The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 8

CXXVII.

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and pa.s.sionate Love--it stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked--all 's known-- And Life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.

CXXVIII.

Man's a strange animal, and makes strange use Of his own nature, and the various arts, And likes particularly to produce Some new experiment to show his parts; This is the age of oddities let loose, Where different talents find their different marts; You'd best begin with truth, and when you've lost your Labour, there's a sure market for imposture.

CXXIX.

What opposite discoveries we have seen!

(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.) One makes new noses[63], one a guillotine, One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets; But Vaccination certainly has been A kind ant.i.thesis to Congreve's rockets,[64]

With which the Doctor paid off an old pox, By borrowing a new one from an ox.[65]

Cx.x.x.

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes: And Galvanism has set some corpses grinning,[66]

But has not answered like the apparatus Of the Humane Society's beginning, By which men are unsuffocated gratis: What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!

I said the small-pox has gone out of late; Perhaps it may be followed by the great.[67]

Cx.x.xI.

'T is said the great came from America; Perhaps it may set out on its return,-- The population there so spreads, they say 'T is grown high time to thin it in its turn, With war, or plague, or famine--any way, So that civilisation they may learn; And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is-- Their real _lues,_ or our pseudo-syphilis?

Cx.x.xII.

This is the patent age of new inventions For killing bodies, and for saving souls, All propagated with the best intentions: Sir Humphry Davy's lantern,[68] by which coals Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions, Tombuctoo travels,[69] voyages to the Poles[70]

Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

Cx.x.xIII.

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what, And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure; 'T is pity though, in this sublime world, that Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes Sin's a pleasure;[x]

Few mortals know what end they would be at, But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, and when The goal is gained, we die, you know--and then----

Cx.x.xIV.

What then?--I do not know, no more do you-- And so good night.--Return we to our story: 'T was in November, when fine days are few, And the far mountains wax a little h.o.a.ry, And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;[y]

And the sea dashes round the promontory, And the loud breaker boils against the rock, And sober suns must set at five o'clock.

Cx.x.xV.

'T was, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;[z]

No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright With the piled wood, round which the family crowd; There's something cheerful in that sort of light, Even as a summer sky's without a cloud: I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,[aa][71]

A lobster salad[72], and champagne, and chat.

Cx.x.xVI.

'T was midnight--Donna Julia was in bed, Sleeping, most probably,--when at her door Arose a clatter might awake the dead, If they had never been awoke before, And that they have been so we all have read, And are to be so, at the least, once more;-- The door was fastened, but with voice and fist First knocks were heard, then "Madam--Madam--hist!

Cx.x.xVII.

"For G.o.d's sake, Madam--Madam--here's my master,[73]

With more than half the city at his back--Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!

'T is not my fault--I kept good watch--Alack!

Do pray undo the bolt a little faster-- They're on the stair just now, and in a crack Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly-- Surely the window's not so _very_ high!"

Cx.x.xVIII.

By this time Don Alfonso was arrived, With torches, friends, and servants in great number; The major part of them had long been wived, And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber Of any wicked woman, who contrived By stealth her husband's temples to enc.u.mber: Examples of this kind are so contagious, Were _one_ not punished, _all_ would be outrageous.

Cx.x.xIX.

I can't tell how, or why, or what suspicion Could enter into Don Alfonso's head; But for a cavalier of his condition It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, Without a word of previous admonition, To hold a levee round his lady's bed, And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword, To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.

CXL.

Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep, (Mind--that I do not say--she had not slept), Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep; Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept, Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap, As if she had just now from out them crept:[ab]

I can't tell why she should take all this trouble To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.

CXLI.

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid, Appeared like two poor harmless women, who Of goblins, but still more of men afraid, Had thought one man might be deterred by two, And therefore side by side were gently laid, Until the hours of absence should run through, And truant husband should return, and say, "My dear,--I was the first who came away."

CXLII.

Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried, "In Heaven's name, Don Alfonso, what d' ye mean?

Has madness seized you? would that I had died Ere such a monster's victim I had been![ac]

What may this midnight violence betide, A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?

Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?

Search, then, the room!"--Alfonso said, "I will."

CXLIII.

_He_ searched, _they_ searched, and rummaged everywhere, Closet and clothes' press, chest and window-seat, And found much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete, With other articles of ladies fair, To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat: Arras they p.r.i.c.ked and curtains with their swords, And wounded several shutters, and some boards.

CXLIV.

Under the bed they searched, and there they found-- No matter what--it was not that they sought; They opened windows, gazing if the ground Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought; And then they stared each others' faces round: 'T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought, And seems to me almost a sort of blunder, Of looking _in_ the bed as well as under.

CXLV.

During this inquisition Julia's tongue[ad]

Was not asleep--"Yes, search and search," she cried, "Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!

It was for this that I became a bride!

For this in silence I have suffered long A husband like Alfonso at my side; But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain, If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.

CXLVI.

"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more, If ever you indeed deserved the name, Is 't worthy of your years?--you have threescore-- Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same-- Is 't wise or fitting, causeless to explore For facts against a virtuous woman's fame?

Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso, How dare you think your lady would go on so?