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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Tenth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">When Newton saw an apple fall, he found<br>In that slight startle from his contemplation--<br>'Tis said (for I 'll not answer above ground<br>For any sage's creed or calculation)--<br>A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round<br>In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation;'<br>And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,<br>Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,<br>If this be true; for we must deem the mode<br>In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose<br>Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,<br>A thing to counterbalance human woes:<br>For ever since immortal man hath glow'd<br>With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon<br>Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And wherefore this exordium?--Why, just now,<br>In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,<br>My bosom underwent a glorious glow,<br>And my internal spirit cut a caper:<br>And though so much inferior, as I know,<br>To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour,<br>Discover stars and sail in the wind's eye,<br>I wish to do as much by poesy. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In the wind's eye I have sail'd, and sail; but for<br>The stars, I own my telescope is dim:<br>But at least I have shunn'd the common shore,<br>And leaving land far out of sight, would skim<br>The ocean of eternity: the roar<br>Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,<br>But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float<br>Where ships have founder'd, as doth many a boat. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom<br>Of favouritism, but not yet in the blush;<br>And far be it from my Muses to presume<br>(For I have more than one Muse at a push)<br>To follow him beyond the drawing-room:<br>It is enough that Fortune found him flush<br>Of youth, and vigour, beauty, and those things<br>Which for an instant clip enjoyment's wings. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But soon they grow again and leave their nest.<br>'Oh!' saith the Psalmist, 'that I had a dove's<br>Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!'<br>And who that recollects young years and loves,--<br>Though hoary now, and with a withering breast,<br>And palsied fancy, which no longer roves<br>Beyond its dimm'd eye's sphere,--but would much rather<br>Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,<br>Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow,<br>So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,<br>Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!<br>Such difference doth a few months make. You 'd think<br>Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow;<br>No more it doth, its ploughs but change their boys,<br>Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But coughs will come when sighs depart--and now<br>And then before sighs cease; for oft the one<br>Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow<br>Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the sun<br>Of life reach'd ten o'clock: and while a glow,<br>Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done,<br>O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay,<br>Thousands blaze, love, hope, die,--how happy they! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But Juan was not meant to die so soon.<br>We left him in the focus of such glory<br>As may be won by favour of the moon<br>Or ladies' fancies--rather transitory<br>Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,<br>Because December, with his breath so hoary,<br>Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,<br>To hoard up warmth against a wintry day. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Besides, he had some qualities which fix<br>Middle-aged ladies even more than young:<br>The former know what's what; while new-fledged chicks<br>Know little more of love than what is sung<br>In rhymes, or dreamt (for fancy will play tricks)<br>In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung.<br>Some reckon women by their suns or years,<br>I rather think the moon should date the dears. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And why? because she's changeable and chaste.<br>I know no other reason, whatsoe'er<br>Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,<br>May choose to tax me with; which is not fair,<br>Nor flattering to 'their temper or their taste,'<br>As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air:<br>However, I forgive him, and I trust<br>He will forgive himself;--if not, I must. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Old enemies who have become new friends<br>Should so continue--'tis a point of honour;<br>And I know nothing which could make amends<br>For a return to hatred: I would shun her<br>Like garlic, howsoever she extends<br>Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.<br>Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes--<br>Converted foes should scorn to join with those. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This were the worst desertion:- renegadoes,<br>Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,<br>Would scarcely join again the 'reformadoes,'<br>Whom he forsook to fill the laureate's sty:<br>And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes,<br>Whether in Caledon or Italy,<br>Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize<br>To pain, the moment when you cease to please. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The lawyer and the critic but behold<br>The baser sides of literature and life,<br>And nought remains unseen, but much untold,<br>By those who scour those double vales of strife.<br>While common men grow ignorantly old,<br>The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,<br>Dissecting the whole inside of a question,<br>And with it all the process of digestion. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper,<br>And that's the reason he himself's so dirty;<br>The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper<br>Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he<br>Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper,<br>At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty,<br>In all their habits;--not so you, I own;<br>As Caesar wore his robe you wear your gown. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And all our little feuds, at least all mine,<br>Dear Jefferson, once my most redoubted foe<br>(As far as rhyme and criticism combine<br>To make such puppets of us things below),<br>Are over: Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!'<br>I do not know you, and may never know<br>Your face--but you have acted on the whole<br>Most nobly, and I own it from my soul. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And when I use the phrase of 'Auld Lang Syne!'<br>'Tis not address'd to you--the more 's the pity<br>For me, for I would rather take my wine<br>With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.<br>But somehow,--it may seem a schoolboy's whine,<br>And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,<br>But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred<br>A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,-- </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland, one and all,<br>Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,<br>The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall,<br>All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams<br>Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,<br>Like Banquo's offspring;--floating past me seems<br>My childhood in this childishness of mine:<br>I care not--'tis a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And though, as you remember, in a fit<br>Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,<br>I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit,<br>Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly,<br>Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit,<br>They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:<br>I 'scotch'd not kill'd' the Scotchman in my blood,<br>And love the land of 'mountain and of flood.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Don Juan, who was real, or ideal,--<br>For both are much the same, since what men think<br>Exists when the once thinkers are less real<br>Than what they thought, for mind can never sink,<br>And 'gainst the body makes a strong appeal;<br>And yet 'tis very puzzling on the brink<br>Of what is call'd eternity, to stare,<br>And know no more of what is here, than there;-- </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Don Juan grew a very polish'd Russian--<br>How we won't mention, why we need not say:<br>Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion<br>Of any slight temptation in their way;<br>But his just now were spread as is a cushion<br>Smooth'd for a monarch's seat of honour; gay<br>Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money,<br>Made ice seem paradise, and winter sunny. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The favour of the empress was agreeable;<br>And though the duty wax'd a little hard,<br>Young people at his time of life should be able<br>To come off handsomely in that regard.<br>He was now growing up like a green tree, able<br>For love, war, or ambition, which reward<br>Their luckier votaries, till old age's tedium<br>Make some prefer the circulating medium. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">About this time, as might have been anticipated,<br>Seduced by youth and dangerous examples,<br>Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated;<br>Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples<br>On our fresh feelings, but- as being participated<br>With all kinds of incorrigible samples<br>Of frail humanity--must make us selfish,<br>And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This we pass over. We will also pass<br>The usual progress of intrigues between<br>Unequal matches, such as are, alas!<br>A young lieutenant's with a not old queen,<br>But one who is not so youthful as she was<br>In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.<br>Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter, </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And Death, the sovereign's sovereign, though the great<br>Gracchus of all mortality, who levels<br>With his Agrarian laws the high estate<br>Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels,<br>To one small grass-grown patch (which must await<br>Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils<br>Who never had a foot of land till now,--<br>Death's a reformer, all men must allow. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry<br>Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter,<br>In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry-<br>Which (though I hate to say a thing that 's bitter)<br>Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry,<br>Through all the 'purple and fine linen,' fitter<br>For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot--<br>And neutralize her outward show of scarlet. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And this same state we won't describe: we would<br>Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection;<br>But getting nigh grim Dante's 'obscure wood,'<br>That horrid equinox, that hateful section<br>Of human years, that half-way house, that rude<br>Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circumspection<br>Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier<br>Of age, and looking back to youth, give one tear;--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I won't describe,--that is, if I can help<br>Description; and I won't reflect,--that is,<br>If I can stave off thought, which--as a whelp<br>Clings to its teat--sticks to me through the abyss<br>Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp<br>Holds by the rock; or as a lover's kiss<br>Drains its first draught of lips:--but, as I said,<br>I won't philosophise, and will be read. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted,--<br>A thing which happens rarely: this he owed<br>Much to his youth, and much to his reported<br>Valour; much also to the blood he show'd,<br>Like a race-horse; much to each dress he sported,<br>Which set the beauty off in which he glow'd,<br>As purple clouds befringe the sun; but most<br>He owed to an old woman and his post. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He wrote to Spain:--and all his near relations,<br>Perceiving fie was in a handsome way<br>Of getting on himself, and finding stations<br>For cousins also, answer'd the same day.<br>Several prepared themselves for emigrations;<br>And eating ices, were o'erheard to say,<br>That with the addition of a slight pelisse,<br>Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a piece. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too,<br>That in the lieu of drawing on his banker,<br>Where his assets were waxing rather few,<br>He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,--<br>Replied, 'that she was glad to see him through<br>Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker;<br>As the sole sign of man's being in his senses<br>Is, learning to reduce his past expenses. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'She also recommended him to God,<br>And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother,<br>Warn'd him against Greek worship, which looks odd<br>In Catholic eyes; but told him, too, to smother<br>Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad;<br>Inform'd him that he had a little brother<br>Born in a second wedlock; and above<br>All, praised the empress's maternal love. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'She could not too much give her approbation<br>Unto an empress, who preferr'd young men<br>Whose age, and what was better still, whose nation<br>And climate, stopp'd all scandal (now and then):--<br>At home it might have given her some vexation;<br>But where thermometers sunk down to ten,<br>Or five, or one, or zero, she could never<br>Believe that virtue thaw'd before the river.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh for a forty-parson power to chant<br>Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn<br>Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,<br>Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim!<br>Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,<br>Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,<br>Drew quiet consolation through its hint,<br>When she no more could read the pious print. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul,<br>But went to heaven in as sincere a way<br>As any body on the elected roll,<br>Which portions out upon the judgment day<br>Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll,<br>Such as the conqueror William did repay<br>His knights with, lotting others' properties<br>Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I can't complain, whose ancestors are there,<br>Erneis, Radulphus--eight-and-forty manors<br>(If that my memory doth not greatly err)<br>Were their reward for following Billy's banners:<br>And though I can't help thinking 'twas scarce fair<br>To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners;<br>Yet as they founded churches with the produce,<br>You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The gentle Juan flourish'd, though at times<br>He felt like other plants called sensitive,<br>Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes,<br>Save such as Southey can afford to give.<br>Perhaps he long'd in bitter frosts for climes<br>In which the Neva's ice would cease to live<br>Before May-day: perhaps, despite his duty,<br>In royalty's vast arms he sigh d for beauty: </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Perhaps--but, sans perhaps, we need not seek<br>For causes young or old: the canker-worm<br>Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek,<br>As well as further drain the wither'd form:<br>Care, like a housekeeper, brings every week<br>His bills in, and however we may storm,<br>They must be paid: though six days smoothly run,<br>The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I don't know how it was, but he grew sick:<br>The empress was alarm'd, and her physician<br>(The same who physick'd Peter) found the tick<br>Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition<br>Which augur'd of the dead, however quick<br>Itself, and show'd a feverish disposition;<br>At which the whole court was extremely troubled,<br>The sovereign shock'd, and all his medicines doubled. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:<br>Some said he had been poison'd by Potemkin;<br>Others talk'd learnedly of certain tumours,<br>Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;<br>Some said 'twas a concoction of the humours,<br>Which with the blood too readily will claim kin;<br>Others again were ready to maintain,<br>''Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But here is one prescription out of many:<br>'Sodae sulphat. 3vj. 3fs. Mannae optim.<br>Aq. fervent. f. 3ifs. 3ij. tinct. Sennae<br>Haustus' (And here the surgeon came and cupp'd him)<br>'Rx Pulv Com gr. iij. Ipecacuanhae'<br>(With more beside if Juan had not stopp'd 'em).<br>'Bolus Potassae Sulphuret. sumendus,<br>Et haustus ter in die capiendus.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the way physicians mend or end us,<br>Secundum artem: but although we sneer<br>In health--when ill, we call them to attend us,<br>Without the least propensity to jeer:<br>While that 'hiatus maxime deflendus'<br>To be fill'd up by spade or mattock's near,<br>Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,<br>We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Juan demurr'd at this first notice to<br>Quit; and though death had threaten'd an ejection,<br>His youth and constitution bore him through,<br>And sent the doctors in a new direction.<br>But still his state was delicate: the hue<br>Of health but flicker'd with a faint reflection<br>Along his wasted cheek, and seem'd to gravel<br>The faculty--who said that he must travel. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The climate was too cold, they said, for him,<br>Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion<br>Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,<br>Who did not like at first to lose her minion:<br>But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim,<br>And drooping like an eagle's with clipt pinion,<br>She then resolved to send him on a mission,<br>But in a style becoming his condition. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There was just then a kind of a discussion,<br>A sort of treaty or negotiation<br>Between the British cabinet and Russian,<br>Maintain'd with all the due prevarication<br>With which great states such things are apt to push on;<br>Something about the Baltic's navigation,<br>Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,<br>Which Britons deem their 'uti possidetis.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So Catherine, who had a handsome way<br>Of fitting out her favourites, conferr'd<br>This secret charge on Juan, to display<br>At once her royal splendour, and reward<br>His services. He kiss'd hands the next day,<br>Received instructions how to play his card,<br>Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,<br>Which show'd what great discernment was the donor's. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But she was lucky, and luck 's all. Your queens<br>Are generally prosperous in reigning;<br>Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means.<br>But to continue: though her years were waning<br>Her climacteric teased her like her teens;<br>And though her dignity brook'd no complaining,<br>So much did Juan's setting off distress her,<br>She could not find at first a fit successor. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But time, the comforter, will come at last;<br>And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number<br>Of candidates requesting to be placed,<br>Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber:--<br>Not that she meant to fix again in haste,<br>Nor did she find the quantity encumber,<br>But always choosing with deliberation,<br>Kept the place open for their emulation. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">While this high post of honour's in abeyance,<br>For one or two days, reader, we request<br>You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance<br>Which wafted him from Petersburgh: the best<br>Barouche, which had the glory to display once<br>The fair czarina's autocratic crest,<br>When, a new lphigene, she went to Tauris,<br>Was given to her favourite, and now bore his. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine,<br>All private favourites of Don Juan;--for<br>(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)<br>He had a kind of inclination, or<br>Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin,<br>Live animals: an old maid of threescore<br>For cats and birds more penchant ne'er display'd,<br>Although he was not old, nor even a maid;--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The animals aforesaid occupied<br>Their station: there were valets, secretaries,<br>In other vehicles; but at his side<br>Sat little Leila, who survived the parries<br>He made 'gainst Cossacque sabres, in the wide<br>Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies<br>Her note, she don't forget the infant girl<br>Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,<br>And with that gentle, serious character,<br>As rare in living beings as a fossile<br>Man, 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, 'grand Cuvier!'<br>Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle<br>With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err:<br>But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore<br>Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as<br>Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.<br>I cannot tell exactly what it was;<br>He was not yet quite old enough to prove<br>Parental feelings, and the other class,<br>Call'd brotherly affection, could not move<br>His bosom,--for he never had a sister:<br>Ah! if he had, how much he would have miss'd her! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And still less was it sensual; for besides<br>That he was not an ancient debauchee<br>(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides,<br>As acids rouse a dormant alkali),<br>Although ('twill happen as our planet guides)<br>His youth was not the chastest that might be,<br>There was the purest Platonism at bottom<br>Of all his feelings--only he forgot 'em. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Just now there was no peril of temptation;<br>He loved the infant orphan he had saved,<br>As patriots (now and then) may love a nation;<br>His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved<br>Owing to him;--as also her salvation<br>Through his means and the church's might be paved.<br>But one thing's odd, which here must be inserted,<br>The little Turk refused to be converted. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Twas strange enough she should retain the impression<br>Through such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter;<br>But though three bishops told her the transgression,<br>She show'd a great dislike to holy water:<br>She also had no passion for confession;<br>Perhaps she had nothing to confess:--no matter,<br>Whate'er the cause, the church made little of it--<br>She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In fact, the only Christian she could bear<br>Was Juan; whom she seem'd to have selected<br>In place of what her home and friends once were.<br>He naturally loved what he protected:<br>And thus they form'd a rather curious pair,<br>A guardian green in years, a ward connected<br>In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender;<br>And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They journey'd on through Poland and through Warsaw,<br>Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron:<br>Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw<br>Which gave her dukes the graceless name of 'Biron.'<br>'Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw,<br>Who march'd to Moscow, led by Fame, the siren!<br>To lose by one month's frost some twenty years<br>Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Let this not seem an anti-climax:--'Oh!<br>My guard! my old guard exclaim'd!' exclaim'd that god of day.<br>Think of the Thunderer's falling down below<br>Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!<br>Alas, that glory should be chill'd by snow!<br>But should we wish to warm us on our way<br>Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name<br>Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper,<br>And Konigsberg the capital, whose vaunt,<br>Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper,<br>Has lately been the great Professor Kant.<br>Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper<br>About philosophy, pursued his jaunt<br>To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions<br>Have princes who spur more than their postilions. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like,<br>Until he reach'd the castellated Rhine:--<br>Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike<br>All phantasies, not even excepting mine;<br>A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,<br>Make my soul pass the equinoctial line<br>Between the present and past worlds, and hover<br>Upon their airy confine, half-seas-over. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But Juan posted on through Manheim, Bonn,<br>Which Drachenfels frowns over like a spectre<br>Of the good feudal times forever gone,<br>On which I have not time just now to lecture.<br>From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne,<br>A city which presents to the inspector<br>Eleven thousand maidenheads of bone,<br>The greatest number flesh hath ever known. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">From thence to Holland's Hague and Helvoetsluys,<br>That water-land of Dutchmen and of ditches,<br>Where juniper expresses its best juice,<br>The poor man's sparkling substitute for riches.<br>Senates and sages have condemn'd its use--<br>But to deny the mob a cordial, which is<br>Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel,<br>Good government has left them, seems but cruel. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here he embark'd, and with a flowing sail<br>Went bounding for the island of the free,<br>Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale;<br>High dash'd the spray, the bows dipp'd in the sea,<br>And sea-sick passengers turn'd somewhat pale;<br>But Juan, season'd, as he well might be,<br>By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs<br>Which pass'd, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At length they rose, like a white wall along<br>The blue sea's border; and I Don Juan felt--<br>What even young strangers feel a little strong<br>At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt--<br>A kind of pride that he should be among<br>Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly dealt<br>Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole,<br>And made the very billows pay them toll. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I've no great cause to love that spot of earth,<br>Which holds what might have been the noblest nation;<br>But though I owe it little but my birth,<br>I feel a mix'd regret and veneration<br>For its decaying fame and former worth.<br>Seven years (the usual term of transportation)<br>Of absence lay one's old resentments level,<br>When a man's country 's going to the devil. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Alas! could she but fully, truly, know<br>How her great name is now throughout abhorr'd:<br>How eager all the earth is for the blow<br>Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword;<br>How all the nations deem her their worst foe,<br>That worse than worst of foes, the once adored<br>False friend, who held out freedom to mankind,<br>And now would chain them, to the very mind:-- </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Would she be proud, or boast herself the free,<br>Who is but first of slaves? The nations are<br>In prison,--but the gaoler, what is he?<br>No less a victim to the bolt and bar.<br>Is the poor privilege to turn the key<br>Upon the captive, freedom? He's as far<br>From the enjoyment of the earth and air<br>Who watches o'er the chain, as they who wear. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest beauties,<br>Thy cliffs, dear Dover! harbour, and hotel;<br>Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties;<br>Thy waiters running mucks at every bell;<br>Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties<br>To those who upon land or water dwell;<br>And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed,<br>Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Juan, though careless, young, and magnifique,<br>And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, and credit,<br>Who did not limit much his bills per week,<br>Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it<br>(His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle Greek,<br>Before him summ'd the awful scroll and read it);<br>But doubtless as the air, though seldom sunny,<br>Is free, the respiration's worth the money. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">On with the horses! Off to Canterbury!<br>Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, splash through puddle;<br>Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!<br>Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle<br>Along the road, as if they went to bury<br>Their fare; and also pause besides, to fuddle<br>With 'schnapps'--sad dogs! whom 'Hundsfot,' or 'Verflucter,'<br>Affect no more than lightning a conductor. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits,<br>Leavening his blood as cayenne doth a curry,<br>As going at full speed--no matter where its<br>Direction be, so 'tis but in a hurry,<br>And merely for the sake of its own merits;<br>For the less cause there is for all this flurry,<br>The greater is the pleasure in arriving<br>At the great end of travel--which is driving. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They saw at Canterbury the cathedral;<br>Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone,<br>Were pointed out as usual by the bedral,<br>In the same quaint, uninterested tone:--<br>There's glory again for you, gentle reader! All<br>Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone,<br>Half-solved into these sodas or magnesias;<br>Which form that bitter draught, the human species. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The effect on Juan was of course sublime:<br>He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw<br>That casque, which never stoop'd except to Time.<br>Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe,<br>Who died in the then great attempt to climb<br>O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law<br>Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed,<br>And ask'd why such a structure had been raised: </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And being told it was 'God's house,' she said<br>He was well lodged, but only wonder'd how<br>He suffer'd Infidels in his homestead,<br>The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low<br>His holy temples in the lands which bred<br>The True Believers:--and her infant brow<br>Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign<br>A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh! oh! through meadows managed like a garden,<br>A paradise of hops and high production;<br>For after years of travel by a bard in<br>Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction,<br>A green field is a sight which makes him pardon<br>The absence of that more sublime construction,<br>Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices,<br>Glaciers, volcanos, oranges, and ices. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And when I think upon a pot of beer--<br>But I won't weep!--and so drive on, postilions!<br>As the smart boys spurr'd fast in their career,<br>Juan admired these highways of free millions;<br>A country in all senses the most dear<br>To foreigner or native, save some silly ones,<br>Who 'kick against the pricks' just at this juncture,<br>And for their pains get only a fresh puncture. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What a delightful thing's a turnpike road!<br>So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving<br>The earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad<br>Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.<br>Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the god<br>Had told his son to satisfy his craving<br>With the York mail;--but onward as we roll,<br>'Surgit amari aliquid'--the toll </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Alas, how deeply painful is all payment!<br>Take lives, take wives, take aught except men's purses:<br>As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,<br>Such is the shortest way to general curses.<br>They hate a murderer much less than a claimant<br>On that sweet ore which every body nurses;--<br>Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,<br>But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken<br>To your instructor. Juan now was borne,<br>Just as the day began to wane and darken,<br>O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn<br>Toward the great city.--Ye who have a spark in<br>Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn<br>According as you take things well or ill;-<br>Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from<br>A half-unquench'd volcano, o'er a space<br>Which well beseem'd the 'Devil's drawing-room,'<br>As some have qualified that wondrous place:<br>But Juan felt, though not approaching home,<br>As one who, though he were not of the race,<br>Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother,<br>Who butcher'd half the earth, and bullied t'other. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,<br>Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye<br>Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping<br>In sight, then lost amidst the forestry<br>Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping<br>On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;<br>A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown<br>On a fool's head- and there is London Town! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke<br>Appear'd to him but as the magic vapour<br>Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke<br>The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper):<br>The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke<br>Are bow'd, and put the sun out like a taper,<br>Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,<br>Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He paused--and so will I; as doth a crew<br>Before they give their broadside. By and by,<br>My gentle countrymen, we will renew<br>Our old acquaintance; and at least I 'll try<br>To tell you truths you will not take as true,<br>Because they are so;--a male Mrs. Fry,<br>With a soft besom will I sweep your halls,<br>And brush a web or two from off the walls. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why<br>Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin<br>With Carlton, or with other houses? Try<br>Your head at harden'd and imperial sin.<br>To mend the people 's an absurdity,<br>A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,<br>Unless you make their betters better:--Fy!<br>I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Teach them the decencies of good threescore;<br>Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses;<br>Tell them that youth once gone returns no more,<br>That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses;<br>Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore,<br>Too dull even for the dullest of excesses,<br>The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal,<br>A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late,<br>On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated,<br>To set up vain pretence of being great,<br>'T is not so to be good; and be it stated,<br>The worthiest kings have ever loved least state;<br>And tell them- But you won't, and I have prated<br>Just now enough; but by and by I'll prattle<br>Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a></strong></div>

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