could say more, but do not choose to encroach
Upon the Guide-book's privilege. the sun
Had set some time, and night was on the ridge
Of twilight, as the party cross'd the bridge

That 's rather fine. the gentle sound of Thamis
Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream
Though hardly heard through multifarious 'damme's'
the lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam
the breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where fame is
A spectral resident whose pallid beam
In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile
Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle.

the Druids' groves are gone so much the better
Stone-Henge is not but what the devil is it?
But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter
That madmen may not bite you on a visit
the Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor
the Mansion House too though some people quiz it
To me appears a stiff yet grand erection
But then the Abbey 's worth the whole collection.

the line of lights, too, up to Charing Cross
Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation
Like gold as in comparison to dross
Match'd with the Continent's illumination
Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss.
the French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation
And when they grew so on their new-found lantern
Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.

A row of gentlemen along the streets
Suspended may illuminate mankind
As also bonfires made of country seats
But the old way is best for the purblind
the other looks like phosphorus on sheets
A sort of ignis fatuus to the mind
Which, though 't is certain to perplex and frighten
Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.

But London 's so well lit, that if Diogenes
Could recommence to hunt his honest man
And found him not amidst the various progenies
Of this enormous city's spreading span
'T were not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his
Yet undiscover'd treasure. What I can
I 've done to find the same throughout life's journey
But see the world is only one attorney.

Over the stones still rattling up Pall Mall
Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner
As thunder'd knockers broke the long seal'd spell
Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner
Admitted a small party as night fell
Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner
Pursued his path, and drove past some hotels
St. James's Palace and St. James's 'Hells.'

they reach'd the hotel forth stream'd from the front door
A tide of well-clad waiters, and around
the mob stood, and as usual several score
Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound
In decent London when the daylight 's o'er
Commodious but immoral, they are found
Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage.
But Juan now is stepping from his carriage

Into one of the sweetest of hotels
Especially for foreigners and mostly
For those whom favour or whom fortune swells
And cannot find a bill's small items costly.
there many an envoy either dwelt or dwells
the den of many a diplomatic lost lie
Until to some conspicuous square they pass
And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.

Juan, whose was a delicate commission
Private, though publicly important, bore
No title to point out with due precision
the exact affair on which he was sent o'er.
'T was merely known, that on a secret mission
A foreigner of rank had graced our shore
Young, handsome, and accomplish'd, who was said
In whispers to have turn'd his sovereign's head.

Some rumour also of some strange adventures
Had gone before him, and his wars and loves
And as romantic heads are pretty painters
And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves
Into the excursive, breaking the indentures
Of sober reason wheresoe'er it moves
He found himself extremely in the fashion
Which serves our thinking people for a passion.

I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite
the contrary but then 't is in the head
Yet as the consequences are as bright
As if they acted with the heart instead
What after all can signify the site
Of ladies' lucubrations? So they lead
In safety to the place for which you start
What matters if the road be head or heart?

Juan presented in the proper place
To proper placemen, every Russ credential
And was received with all the due grimace
By those who govern in the mood potential
Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face
Thought what in state affairs is most essential
That they as easily might do the youngster
As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.

they err'd, as aged men will do but by
And by we 'll talk of that and if we don't
'T will be because our notion is not high
Of politicians and their double front
Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie
Now what I love in women is, they won't
Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it
So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.

And, after all, what is a lie? 'T is but
the truth in masquerade and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
the very shadow of true Truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy
And prophecy except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related.

Praised be all liars and all lies! Who now
Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy?
She rings the world's 'Te Deum,' and her brow
Blushes for those who will not but to sigh
Is idle let us like most others bow
Kiss hands, feet, any part of majesty
After the good example of 'Green Erin,'
Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.

Don Juan was presented, and his dress
And mien excited general admiration
I don't know which was more admired or less
One monstrous diamond drew much observation
Which Catherine in a moment of 'ivresse'
In love or brandy's fervent fermentation
Bestow'd upon him, as the public learn'd
And, to say truth, it had been fairly earn'd.

Besides the ministers and underlings
Who must be courteous to the accredited
Diplomatists of rather wavering kings
Until their royal riddle 's fully read
the very clerks, those somewhat dirty springs
Of office, or the house of office, fed
By foul corruption into streams, even they
Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay

And insolence no doubt is what they are
Employ'd for, since it is their daily labour
In the dear offices of peace or war
And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour
When for a passport, or some other bar
To freedom, he applied a grief and a bore
If he found not his spawn of taxborn riches

But Juan was received with much 'empressement'
these phrases of refinement I must borrow
From our next neighbours' land, where, like a chessman
there is a move set down for joy or sorrow
Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man
In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough
More than on continents as if the sea
See Billingsgate made even the tongue more free.

And yet the British 'Damme' 's rather Attic
Your continental oaths are but incontinent
And turn on things which no aristocratic
Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent
This subject quote as it would be schismatic
In politesse, and have a sound affronting in 't
But 'Damme' 's quite ethereal, though too daring
Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing.

For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home
For true or false politeness and scarce that
Now you may cross the blue deep and white foam
the first the emblem rarely though of what
You leave behind, the next of much you come
To meet. However, 't is no time to chat
On general topics poems must confine
themselves to unity, like this of mine.

In the great world, which, being interpreted
Meaneth the west or worst end of a city
And about twice two thousand people bred
By no means to be very wise or witty
But to sit up while others lie in bed
And look down on the universe with pity
Juan, as an inveterate patrician
Was well received by persons of condition.

He was a bachelor, which is a matter
Of import both to virgin and to bride
the former's hymeneal hopes to flatter
And should she not hold fast by love or pride
'T is also of some moment to the latter
A rib 's a thorn in a wed gallant's side
Requires decorum, and is apt to double
the horrid sin and what 's still worse, the trouble.

But Juan was a bachelor of arts
And parts, and hearts he danced and sung, and had
An air as sentimental as Mozart's
Softest of melodies and could be sad
Or cheerful, without any 'flaws or starts,'
Just at the proper time and though a lad
Had seen the world which is a curious sight
And very much unlike what people write.

Fair virgins blush'd upon him wedded dames
Bloom'd also in less transitory hues
For both commodities dwell by the Thames
the painting and the painted youth, ceruse
Against his heart preferr'd their usual claims
Such as no gentleman can quite refuse
Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers
Inquired his income, and if he had brothers.

the milliners who furnish 'drapery Misses'
Throughout the season, upon speculation
Of payment ere the honey-moon's last kisses
Have waned into a crescent's coruscation
Thought such an opportunity as this is
Of a rich foreigner's initiation
Not to be overlook'd and gave such credit
That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid it.

the Blues, that tender tribe who sigh o'er sonnets
And with the pages of the last Review
Line the interior of their heads or bonnets
Advanced in all their azure's highest hue
they talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its
Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two
And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?

Juan, who was a little superficial
And not in literature a great Drawcansir
Examined by this learned and especial
Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer
His duties warlike, loving or official
His steady application as a dancer
Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene
Which now he found was blue instead of green.

However, he replied at hazard, with
A modest confidence and calm assurance
Which lent his learned lucubrations pith
And pass'd for arguments of good endurance.
That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith
Who at sixteen translated 'Hercules Furens'
Into as furious English, with her best look
Set down his sayings in her common-place book.

Juan knew several languages as well
He might and brought them up with skill, in time
To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle
Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.
there wanted but this requisite to swell
His qualities with them into sublime
Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish
Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all
the coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass
At great assemblies or in parties small
He saw ten thousand living authors pass
That being about their average numeral
Also the eighty 'greatest living poets,'
As every paltry magazine can show its.

In twice five years the 'greatest living poet,'
Like to the champion in the fisty ring
Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it
Although 't is an imaginary thing.
Even I albeit I 'm sure I did not know it
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king
Was reckon'd a considerable time
the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain
'La Belle Alliance' of dunces down at zero
Now that the Lion 's fall'n, may rise again
But I will fall at least as fell my hero
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

Sir Walter reign'd before me Moore and Campbell
Before and after but now grown more holy
the Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble
With poets almost clergymen, or wholly
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble
Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts
A modern Ancient Pistol by the hilts?

then there 's my gentle Euphues, who, they say
Sets up for being a sort of moral me
He 'll find it rather difficult some day
To turn out both, or either, it may be.
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three
And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian 'Savage Landor'
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique
Just as he really promised something great
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

the list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain or none will know
the conqueror at least who, ere Time renders
His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low
their chances they 're too numerous, like the thirty
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.

This is the literary lower empire
Where the praetorian bands take up the matter
A 'dreadful trade,' like his who 'gathers samphire,'
the insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter
With the same feelings as you 'd coax a vampire.
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire
I 'd try conclusions with those Janizaries
And show them what an intellectual war is.

I think I know a trick or two, would turn
their flanks but it is hardly worth my while
With such small gear to give myself concern
Indeed I 've not the necessary bile
My natural temper 's really aught but stern
And even my Muse's worst reproof 's a smile
And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past
With some small profit through that field so sterile
Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last
Left it before he had been treated very ill
And henceforth found himself more gaily class'd
Amongst the higher spirits of the day
the sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.

His morns he pass'd in business which, dissected
Was like all business a laborious nothing
That leads to lassitude, the most infected
And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing
And on our sofas makes us lie dejected
And talk in tender horrors of our loathing
All kinds of toil, save for our country's good
Which grows no better, though 't is time it should.

His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons
Lounging and boxing and the twilight hour
In riding round those vegetable puncheons
Call'd 'Parks,' where there is neither fruit nor flower
Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings
But after all it is the only 'bower'
In Moore's phrase, where the fashionable fair
Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.

then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd
Like harness'd meteors then along the floor
Chalk mimics painting then festoons are twirl'd
then roll the brazen thunders of the door
Which opens to the thousand happy few
An earthly paradise of 'Or Molu.'

there stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink
With the three-thousandth curtsy there the waltz
the only dance which teaches girls to think
Makes one in love even with its very faults.
Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink
And long the latest of arrivals halts
'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb
And gain an inch of staircase at a time.

Thrice happy he who, after a survey
Of the good company, can win a corner
A door that's in or boudoir out of the way
Where he may fix himself like small 'Jack Horner,'
And let the Babel round run as it may
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner
Or an approver, or a mere spectator
Yawning a little as the night grows later.

But this won't do, save by and by and he
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share
Must steer with care through all that glittering sea
Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where
He deems it is his proper place to be
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill
Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views
Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride
Let him take care that that which he pursues
Is not at once too palpably descried.
Full many an eager gentleman oft rues
His haste impatience is a blundering guide
Amongst a people famous for reflection
Who like to play the fool with circumspection.

But, if you can contrive, get next at supper
Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle
O, ye ambrosial moments! always upper
In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle
Which sits for ever upon memory's crupper
the ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue! Ill
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.

But these precautionary hints can touch
Only the common run, who must pursue
And watch, and ward whose plans a word too much
Or little overturns and not the few
Or many for the number's sometimes such
Whom a good mien, especially if new
Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense
Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.

Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger
Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom
Before he can escape from so much danger
As will environ a conspicuous man. Some
Talk about poetry, and 'rack and manger,'
And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble
I wish they knew the life of a young noble.

they are young, but know not youth it is anticipated
Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou
their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated
their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew
Both senates see their nightly votes participated
Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew
And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored
the family vault receives another lord.

'Where is the world?' cries Young, at eighty 'Where
the world in which a man was born? 'Alas!
Where is the world of eight years past? 'T was there
I look for it 't is gone, a globe of glass!
Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.

Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows.
Where little Castlereagh? the devil can tell
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those
Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?
Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents?
And where oh, where the devil are the rents?

Where 's Brummel? Dish'd. Where 's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled.
Where 's Whitbread? Romilly? Where 's George the Third?
Where is his will? That 's not so soon unriddled.
And where is 'Fum' the Fourth, our 'royal bird?'
Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled
Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard
'Caw me, caw thee' for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.

Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?
the Honourable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat
Married, unmarried, and remarried this is
An evolution oft performed of late.
Where are the Dublin shouts and London hisses?
Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where
My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.

Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels
Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies
Of fashion, say what streams now fill those channels?
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes
Have taken up at length with younger brothers
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks
Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks
In short, the list of alterations bothers.
there 's little strange in this, but something strange is
the unusual quickness of these common changes.

Talk not of seventy years as age in seven
I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to
the humblest individual under heaven
Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even
Change grows too changeable, without being new
Nought 's permanent among the human race
Except the Whigs not getting into place.

I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
No matter which turn politician stupider
If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my 'blue Peter,'
And sail for a new theme I have seen and shook
To see it the king hiss'd, and then caress'd
But don't pretend to settle which was best.

I have seen the Landholders without a rap
I have seen Joanna Southcote I have seen
the House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap
I have seen a Congress doing all that 's mean
I have seen some nations like o'erloaded asses
Kick off their burthens, meaning the high classes.

I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and
Interminable not eternal speakers
I have seen the funds at war with house and land
I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers
I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand
By slaves on horseback I have seen malt liquors
Exchanged for 'thin potations' by John Bull
I have seen john half detect himself a fool.

But 'carpe diem,' Juan, 'carpe, carpe!'
To-morrow sees another race as gay
And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy.
'Life 's a poor player,' then 'play out the play
Ye villains!' above all keep a sharp eye
Much less on what you do than what you say
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.

But how shall I relate in other cantos
Of what befell our hero in the land
Which 't is the common cry and lie to vaunt as
A moral country? But I hold my hand
For I disdain to write an Atalantis
But 't is as well at once to understand
You are not a moral people, and you know it
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.

What Juan saw and underwent shall be
My topic, with of course the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy
And recollect the work is only fiction
And that I sing of neither mine nor me
Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt
This when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out.

Whether he married with the third or fourth
Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties
He took to regularly peopling Earth
Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is
Or whether he was taken in for damages
For being too excursive in his homages

Is yet within the unread events of time.
Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will back
Against the same given quantity of rhyme
For being as much the subject of attack
As ever yet was any work sublime
By those who love to say that white is black.
So much the better! I may stand alone
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.

Of all the barbarous middle ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man it is I really scarce know what
But when we hover between fool and sage
And don't know justly what we would be at
A period something like a printed page
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were

Too old for youth, too young, at thirty-five
To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore
I wonder people should be left alive
But since they are, that epoch is a bore
Love lingers still, although 't were late to wive
And as for other love, the illusion 's o'er
And money, that most pure imagination
Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.

O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?
theirs is the pleasure that can never pall
theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.
Ye who but see the saving man at table
And scorn his temperate board, as none at all
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing
Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.

Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss
But making money, slowly first, then quicker
And adding still a little through each cross
Which will come over things, beats love or liquor
the gamester's counter, or the statesman's dross.
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper
Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.

Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?
That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all.
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
the shade of Buonaparte's noble daring?
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte
Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan
Is not a merely speculative hit
But seats a nation or upsets a throne.
Republics also get involved a bit
Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown
On 'Change and even thy silver soil, Peru
Must get itself discounted by a Jew.

Why call the miser miserable? as
I said before the frugal life is his
Which in a saint or cynic ever was
the theme of praise a hermit would not miss
Canonization for the self-same cause
And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities?
Because, you 'll say, nought calls for such a trial
then there 's more merit in his self-denial.

He is your only poet passion, pure
And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays
Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure
Nations athwart the deep the golden rays
Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure
On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze
While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dies
Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.

the lands on either side are his the ship
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads
For him the fragrant produce of each trip
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads
And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip
His very cellars might be kings' abodes
While he, despising every sensual call
Commands the intellectual lord of all.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind
To build a college, or to found a race
A hospital, a church, and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face
Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind
Even with the very ore which makes them base
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation
Or revel in the joys of calculation.

But whether all, or each, or none of these
May be the hoarder's principle of action
the fool will call such mania a disease
What is his own? Go look at each transaction
Wars, revels, loves do these bring men more ease
Than the mere plodding through each 'vulgar fraction'?
Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser!
Let spendthrifts' heirs enquire of yours who 's wiser?

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests
Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins
Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests
Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines
But of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests
Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines
Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp
Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

'Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,' 'for love
Is heaven, and heaven is love' so sings the bard
Which it were rather difficult to prove
A thing with poetry in general hard.
Perhaps there may be something in 'the grove,'
At least it rhymes to 'love' but I 'm prepared
To doubt no less than landlords of their rental
If 'courts' and 'camps' be quite so sentimental.

But if Love don't, Cash does, and Cash alone
Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides
Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none
Without cash, Malthus tells you 'take no brides.'
So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own
High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways the tides
And as for Heaven 'Heaven being Love,' why not say honey
Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 't is Matrimony.

Is not all love prohibited whatever
Excepting marriage? which is love, no doubt
After a sort but somehow people never
With the same thought the two words have help'd out
Love may exist with marriage, and should ever
And marriage also may exist without
But love sans bans is both a sin and shame
And ought to go by quite another name.

Now if the 'court,' and 'camp,' and 'grove,' be not
Recruited all with constant married men
Who never coveted their neighbour's lot
I say that line 's a lapsus of the pen
Strange too in my 'buon camerado' Scott
So celebrated for his morals, when
My Jeffrey held him up as an example
To me of whom these morals are a sample.

Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded
And that 's enough succeeded in my youth
the only time when much success is needed
And my success produced what I, in sooth
Cared most about it need not now be pleaded
Whate'er it was, 't was mine I 've paid, in truth
Of late the penalty of such success
But have not learn'd to wish it any less.

That suit in Chancery, which some persons plead
In an appeal to the unborn, whom they
In the faith of their procreative creed
Baptize posterity, or future clay
To me seems but a dubious kind of reed
To lean on for support in any way
Since odds are that posterity will know
No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

Why, I 'm posterity and so are you
And whom do we remember? Not a hundred.
Were every memory written down all true
the tenth or twentieth name would be but blunder'd
Even Plutarch's Lives have but pick'd out a few
And 'gainst those few your annalists have thunder'd
And Mitford in the nineteenth century
Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.

Good people all, of every degree
Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers
In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be
As serious as if I had for inditers
Malthus and Wilberforce the last set free
the Negroes and is worth a million fighters
While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites
And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which he writes.

I 'm serious so are all men upon paper
And why should I not form my speculation
And hold up to the sun my little taper?
Mankind just now seem wrapt in mediation
On constitutions and steam-boats of vapour
While sages write against all procreation
Unless a man can calculate his means
Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.

That 's noble! That 's romantic! For my part
I think that 'Philo-genitiveness' is
Now here 's a word quite after my own heart
Though there 's a shorter a good deal than this
If that politeness set it not apart
But I 'm resolved to say nought that 's amiss
I say, methinks that 'Philo-genitiveness'
Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.

And now to business. O my gentle Juan
Thou art in London in that pleasant place
Where every kind of mischief 's daily brewing
Which can await warm youth in its wild race.
'T is true, that thy career is not a new one
Thou art no novice in the headlong chase
Of early life but this is a new land
Which foreigners can never understand.

What with a small diversity of climate
Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate
I could send forth my mandate like a primate
Upon the rest of Europe's social state
But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at
Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate.
All countries have their 'Lions,' but in the
there is but one superb menagerie.

But I am sick of politics. Begin
'Paulo Majora.' Juan, undecided
Amongst the paths of being 'taken in,'
Above the ice had like a skater glided
When tired of play, he flirted without sin
With some of those fair creatures who have prided
themselves on innocent tantalisation
And hate all vice except its reputation.

But these are few, and in the end they make
Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows
That even the purest people may mistake
their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows
And then men stare, as if a new ass spake
To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows
Quicksilver small talk, ending if you note it
With the kind world's amen 'Who would have thought it?'

the little Leila, with her orient eyes
And taciturn Asiatic disposition
Which saw all western things with small surprise
To the surprise of people of condition
Who think that novelties are butterflies
To be pursued as food for inanition
Her charming figure and romantic history
Became a kind of fashionable mystery.

the women much divided as is usual
Amongst the sex in little things or great.
Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you all
I have always liked you better than I state
Since I 've grown moral, still I must accuse you all
Of being apt to talk at a great rate
And now there was a general sensation
Amongst you, about Leila's education.

In one point only were you settled and
You had reason 't was that a young child of grace
As beautiful as her own native land
And far away, the last bud of her race
Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command
Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space
Would be much better taught beneath the eye
Of peeresses whose follies had run dry.

So first there was a generous emulation
And then there was a general competition
To undertake the orphan's education.
As Juan was a person of condition
It had been an affront on this occasion
To talk of a subscription or petition
But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages
Whose tale belongs to 'Hallam's Middle Ages,'

And one or two sad, separate wives, without
A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough
Begg'd to bring up the little girl and 'out,'
For that 's the phrase that settles all things now
Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout
And all her points as thorough-bred to show
And I assure you, that like virgin honey
Tastes their first season mostly if they have money.

How all the needy honourable misters
Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy
the watchful mothers, and the careful sisters
Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy
At making matches, where ''t is gold that glisters,'
Than their he relatives, like flies o'er candy
Buzz round 'the Fortune' with their busy battery
To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!

Each aunt, each cousin, hath her speculation
Nay, married dames will now and then discover
Such pure disinterestedness of passion
I 've known them court an heiress for their lover.
'Tantaene!' Such the virtues of high station
Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet 's 'Dover!'
While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares
Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs.

Some are soon bagg'd, and some reject three dozen.
'T is fine to see them scattering refusals
And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin
Friends of the party, who begin accusals
Such as 'Unless Miss Blank meant to have chosen
Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals
To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I pray
Look yes last night, and yet say no to-day?

'Why? Why? Besides, Fred really was attach'd
'T was not her fortune he has enough without
the time will come she 'll wish that she had snatch'd
So good an opportunity, no doubt
But the old marchioness some plan had hatch'd
As I 'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout
And after all poor Frederick may do better
Pray did you see her answer to his letter?'

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets
Are spurn'd in turn, until her turn arrives
After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets
Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives
And when at last the pretty creature gets
Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or drives
It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected
To find how very badly she selected.

For sometimes they accept some long pursuer
Worn out with importunity or fall
But here perhaps the instances are fewer
To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all.
A hazy widower turn'd of forty 's sure
If 't is not vain examples to recall
To draw a high prize now, howe'er he got her, I
See nought more strange in this than t' other lottery.

I, for my part one 'modern instance' more
'True, 't is a pity pity 't is, 't is true'
Was chosen from out an amatory score
Albeit my years were less discreet than few
But though I also had reform'd before
Those became one who soon were to be two
I 'll not gainsay the generous public's voice
That the young lady made a monstrous choice.

O, pardon my digression or at least
Peruse! 'T is always with a moral end
That I dissert, like grace before a feast
For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend
A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest
My Muse by exhortation means to mend
All people, at all times, and in most places
Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces.

But now I 'm going to be immoral now
I mean to show things really as they are
Not as they ought to be for I avow
That till we see what 's what in fact, we 're far
From much improvement with that virtuous plough
Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar
Upon the black loam long manured by Vice
Only to keep its corn at the old price.

But first of little Leila we 'll dispose
For like a day-dawn she was young and pure
Or like the old comparison of snows
Which are more pure than pleasant to be sure.
Like many people everybody knows
Don Juan was delighted to secure
A goodly guardian for his infant charge
Who might not profit much by being at large.

Besides, he had found out he was no tutor
I wish that others would find out the same
And rather wish'd in such things to stand neuter
For silly wards will bring their guardians blame
So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor
To make his little wild Asiatic tame
Consulting 'the Society for Vice
Suppression,' Lady Pinchbeck was his choice.

Olden she was but had been very young
Virtuous she was and had been, I believe
Although the world has such an evil tongue
That but my chaster ear will not receive
An echo of a syllable that 's wrong
In fact, there 's nothing makes me so much grieve
As that abominable tittle-tattle
Which is the cud eschew'd by human cattle.

Moreover I 've remark'd and I was once
A slight observer in a modest way
And so may every one except a dunce
That ladies in their youth a little gay
Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense
Of the sad consequence of going astray
Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe
Which the mere passionless can never know.

While the harsh prude indemnifies her virtue
By railing at the unknown and envied passion
Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you
Or, what 's still worse, to put you out of fashion
the kinder veteran with calm words will court you
Entreating you to pause before you dash on
Expounding and illustrating the riddle
Of epic Love's beginning, end, and middle.

Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter
As better knowing why they should be so
I think you 'll find from many a family picture
That daughters of such mothers as may know
the world by experience rather than by lecture
Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show
Of vestals brought into the marriage mart
Than those bred up by prudes without a heart.

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talk'd about
As who has not, if female, young, and pretty?
But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalk'd about
She merely was deem'd amiable and witty
And several of her best bon-mots were hawk'd about
then she was given to charity and pity
And pass'd at least the latter years of life
For being a most exemplary wife.

High in high circles, gentle in her own
She was the mild reprover of the young
Whenever which means every day they 'd shown
An awkward inclination to go wrong.
the quantity of good she did 's unknown
Or at the least would lengthen out my song
In brief, the little orphan of the East
Had raised an interest in her, which increased.

Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with her
Because she thought him a good heart at bottom
A little spoil'd, but not so altogether
Which was a wonder, if you think who got him
And how he had been toss'd, he scarce knew whither
Though this might ruin others, it did not him
At least entirely for he had seen too many
Changes in youth, to be surprised at any.

And these vicissitudes tell best in youth
For when they happen at a riper age
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth
He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty
Hath won the experience which is deem'd so weighty.

How far it profits is another matter.
Our hero gladly saw his little charge
Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter
Being long married, and thus set at large
Had left all the accomplishments she taught her
To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor's barge
To the next comer or as it will tell
More Muse-like like to Cytherea's shell.

I call such things transmission for there is
A floating balance of accomplishment
Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss
According as their minds or backs are bent.
Some waltz some draw some fathom the abyss
Of metaphysics others are content
With music the most moderate shine as wits
While others have a genius turn'd for fits.

But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords
theology, fine arts, or finer stays
May be the baits for gentlemen or lords
With regular descent, in these our days
the last year to the new transfers its hoards
New vestals claim men's eyes with the same praise
Of 'elegant' et caetera, in fresh batches
All matchless creatures, and yet bent on matches.

But now I will begin my poem. 'T is
Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new
That from the first of Cantos up to this
I 've not begun what we have to go through.
these first twelve books are merely flourishes
Preludios, trying just a string or two
Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure
And when so, you shall have the overture.

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin
About what 's call'd success, or not succeeding
Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen
'T is a 'great moral lesson' they are reading.
I thought, at setting off, about two dozen
Cantos would do but at Apollo's pleading
If that my Pegasus should not be founder'd
I think to canter gently through a hundred.

Don Juan saw that microcosm on stilts
Yclept the Great World for it is the least
Although the highest but as swords have hilts
By which their power of mischief is increased
When man in battle or in quarrel tilts
Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east
Must still obey the high which is their handle
their moon, their sun, their gas, their farthing candle.

He had many friends who had many wives, and was
Well look'd upon by both, to that extent
Of friendship which you may accept or pass
It does nor good nor harm being merely meant
To keep the wheels going of the higher class
And draw them nightly when a ticket 's sent
And what with masquerades, and fetes, and balls
For the first season such a life scarce palls.

A young unmarried man, with a good name
And fortune, has an awkward part to play
For good society is but a game
'the royal game of Goose,' as I may say
Where every body has some separate aim
An end to answer, or a plan to lay
the single ladies wishing to be double
the married ones to save the virgins trouble.

I don't mean this as general, but particular
Examples may be found of such pursuits
Though several also keep their perpendicular
Like poplars, with good principles for roots
Yet many have a method more reticular
'Fishers for men,' like sirens with soft lutes
For talk six times with the same single lady
And you may get the wedding dresses ready.

Perhaps you 'll have a letter from the mother
To say her daughter's feelings are trepann'd
Perhaps you 'll have a visit from the brother
All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to demand
What 'your intentions are?' One way or other
It seems the virgin's heart expects your hand
And between pity for her case and yours
You 'll add to Matrimony's list of cures.

I 've known a dozen weddings made even thus
And some of them high names I have also known
Young men who though they hated to discuss
Pretensions which they never dream'd to have shown
Yet neither frighten'd by a female fuss
Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone
And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair
In happier plight than if they form'd a pair.

there 's also nightly, to the uninitiated
A peril not indeed like love or marriage
But not the less for this to be depreciated
It is I meant and mean not to disparage
the show of virtue even in the vitiated
It adds an outward grace unto their carriage
But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot
'Couleur de rose,' who 's neither white nor scarlet.

Such is your cold coquette, who can't say 'No,'
And won't say 'Yes,' and keeps you on and off-ing
On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow
then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing.
This works a world of sentimental woe
And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin
But yet is merely innocent flirtation
Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

'Ye gods, I grow a talker!' Let us prate.
the next of perils, though I place it sternest
Is when, without regard to 'church or state,'
A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest.
Abroad, such things decide few women's fate
Such, early traveller! is the truth thou learnest
But in old England, when a young bride errs
Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to hers.

For 't is a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit
Country, where a young couple of the same ages
Can't form a friendship, but the world o'erawes it.
then there's the vulgar trick of those d——d damages! !
A verdict grievous foe to those who cause it!
Forms a sad climax to romantic homages
Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders
And evidences which regale all readers.

But they who blunder thus are raw beginners
A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy
Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners
the loveliest oligarchs of our gynocracy
You may see such at all the balls and dinners
Among the proudest of our aristocracy
So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste
And all by having tact as well as taste.

Juan, who did not stand in the predicament
Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more
For he was sick no, 't was not the word sick I meant
But he had seen so much love before
That he was not in heart so very weak I meant
But thus much, and no sneer against the shore
Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings
Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings.

But coming young from lands and scenes romantic
Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risk'd for Passion
And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic
Into a country where 't is half a fashion
Seem'd to him half commercial, half pedantic
Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation
Besides alas! his taste forgive and pity!
At first he did not think the women pretty.

I say at first for he found out at last
But by degrees, that they were fairer far
Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast
Beneath the influence of the eastern star.
A further proof we should not judge in haste
Yet inexperience could not be his bar
To taste the truth is, if men would confess
That novelties please less than they impress.

Though travell'd, I have never had the luck to
Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger
To that impracticable place, Timbuctoo
Where Geography finds no one to oblige her
With such a chart as may be safely stuck to
For Europe ploughs in Afric like 'bos piger'
But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there
No doubt I should be told that black is fair.

It is. I will not swear that black is white
But I suspect in fact that white is black
And the whole matter rests upon eyesight.
Ask a blind man, the best judge. You 'll attack
Perhaps this new position but I 'm right
Or if I 'm wrong, I 'll not be ta'en aback
He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark
Within and what seest thou? A dubious spark.

But I 'm relapsing into metaphysics
That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same
Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics
Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame
And this reflection brings me to plain physics
And to the beauties of a foreign dame
Compared with those of our pure pearls of price
Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose
Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes
Not that there 's not a quantity of those
Who have a due respect for their own wishes.
Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows
Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious
they warm into a scrape, but keep of course
As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

But this has nought to do with their outsides.
I said that Juan did not think them pretty
At the first blush for a fair Briton hides
Half her attractions probably from pity
And rather calmly into the heart glides
Than storms it as a foe would take a city
But once there if you doubt this, prithee try
She keeps it for you like a true ally.

She cannot step as does an Arab barb
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning
Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb
Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning
Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb
le those bravuras which I still am learning
To like, though I have been seven years in Italy
And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily

She cannot do these things, nor one or two
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style
Which takes so much to give the devil his due
Nor is she quite so ready with her smile
Nor settles all things in one interview
A thing approved as saving time and toil
But though the soil may give you time and trouble
Well cultivated, it will render double.

And if in fact she takes to a 'grande passion,'
It is a very serious thing indeed
Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead
the pride of a mere child with a new sash on
Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed
But the tenth instance will be a tornado
For there 's no saying what they will or may do.

the reason 's obvious if there 's an eclat
they lose their caste at once, as do the Parias
And when the delicacies of the law
Have fill'd their papers with their comments various
Society, that china without flaw
the hypocrite!, will banish them like Marius
To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt
For Fame 's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.

Perhaps this is as it should be it is
A comment on the Gospel's 'Sin no more
And be thy sins forgiven' but upon this
I leave the saints to settle their own score.
Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss
An erring woman finds an opener door
For her return to Virtue as they cal
That lady, who should be at home to all.

For me, I leave the matter where I find it
Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads
People some ten times less in fact to mind it
And care but for discoveries and not deeds.
And as for chastity, you 'll never bind it
By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads
But aggravate the crime you have not prevented
By rendering desperate those who had else repented.

But Juan was no casuist, nor had ponder'd
Upon the moral lessons of mankind
Besides, he had not seen of several hundred
A lady altogether to his mind.
A little 'blase' 't is not to be wonder'd
At, that his heart had got a tougher rind
And though not vainer from his past success
No doubt his sensibilities were less.

He also had been busy seeing sights
the Parliament and all the other houses
Had sat beneath the gallery at nights
To hear debates whose thunder roused not rouses
the world to gaze upon those northern lights
Which flash'd as far as where the musk-bull browses
He had also stood at times behind the throne
But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone.

He saw, however, at the closing session
That noble sight, when really free the nation
A king in constitutional possession
Of such a throne as is the proudest station
Though despots know it not till the progression
Of freedom shall complete their education.
'T is not mere splendour makes the show august
To eye or heart it is the people's trust.

there, too, he saw whate'er he may be now
A Prince, the prince of princes at the time
With fascination in his very bow
And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though royalty was written on his brow
He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau
A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.

And Juan was received, as hath been said
Into the best society and there
Occurr'd what often happens, I 'm afraid
However disciplined and debonnaire
the talent and good humour he display'd
Besides the mark'd distinction of his air
Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation
Even though himself avoided the occasion.

But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why
Is not to be put hastily together
And as my object is morality
Whatever people say, I don't know whether
I 'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry
But harrow up his feelings till they wither
And hew out a huge monument of pathos
As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.

Here the twelfth Canto of our introduction
Ends. When the body of the book 's begun
You 'll find it of a different construction
From what some people say 't will be when done
the plan at present 's simply in concoction
I can't oblige you, reader, to read on
That 's your affair, not mine a real spirit
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.

And if my thunderbolt not always rattles
Remember, reader! you have had before
the worst of tempests and the best of battles
That e'er were brew'd from elements or gore
Besides the most sublime of Heaven knows what else
An usurer could scarce expect much more
But my best canto, save one on astronomy
Will turn upon 'political economy.'

That is your present theme for popularity
Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake
It grows an act of patriotic charity
To show the people the best way to break.
My plan but I, if but for singularity
Reserve it will be very sure to take.
Meantime, read all the national debt-sinkers
And tell me what you think of your great thinkers.

I now mean to be serious it is time
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious.
A jest at Vice by Virtue 's call'd a crime
And critically held as deleterious
Besides, the sad 's a source of the sublime
Although when long a little apt to weary us
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn
As an old temple dwindled to a column.

the Lady Adeline Amundeville
'Tis an old Norman name, and to be found
In pedigrees, by those who wander still
Along the last fields of that Gothic ground
Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will
And beauteous, even where beauties most abound
In Britain which of course true patriots find
the goodliest soil of body and of mind.

I 'll not gainsay them it is not my cue
I 'll leave them to their taste, no doubt the best
An eye 's an eye, and whether black or blue
Is no great matter, so 't is in request
'T is nonsense to dispute about a hue
the kindest may be taken as a test.
the fair sex should be always fair and no man
Till thirty, should perceive there 's a plain woman.

And after that serene and somewhat dull
Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days
More quiet, when our moon 's no more at full
We may presume to criticise or praise
Because indifference begins to lull
Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways
Also because the figure and the face
Hint, that 't is time to give the younger place.

I know that some would fain postpone this era
Reluctant as all placemen to resign
their post but theirs is merely a chimera
For they have pass'd life's equinoctial line
But then they have their claret and Madeira
To irrigate the dryness of decline
And county meetings, and the parliament
And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.

And is there not religion, and reform
Peace, war, the taxes, and what 's call'd the 'Nation'?
the struggle to be pilots in a storm?
the landed and the monied speculation?
the joys of mutual hate to keep them warm
Instead of love, that mere hallucination?
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd
Right honestly, 'he liked an honest hater!'
the only truth that yet has been confest
Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest
For my part, I am but a mere spectator
And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is
Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles

But neither love nor hate in much excess
Though 't was not once so. If I sneer sometimes
It is because I cannot well do less
And now and then it also suits my rhymes.
I should be very willing to redress
Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes
Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

Of all tales 't is the saddest and more sad
Because it makes us smile his hero 's right
And still pursues the right to curb the bad
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight
His guerdon 't is his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight
A sorrier still is the great moral taught
By that real epic unto all who have thought.

Redressing injury, revenging wrong
To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff
Opposing singly the united strong
From foreign yoke to free the helpless native
Alas! must noblest views, like an old song
Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative
A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought!
And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away
A single laugh demolish'd the right arm
Of his own country seldom since that day
Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm
the world gave ground before her bright array
And therefore have his volumes done such harm
That all their glory, as a composition
Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.

I 'm 'at my old lunes' digression, and forget
the Lady Adeline Amundeville
the fair most fatal Juan ever met
Although she was not evil nor meant ill
But Destiny and Passion spread the net
Fate is a good excuse for our own will
And caught them what do they not catch, methinks?
But I 'm not OEdipus, and life 's a Sphinx.

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare
To venture a solution 'Davus sum!'
And now I will proceed upon the pair.
Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum
Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that 's fair
Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb.
the last 's a miracle, and such was reckon'd
And since that time there has not been a second.

Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation
And wedded unto one she had loved well
A man known in the councils of the nation
Cool, and quite English, imperturbable
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion
Proud of himself and her the world could tell
Nought against either, and both seem'd secure
She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

It chanced some diplomatical relations
Arising out of business, often brought
Himself and Juan in their mutual stations
Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught
By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience
And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought
And form'd a basis of esteem, which ends
In making men what courtesy calls friends.

And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as
Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow
In judging men when once his judgment was
Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe
Had all the pertinacity pride has
Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow
And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided
Because its own good pleasure hath decided.

His friendships, therefore, and no less aversions
Though oft well founded, which confirm'd but more
His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians
And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before.
His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians
Of common likings, which make some deplore
What they should laugh at the mere ague still
Of men's regard, the fever or the chill.

''T is not in mortals to command success
But do you more, Sempronius don't deserve it,'
And take my word, you won't have any less.
Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it
Give gently way, when there 's too great a press
And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it
For, like a racer, or a boxer training
'T will make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.

Lord Henry also liked to be superior
As most men do, the little or the great
the very lowest find out an inferior
At least they think so, to exert their state
Upon for there are very few things wearier
Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight
Which mortals generously would divide
By bidding others carry while they ride.

In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal
O'er Juan he could no distinction claim
In years he had the advantage of time's sequel
And, as he thought, in country much the same
Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill
At which all modern nations vainly aim
And the Lord Henry was a great debater
So that few members kept the house up later.

these were advantages and then he thought
It was his foible, but by no means sinister
That few or none more than himself had caught
Court mysteries, having been himself a minister
He liked to teach that which he had been taught
And greatly shone whenever there had been a stir
And reconciled all qualities which grace man
Always a patriot, and sometimes a placeman.

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity
He almost honour'd him for his docility
Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity
Or contradicted but with proud humility.
He knew the world, and would not see depravity
In faults which sometimes show the soil's fertility
If that the weeds o'erlive not the first crop
For then they are very difficult to stop.

And then he talk'd with him about Madrid
Constantinople, and such distant places
Where people always did as they were bid
Or did what they should not with foreign graces.
Of coursers also spake they Henry rid
Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races
And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian
Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian.

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs
And diplomatic dinners, or at other
For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs
As in freemasonry a higher brother.
Upon his talent Henry had no doubts
His manner show'd him sprung from a high mother
And all men like to show their hospitality
To him whose breeding matches with his quality.

At Blank-Blank Square for we will break no squares
By naming streets since men are so censorious
And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares
Reaping allusions private and inglorious
Where none were dreamt of, unto love's affairs
Which were, or are, or are to be notorious
That therefore do I previously declare
Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.

Also there bin another pious reason
For making squares and streets anonymous
Which is, that there is scarce a single season
Which doth not shake some very splendid house
With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason
A topic scandal doth delight to rouse
Such I might stumble over unawares
Unless I knew the very chastest squares.

'T is true, I might have chosen Piccadilly
A place where peccadillos are unknown
But I have motives, whether wise or silly
For letting that pure sanctuary alone.
therefore I name not square, street, place, until I
Find one where nothing naughty can be shown
A vestal shrine of innocence of heart
Such are—but I have lost the London Chart.
At Henry's mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square
Was Juan a recherche, welcome guest
As many other noble scions were
And some who had but talent for their crest
Or wealth, which is a passport every where
Or even mere fashion, which indeed 's the best
Recommendation and to be well drest
Will very often supersede the rest.

And since 'there 's safety in a multitude
Of counsellors,' as Solomon has said
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood
Indeed we see the daily proof display'd
In senates, at the bar, in wordy feud
Where'er collective wisdom can parade
Which is the only cause that we can guess
Of Britain's present wealth and happiness

But as 'there 's safety' grafted in the number
'Of counsellors' for men, thus for the sex
A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber
Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex
Variety itself will more encumber.
'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks
And thus with women howsoe'er it shocks some's
Self-love, there 's safety in a crowd of coxcombs.

But Adeline had not the least occasion
For such a shield, which leaves but little merit
To virtue proper, or good education.
Her chief resource was in her own high spirit
Which judged mankind at their due estimation
And for coquetry, she disdain'd to wear it
Secure of admiration, its impression
Was faint, as of an every-day possession.

To all she was polite without parade
To some she show'd attention of that kind
Which flatters, but is flattery convey'd
In such a sort as cannot leave behind
A trace unworthy either wife or maid
A gentle, genial courtesy of mind
To those who were, or pass'd for meritorious
Just to console sad glory for being glorious

Which is in all respects, save now and then
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze
Upon the shades of those distinguish'd men
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise
the praise of persecution gaze again
On the most favour'd and amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-brow'd
What can ye recognise? a gilded cloud.

there also was of course in Adeline
That calm patrician polish in the address
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
Of any thing which nature would express
Just as a mandarin finds nothing fine
At least his manner suffers not to guess
That any thing he views can greatly please.
Perhaps we have borrow'd this from the Chinese

Perhaps from Horace his 'Nil admirari'
Was what he call'd the 'Art of Happiness'
An art on which the artists greatly vary
And have not yet attain'd to much success.
However, 't is expedient to be wary
Indifference certes don't produce distress
And rash enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.

But Adeline was not indifferent for
Now for a common-place! beneath the snow
As a volcano holds the lava more
Within et caetera. Shall I go on? No!
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor
So let the often-used volcano go.
Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others
It hath been stirr'd up till its smoke quite smothers!

I 'll have another figure in a trice
What say you to a bottle of champagne?
Frozen into a very vinous ice
Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain
Yet in the very centre, past all price
About a liquid glassful will remain
And this is stronger than the strongest grape
Could e'er express in its expanded shape

'T is the whole spirit brought to a quintessence
And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre
A hidden nectar under a cold presence.
And such are many though I only meant her
From whom I now deduce these moral lessons
On which the Muse has always sought to enter.
And your cold people are beyond all price
When once you have broken their confounded ice.

But after all they are a North-West Passage
Unto the glowing India of the soul
And as the good ships sent upon that message
Have not exactly ascertain'd the Pole
Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage
Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal
For if the Pole 's not open, but all frost
A chance still, 't is a voyage or vessel lost.

And young beginners may as well commence
With quiet cruising o'er the ocean woman
While those who are not beginners should have sense
Enough to make for port, ere time shall summon
With his grey signal-flag and the past tense
the dreary 'Fuimus' of all things human
Must be declined, while life's thin thread 's spun out
Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.

But heaven must be diverted its diversion
Is sometimes truculent but never mind
the world upon the whole is worth the assertion
If but for comfort that all things are kind
And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian
Of the two principles, but leaves behind
As many doubts as any other doctrine
Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.

the English winter ending in July
To recommence in August now was done.
'T is the postilion's paradise wheels fly
On roads, east, south, north, west, there is a run.
But for post-horses who finds sympathy?
Man's pity 's for himself, or for his son
Always premising that said son at college
Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.

the London winter 's ended in July
Sometimes a little later. I don't err
In this whatever other blunders lie
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver
My Muse a glass of weatherology
For parliament is our barometer
Let radicals its other acts attack
Its sessions form our only almanack.

When its quicksilver 's down at zero, lo
Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage!
Wheels whirl from Carlton palace to Soho
And happiest they who horses can engage
the turnpikes glow with dust and Rotten Row
Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age
And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces
Sigh as the postboys fasten on the traces.

they and their bills, 'Arcadians both,' are left
To the Greek kalends of another session.
Alas! to them of ready cash bereft
What hope remains? Of hope the full possession
Or generous draft, conceded as a gift
At a long date till they can get a fresh one
Hawk'd about at a discount, small or large
Also the solace of an overcharge.

But these are trifles. Downward flies my lord
Nodding beside my lady in his carriage.
Away! away! 'Fresh horses!' are the word
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage
the obsequious landlord hath the change restored
the postboys have no reason to disparage
their fee but ere the water'd wheels may hiss hence
the ostler pleads too for a reminiscence.

'T is granted and the valet mounts the dickey
That gentleman of lords and gentlemen
Also my lady's gentlewoman, tricky
Trick'd out, but modest more than poet's pen
Can paint, 'Cosi viaggino i Ricchi!'
Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then
If but to show I 've travell'd and what 's travel
Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?

the London winter and the country summer
Were well nigh over. 'T is perhaps a pity
When nature wears the gown that doth become her
To lose those best months in a sweaty city
And wait until the nightingale grows dumber
Listening debates not very wise or witty
Ere patriots their true country can remember
But there 's no shooting save grouse till September.

I 've done with my tirade. the world was gone
the twice two thousand, for whom earth was made
Were vanish'd to be what they call alone
That is, with thirty servants for parade
As many guests, or more before whom groan
As many covers, duly, daily, laid.
Let none accuse Old England's hospitality
Its quantity is but condensed to quality.

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline
Departed like the rest of their compeers
the peerage, to a mansion very fine
the Gothic Babel of a thousand years.
None than themselves could boast a longer line
Where time through heroes and through beauties steers
And oaks as olden as their pedigree
Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree.

A paragraph in every paper told
Of their departure such is modern fame
'T is pity that it takes no farther hold
Than an advertisement, or much the same
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.
the Morning Post was foremost to proclaim
'Departure, for his country seat, to-day
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.

'We understand the splendid host intends
To entertain, this autumn, a select
And numerous party of his noble friends
'Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct
With many more by rank and fashion deck'd
Also a foreigner of high condition
the envoy of the secret Russian mission.'

And thus we see who doubts the Morning Post?
Whose articles are like the 'Thirty-nine,'
Which those most swear to who believe them most
Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordain'd to shine
Deck'd by the rays reflected from his host
With those who, Pope says, 'greatly daring dine.'
'T is odd, but true, last war the News abounded
More with these dinners than the kill'd or wounded

As thus 'On Thursday there was a grand dinner
Present, Lords A. B. C.' Earls, dukes, by name
Announced with no less pomp than victory's winner
then underneath, and in the very same
Column date, 'Falmouth. there has lately been here
the Slap-dash regiment, so well known to fame
Whose loss in the late action we regret
the vacancies are fill'd up see Gazette.'

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal it lies perhaps a little low
Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind
To shelter their devotion from the wind.

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley
Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally
His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunderstroke
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
the dappled foresters as day awoke
the branching stag swept down with all his herd
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird.

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around the wildfowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed
the woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.

Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes like an infant made
Quiet sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet and thus allay'd
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods now clear, now blue
According as the skies their shadows threw.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile
While yet the church was Rome's stood half apart
In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle.
these last had disappear'd a loss to art
the first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil
And kindled feelings in the roughest heart
Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march
In gazing on that venerable arch.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle
Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell
But in the war which struck Charles from his throne
When each house was a fortalice, as tell
the annals of full many a line undone
the gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned
the Virgin Mother of the God-born Child
With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd
She made the earth below seem holy ground.
This may be superstition, weak or wild
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings
Now yawns all desolate now loud, now fainter
the gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
the owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

But in the noontide of the moon, and when
the wind is winged from one point of heaven
there moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
Is musical a dying accent driven
Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the night wind by the waterfall
And harmonised by the old choral wall

Others, that some original shape, or form
Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
Though less than that of Memnon's statue, warm
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour
To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm.
Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower
the cause I know not, nor can solve but such
the fact I 've heard it once perhaps too much.

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd
Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade
And here perhaps a monster, there a saint
the spring gush'd through grim mouths of granite made
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles
Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles.

the mansion's self was vast and venerable
With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved the cloisters still were stable
the cells, too, and refectory, I ween
An exquisite small chapel had been able
Still unimpair'd, to decorate the scene
the rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join'd
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts
Might shock a connoisseur but when combined
Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts
Yet left a grand impression on the mind
At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts
We gaze upon a giant for his stature
Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.

Steel barons, molten the next generation
To silken rows of gay and garter'd earls
Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation
And Lady Marys blooming into girls
With fair long locks, had also kept their station
And countesses mature in robes and pearls
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely
Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.

Judges in very formidable ermine
Were there, with brows that did not much invite
the accused to think their lordships would determine
His cause by leaning much from might to right
Bishops, who had not left a single sermon
Attorneys-general, awful to the sight
As hinting more unless our judgments warp us
Of the 'Star Chamber' than of 'Habeas Corpus.'

Generals, some all in armour, of the old
And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the lead
Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed
Lordlings, with staves of white or keys of gold
Nimrods, whose canvass scarce contain'd the steed
And here and there some stern high patriot stood
Who could not get the place for which he sued.

But ever and anon, to soothe your vision
Fatigued with these hereditary glories
there rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian
Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's
Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone
In Vernet's ocean lights and there the stories
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted
His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine
there Rembrandt made his darkness equal light
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain
Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic anchorite
But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain
Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight
His bell-mouth'd goblet makes me feel quite Danish
Or Dutch with thirst What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.

O reader! if that thou canst read, and know
'T is not enough to spell, or even to read
To constitute a reader there must go
Virtues of which both you and I have need
Firstly, begin with the beginning though
That clause is hard and secondly, proceed
Thirdly, commence not with the end or, sinning
In this sort, end at least with the beginning.

But, reader, thou hast patient been of late
While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear
Have built and laid out ground at such a rate
Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer.
That poets were so from their earliest date
By Homer's 'Catalogue of ships' is clear
But a mere modern must be moderate
I spare you then the furniture and plate.

the mellow autumn came, and with it came
the promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
the corn is cut, the manor full of game
the pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket lynx-like is his aim
Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers! 'T is no sport for peasants.

An English autumn, though it hath no vines
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along
the paths, o'er which the far festoon entwines
the red grape in the sunny lands of song
Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines
the claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her
the very best of vineyards is the cellar.

then, if she hath not that serene decline
Which makes the southern autumn's day appear
As if 't would to a second spring resign
the season, rather than to winter drear
Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine
the sea-coal fires the 'earliest of the year'
Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow
As what is lost in green is gain'd in yellow.

And for the effeminate villeggiatura
Rife with more horns than hounds she hath the chase
So animated that it might allure
Saint from his beads to join the jocund race
Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura
And wear the Melton jacket for a space
If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame
Preserve of bores, who ought to be made game.

the noble guests, assembled at the Abbey
Consisted of we give the sex the pas
the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke the Countess Crabby
the Ladies Scilly, Busey Miss Eclat
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabby
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw
Also the honourable Mrs. Sleep
Who look'd a white lamb, yet was a black sheep

With other Countesses of Blank but rank
At once the 'lie' and the 'elite' of crowds
Who pass like water filter'd in a tank
All purged and pious from their native clouds
Or paper turn'd to money by the Bank
No matter how or why, the passport shrouds
the 'passee' and the past for good society
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety

That is, up to a certain point which point
Forms the most difficult in punctuation.
Appearances appear to form the joint
On which it hinges in a higher station
And so that no explosion cry 'Aroint
thee, witch!' or each Medea has her Jason
Or to the point with Horace and with Pulci
'Omne tulit punctum, quae miscuit utile dulci.'

I can't exactly trace their rule of right
Which hath a little leaning to a lottery.
I 've seen a virtuous woman put down quite
By the mere combination of a coterie
Also a so-so matron boldly fight
Her way back to the world by dint of plottery
And shine the very Siria of the spheres
Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.

I have seen more than I 'll say but we will see
How our villeggiatura will get on.
the party might consist of thirty-three
Of highest caste the Brahmins of the ton.
I have named a few, not foremost in degree
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.
By way of sprinkling, scatter'd amongst these
there also were some Irish absentees.

there was Parolles, too, the legal bully
Who limits all his battles to the bar
And senate when invited elsewhere, truly
He shows more appetite for words than war.
there was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly
Come out and glimmer'd as a six weeks' star.
there was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.

there was the Duke of Dash, who was a duke
'Ay, every inch a' duke there were twelve peers
Like Charlemagne's and all such peers in look
And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears
For commoners had ever them mistook.
there were the six Miss Rawbolds pretty dears!
All song and sentiment whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet.

there were four Honourable Misters, whose
Honour was more before their names than after
there was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse
Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft here
Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse
But the clubs found it rather serious laughter
Because such was his magic power to please
the dice seem'd charm'd, too, with his repartees.

there was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner
Angle, the soi-disant mathematician
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.
there was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet
Good at all things, but better at a bet.

there was jack jargon, the gigantic guardsman
And General Fireface, famous in the field
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman
Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd.
there was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman
In his grave office so completely skill'd
That when a culprit came far condemnation
He had his judge's joke for consolation.

Good company 's a chess-board there are kings
Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns the world 's a game
Save that the puppets pull at their own strings
Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same.
My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings
Not stings, and flits through ether without aim
Alighting rarely were she but a hornet
Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it.

I had forgotten but must not forget
An orator, the latest of the session
Who had deliver'd well a very set
Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression
Upon debate the papers echoed yet
With his debut, which made a strong impression
And rank'd with what is every day display'd
'the best first speech that ever yet was made.'

Proud of his 'Hear hims!' proud, too, of his vote
And lost virginity of oratory
Proud of his learning just enough to quote
He revell'd in his Ciceronian glory
With memory excellent to get by rote
With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story
Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery
'His country's pride,' he came down to the country.

there also were two wits by acclamation
Longbow from Ireland, Strongbow from the Tweed
Both lawyers and both men of education
But Strongbow's wit was of more polish'd breed
Longbow was rich in an imagination
As beautiful and bounding as a steed
But sometimes stumbling over a potato
While Strongbow's best things might have come from Cato.

Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord
But Longbow wild as an AEolian harp
With which the winds of heaven can claim accord
And make a music, whether flat or sharp.
Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word
At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp
Both wits one born so, and the other bred
This by his heart, his rival by his head.

If all these seem a heterogeneous mas
To be assembled at a country seat
Yet think, a specimen of every class
Is better than a humdrum tete-a-tete.
the days of Comedy are gone, alas!
When Congreve's fool could vie with Moliere's bete
Society is smooth'd to that excess
That manners hardly differ more than dress.

Our ridicules are kept in the back-ground
Ridiculous enough, but also dull
Professions, too, are no more to be found
Professional and there is nought to cull
Of folly's fruit for though your fools abound
they're barren, and not worth the pains to pull.
Society is now one polish'd horde
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning
the scanty but right-well thresh'd ears of truth
And, gentle reader! when you gather meaning
You may be Boaz, and I modest Ruth.
Farther I 'd quote, but Scripture intervening
Forbids. Its great impression in my youth
Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries
'That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies.'

But what we can we glean in this vile age
Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist.
I must not quite omit the talking sage
Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist
Who, in his common-place book, had a page
Prepared each morn for evenings. 'List, oh, list!'
'Alas, poor ghost!' What unexpected woes
Await those who have studied their bon-mots!

Firstly, they must allure the conversation
By many windings to their clever clinch
And secondly, must let slip no occasion
Nor bate abate their hearers of an inch
But take an ell and make a great sensation
If possible and thirdly, never flinch
When some smart talker puts them to the test
But seize the last word, which no doubt 's the best.

Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts
the party we have touch'd on were the guests
their table was a board to tempt even ghosts
To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts.
I will not dwell upon ragouts or roasts
Albeit all human history attests
That happiness for man the hungry sinner!
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.

Witness the lands which 'flow'd with milk and honey,'
Held out unto the hungry Israelites
To this we have added since, the love of money
the only sort of pleasure which requites.
Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny
We tire of mistresses and parasites
But oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who would lose thee?
When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!

the gentlemen got up betimes to shoot
Or hunt the young, because they liked the sport
the first thing boys like after play and fruit
the middle-aged to make the day more short
For ennui is a growth of English root
Though nameless in our language we retort
the fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful yawn which sleep can not abate.

the elderly walk'd through the library
And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures
Or saunter'd through the gardens piteously
And made upon the hot-house several strictures
Or rode a nag which trotted not too high
Or on the morning papers read their lectures
Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix
Longing at sixty for the hour of six.

But none were 'gene' the great hour of union
Was rung by dinner's knell till then all were
Masters of their own time or in communion
Or solitary, as they chose to bear
the hours, which how to pass is but to few known.
Each rose up at his own, and had to spare
What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast
When, where, and how he chose for that repast.

the ladies some rouged, some a little pale
Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode
Or walk'd if foul, they read, or told a tale
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad
Discuss'd the fashion which might next prevail
And settled bonnets by the newest code
Or cramm'd twelve sheets into one little letter
To make each correspondent a new debtor.

For some had absent lovers, all had friends.
the earth has nothing like a she epistle
And hardly heaven because it never ends.
I love the mystery of a female missal
Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends
But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle
When he allured poor Dolon you had better
Take care what you reply to such a letter.

then there were billiards cards, too, but no dice
Save in the clubs no man of honour plays
Boats when 't was water, skating when 't was ice
And the hard frost destroy'd the scenting days
And angling, too, that solitary vice
Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says
the quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

With evening came the banquet and the wine
the conversazione the duet
Attuned by voices more or less divine
My heart or head aches with the memory yet.
the four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine
But the two youngest loved more to be set
Down to the harp because to music's charms
they added graceful necks, white hands and arms.

Sometimes a dance though rarely on field days
For then the gentlemen were rather tired
Display'd some sylph-like figures in its maze
then there was small-talk ready when required
Flirtation but decorous the mere praise
Of charms that should or should not be admired.
the hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er again
And then retreated soberly at ten.

the politicians, in a nook apart
Discuss'd the world, and settled all the spheres
the wits watch'd every loophole for their art
To introduce a bon-mot head and ears
Small is the rest of those who would be smart
A moment's good thing may have cost them years
Before they find an hour to introduce it
And then, even then, some bore may make them lose it.

But all was gentle and aristocratic
In this our party polish'd, smooth, and cold
As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic.
there now are no Squire Westerns as of old
And our Sophias are not so emphatic
But fair as then, or fairer to behold.
We have no accomplish'd blackguards, like Tom Jones
But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.

they separated at an early hour
That is, ere midnight which is London's noon
But in the country ladies seek their bower
A little earlier than the waning moon.
Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower
May the rose call back its true colour soon!
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters
And lower the price of rouge at least some winters.

If from great nature's or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss
But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than not to trust your senses
And yet what are your other evidences?

For me, I know nought nothing I deny
Admit, reject, contemn and what know you
Except perhaps that you were born to die?
And both may after all turn out untrue.
An age may come, Font of Eternity
When nothing shall be either old or new.
Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
the very Suicide that pays his debt
At once without instalments an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.

'T is round him, near him, here, there, every where
And there 's a courage which grows out of fear
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
the worst to know it when the mountains rear
their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o'er the precipice, and drear
the gulf of rock yawns, you can't gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it.

'T is true, you don't but, pale and struck with terror
Retire but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession
the lurking bias, be it truth or error
To the unknown a secret prepossession
To plunge with all your fears but where? You know not
And that's the reason why you do or do not.

But what 's this to the purpose? you will say.
Gent. reader, nothing a mere speculation
For which my sole excuse is 't is my way
Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion
I write what 's uppermost, without delay
This narrative is not meant for narration
But a mere airy and fantastic basis
To build up common things with common places.

You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith
'Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows'
And such a straw, borne on by human breath
Is poesy, according as the mind glows
A paper kite which flies 'twixt life and death
A shadow which the onward soul behind throws
And mine 's a bubble, not blown up for praise
But just to play with, as an infant plays.

the world is all before me or behind
For I have seen a portion of that same
And quite enough for me to keep in mind
Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame
To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind
Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame
For I was rather famous in my time
Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme.

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke
the other that 's to say, the clergy, who
Upon my head have bid their thunders break
In pious libels by no means a few.
And yet I can't help scribbling once a week
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.
In youth I wrote because my mind was full
And now because I feel it growing dull.

But 'why then publish?' there are no rewards
Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.
I ask in turn, Why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
On what I 've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery
And what I write I cast upon the stream
To swim or sink I have had at least my dream.

I think that were I certain of success
I hardly could compose another line
So long I 've battled either more or less
That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.
This feeling 't is not easy to express
And yet 't is not affected, I opine.
In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing
the one is winning, and the other losing.

Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction
She gathers a repertory of facts
Of course with some reserve and slight restriction
But mostly sings of human things and acts
And that 's one cause she meets with contradiction
For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts
And were her object only what 's call'd glory
With more ease too she 'd tell a different story.

Love, war, a tempest surely there 's variety
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration
A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society
A slight glance thrown on men of every station.
If you have nought else, here 's at least satiety
Both in performance and in preparation
And though these lines should only line portmanteaus
Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.

the portion of this world which I at present
Have taken up to fill the following sermon
Is one of which there 's no description recent.
the reason why is easy to determine
Although it seems both prominent and pleasant
there is a sameness in its gems and ermine
A dull and family likeness through all ages
Of no great promise for poetic pages.

With much to excite, there 's little to exalt
Nothing that speaks to all men and all times
A sort of varnish over every fault
A kind of common-place, even in their crimes
Factitious passions, wit without much salt
A want of that true nature which sublimes
Whate'er it shows with truth a smooth monotony
Of character, in those at least who have got any.

Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade
they break their ranks and gladly leave the drill
But then the roll-call draws them back afraid
And they must be or seem what they were still
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade
But when of the first sight you have had your fill
It palls at least it did so upon me
This paradise of pleasure and ennui.

When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming
Drest, voted, shone, and, may be, something more
With dandies dined heard senators declaiming
Seen beauties brought to market by the score
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming
there 's little left but to be bored or bore.
Witness those 'ci-devant jeunes hommes' who stem
the stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.

'T is said indeed a general complaint
That no one has succeeded in describing
the monde, exactly as they ought to paint
Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing
the porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint
To furnish matter for their moral gibing
And that their books have but one style in common
My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman.

But this can't well be true, just now for writers
Are grown of the beau monde a part potential
I 've seen them balance even the scale with fighters
Especially when young, for that 's essential.
Why do their sketches fail them as inditers
Of what they deem themselves most consequential
the real portrait of the highest tribe?
'T is that, in fact, there 's little to describe.