Don Juan Part 16

Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital Was interrupted by the pirate crew, Who came at stated moments to invite all The captives back to their sad berths; each threw A rueful glance upon the waves (which bright all From the blue skies derived a double blue, Dancing all free and happy in the sun), And then went down the hatchway one by one.

They heard next day--that in the Dardanelles, Waiting for his Sublimity's firman, The most imperative of sovereign spells, Which every body does without who can, More to secure them in their naval cells, Lady to lady, well as man to man, Were to be chain'd and lotted out per couple, For the slave market of Constantinople.

It seems when this allotment was made out, There chanced to be an odd male, and odd female, Who (after some discussion and some doubt, If the soprano might be deem'd to be male, They placed him o'er the women as a scout) Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male Was Juan,--who, an awkward thing at his age, Pair'd off with a Bacchante blooming visage.

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

Juan's companion was a Romagnole, But bred within the March of old Ancona, With eyes that look'd into the very soul (And other chief points of a 'bella donna'), Bright--and as black and burning as a coal; And through her dear brunette complexion shone Great wish to please--a most attractive dower, Especially when added to the power.

But all that power was wasted upon him, For sorrow o'er each sense held stern command; Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim; And though thus chain'd, as natural her hand Touch'd his, nor that--nor any handsome limb (And she had some not easy to withstand) Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel brittle; Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little.

No matter; we should ne'er too much enquire, But facts are facts: no knight could be more true, And firmer faith no ladye--love desire; We will omit the proofs, save one or two: 'T is said no one in hand 'can hold a fire By thought of frosty Caucasus;' but few, I really think; yet Juan's then ordeal Was more triumphant, and not much less real.

Here I might enter on a chaste description, Having withstood temptation in my youth, But hear that several people take exception At the first two books having too much truth; Therefore I 'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon, Because the publisher declares, in sooth, Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is To pa.s.s, than those two cantos into families.

'T is all the same to me; I 'm fond of yielding, And therefore leave them to the purer page Of Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding, Who say strange things for so correct an age; I once had great alacrity in wielding My pen, and liked poetic war to wage, And recollect the time when all this cant Would have provoked remarks which now it shan't.

As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble; But at this hour I wish to part in peace, Leaving such to the literary rabble: Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease While the right hand which wrote it still is able, Or of some centuries to take a lease, The gra.s.s upon my grave will grow as long, And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song.

Of poets who come down to us through distance Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame, Life seems the smallest portion of existence; Where twenty ages gather o'er a name, 'T is as a s...o...b..ll which derives a.s.sistance From every flake, and yet rolls on the same, Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow; But, after all, 't is nothing but cold snow.

And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory 's but an airy l.u.s.t, Too often in its fury overcoming all Who would as 't were identify their dust From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, Leaves nothing till 'the coming of the just'- Save change: I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome.

The very generations of the dead Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an age is fled, And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom: Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?

Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal death.

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

A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn, But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face, While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.

I pa.s.s each day where Dante's bones are laid: A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column.

The time must come, when both alike decay'd, The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.

With human blood that column was cemented, With human filth that column is defiled, As if the peasant's coa.r.s.e contempt were vented To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd: Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild Instinct of gore and glory earth has known Those sufferings Dante saw in h.e.l.l alone.

Yet there will still be bards: though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought; And the unquiet feelings, which first woke Song in the world, will seek what then they sought; As on the beach the waves at last are broke, Thus to their extreme verge the pa.s.sions brought Dash into poetry, which is but pa.s.sion, Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.

If in the course of such a life as was At once adventurous and contemplative, Men, who partake all pa.s.sions as they pa.s.s, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give Their images again as in a gla.s.s, And in such colours that they seem to live; You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.

O! ye, who make the fortunes of all books!

Benign Ceruleans of the second s.e.x!

Who advertise new poems by your looks, Your 'imprimatur' will ye not annex?

What! must I go to the oblivious cooks, Those Cornish plunderers of Parna.s.sian wrecks?

Ah! must I then the only minstrel be, Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea!

What! can I prove 'a lion' then no more?

A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling?

To bear the compliments of many a bore, And sigh, 'I can't get out,' like Yorick's starling; Why then I 'll swear, as poet Wordy swore (Because the world won't read him, always snarling), That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.

O! 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,'

As some one somewhere sings about the sky, And I, ye learned ladies, say of you; They say your stockings are so (Heaven knows why, I have examined few pair of that hue); Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn The festal midnight, and the levee morn.

Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures-- But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover, You read my stanzas, and I read your features: And--but no matter, all those things are over; Still I have no dislike to learned natures, For sometimes such a world of virtues cover; I knew one woman of that purple school, The loveliest, chastest, best, but--quite a fool.

Humboldt, 'the first of travellers,' but not The last, if late accounts be accurate, Invented, by some name I have forgot, As well as the sublime discovery's date, An airy instrument, with which he sought To ascertain the atmospheric state, By measuring 'the intensity of blue:'

O, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!

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

Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars For one Circa.s.sian, a sweet girl, were given, Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven: Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven; But when the offer went beyond, they knew 'T was for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price Which the West Indian market scarce would bring; Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice What 't was ere Abolition; and the thing Need not seem very wonderful, for vice Is always much more splendid than a king: The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity, Are saving--vice spares nothing for a rarity.

But for the destiny of this young troop, How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews, How some to burdens were obliged to stoop, And others rose to the command of crews As renegadoes; while in hapless group, Hoping no very old vizier might choose, The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:

All this must be reserved for further song; Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant (Because this Canto has become too long), Must be postponed discreetly for the present; I 'm sensible redundancy is wrong, But could not for the muse of me put less in 't: And now delay the progress of Don Juan, Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Juan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Canto 5]

CANTO THE FIFTH.

When amatory poets sing their loves In liquid lines mellifluously bland, And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, They little think what mischief is in hand; The greater their success the worse it proves, As Ovid's verse may give to understand; Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity, Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

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

The European with the Asian sh.o.r.e Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream Here and there studded with a seventy-four; Sophia's cupola with golden gleam; The cypress groves; Olympus high and h.o.a.r; The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream, Far less describe, present the very view Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

I have a pa.s.sion for the name of 'Mary,'

For once it was a magic sound to me; And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, Where I beheld what never was to be; All feelings changed, but this was last to vary, A spell from which even yet I am not quite free: But I grow sad--and let a tale grow cold, Which must not be pathetically told.

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

'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning, When nights are equal, but not so the days; The Parcae then cut short the further spinning Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise The waters, and repentance for past sinning In all, who o'er the great deep take their ways: They vow to amend their lives, and yet they don't; Because if drown'd, they can't--if spared, they won't.

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation, And age, and s.e.x, were in the market ranged; Each bevy with the merchant in his station: Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly changed.

All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation, From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged; The negroes more philosophy display'd,-- Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd.

Juan was juvenile, and thus was full, As most at his age are, of hope and health; Yet I must own he looked a little dull, And now and then a tear stole down by stealth; Perhaps his recent loss of blood might pull His spirit down; and then the loss of wealth, A mistress, and such comfortable quarters, To be put up for auction amongst Tartars,

Were things to shake a stoic; ne'ertheless, Upon the whole his carriage was serene: His figure, and the splendour of his dress, Of which some gilded remnants still were seen, Drew all eyes on him, giving them to guess He was above the vulgar by his mien; And then, though pale, he was so very handsome; And then--they calculated on his ransom.

Like a backgammon board the place was dotted With whites and blacks, in groups on show for sale, Though rather more irregularly spotted: Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.

It chanced amongst the other people lotted, A man of thirty rather stout and hale, With resolution in his dark grey eye, Next Juan stood, till some might choose to buy.

He had an English look; that is, was square In make, of a complexion white and ruddy, Good teeth, with curling rather dark brown hair, And, it might be from thought or toil or study, An open brow a little mark'd with care: One arm had on a bandage rather b.l.o.o.d.y; And there he stood with such sang-froid, that greater Could scarce be shown even by a mere spectator.