Don Juan Part 39

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 chast.i.ty, 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 n.o.ble sight, when really free the nation, A king in const.i.tutional 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Canto 13]

CANTO THE THIRTEENTH.

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 s.e.x 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 pa.s.sions, 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 pa.s.s'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 n.o.blest 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 Pa.s.sion 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 gla.s.s 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, Semp.r.o.nius--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.