The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 27

But Juan! had he quite forgotten Julia?

And should he have forgotten her so soon?

I can't but say it seems to me most truly a Perplexing question; but, no doubt, the moon Does these things for us, and whenever newly a Strong palpitation rises, 't is her boon, Else how the devil is it that fresh features Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?

CCIX.

I hate inconstancy--I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid; Love, constant love, has been my constant guest, And yet last night, being at a masquerade, I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, Which gave me some sensations like a villain.

CCX.

But soon Philosophy came to my aid, And whispered, "Think of every sacred tie!"

"I will, my dear Philosophy!" I said, "But then her teeth, and then, oh, Heaven! her eye!

I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid, Or neither--out of curiosity."

"Stop!" cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian, (Though she was masqued then as a fair Venetian;)

CCXI.

"Stop!" so I stopped.--But to return: that which Men call inconstancy is nothing more Than admiration due where Nature's rich Profusion with young beauty covers o'er Some favoured object; and as in the niche A lovely statue we almost adore, This sort of adoration of the real Is but a heightening of the _beau ideal_.

CCXII.

'T is the perception of the Beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which Life would be extremely dull; In short, it is the use of our own eyes, With one or two small senses added, just To hint that flesh is formed of fiery dust.[cf]

CCXIII.

Yet 't is a painful feeling, and unwilling, For surely if we always could perceive In the same object graces quite as killing As when she rose upon us like an Eve, 'T would save us many a heartache, many a shilling, (For we must get them anyhow, or grieve), Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever, How pleasant for the heart, as well as liver!

CCXIV.

The Heart is like the sky, a part of Heaven, But changes night and day, too, like the sky; Now o'er it clouds and thunder must be driven, And Darkness and Destruction as on high: But when it hath been scorched, and pierced, and riven, Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye Pours forth at last the Heart's blood turned to tears, Which make the English climate of our years.

CCXV.

The liver is the lazaret of bile, But very rarely executes its function, For the first pa.s.sion stays there such a while, That all the rest creep in and form a junction, Like knots of vipers on a dunghill's soil--[168]

Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction-- So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail, Like Earthquakes from the hidden fire called "central."

CCXVI.

In the mean time, without proceeding more In this anatomy, I've finished now Two hundred and odd stanzas as before,[cg]

That being about the number I'll allow Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four; And, laying down my pen, I make my bow, Leaving Don Juan and Haidee to plead For them and theirs with all who deign to read.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] Begun at Venice, December 13, 1818,-finished January 20, 1819.

{81}[ay] _Lost that most precious stone of stones--his modesty_.--[MS.]

{82}[97] [Compare "The Girl of Cadiz," _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 1, and note 1.

[az] _But d----n me if I ever saw the like_.--[MS.]

{83}[98] _Fazzioli_--literally, little handkerchiefs--the veils most availing of St. Mark.

["_I fazzioli_, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads)."--Letter to Rogers, March 3, 1818, _Letters,_ 1900, iv. 208.]

[ba]

_Their manners mending, and their morals curing.

She taught them to suppress their vice--and urine_.--[MS.]

{84}[99] [Compare--

"And fast the white rocks faded from his view * * * * *

And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he."

_Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza xii. lines 3-6, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 24.]

{87}[100] ["To breathe a vein ... to lance it so as to let blood."

Compare--

"_Rosalind_. Is the fool sick?

_Biron_. Sick at heart.

_Ros_. Alack, let it blood."

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act ii. sc. I, line 185.]

[bb]

_Sea-sickness death; then pardon Juan--how else_ _Keep down his stomach ne'er at sea before_?--[MS. M.]

[101] ["With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck, I think that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was not a _single circ.u.mstance_ of it _not_ taken from _fact_: not, indeed, from any _single_ shipwreck, but all from _actual_ facts of different wrecks."---Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821. In the _Monthly Magazine_, vol. liii. (August, 1821, pp. 19-22, and September, 1821, pp. 105-109), Byron's indebtedness to Sir G. Dalzell's _Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea_ (1812, 8vo) is pointed out, and the parallel pa.s.sages are printed in full.]

[102] ["Night came on worse than the day had been; and a _sudden shift of wind,_ about midnight, _threw the ship into the trough of the sea, which struck her aft, tore away the rudder, started the stern-post, and shattered the whole of her stern-frame. The pumps_ were _immediately sounded,_ and in the course of a few minutes the water had increased to _four feet_....

_"One gang was instantly put on them, and the remainder of the people employed in getting up_ rice from the run of the ship, and heaving it over, _to come at the leak,_ if possible. After three or four hundred bags were thrown into the sea, _we did get at it,_ and found _the water rushing_ into the ship with astonishing rapidity; therefore we _thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, tales of muslin,_ and everything of the like description that could be got, _into the opening._

"Notwithstanding the pumps _discharged fifty tons of water an hour,_ the ship certainly _must have gone down,_ had not our _expedients_ been attended with some success. _The pumps,_ to the excellent construction of which I owe the preservation of my life, _were made by Mr. Mann of London. As the next day advanced, the weather appeared to moderate,_ the men continued incessantly at the pumps, and every exertion was made to _keep the ship afloat._"--See "Loss of the American ship _Hercules,_ Captain Benjamin Stout, June 16, 1796," _Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea,_ 1812, iii. 316, 317.]

{90}[103] ["Scarce was this done, when _a gust, exceeding in violence everything of the kind I had ever seen, or could conceive, laid the ship on her beam ends_....

"The ship _lay motionless_, and, to all appearance, irrevocably overset.... _The water forsook the hold_, and appeared between decks....

"Immediate directions were given _to cut away the main and mizen masts_, trusting when the ship righted, to be able to wear her. On cutting one or two lanyards, the _mizen-mast went first over_, but without producing the smallest effect on the ship, and, on cutting the lanyard of one shroud, the _main-mast followed_. I had next the mortification to see the _foremast and bowsprit also go over_. On this, _the ship immediately righted with great violence_."--"Loss of the _Centaur_ Man-of-War, 1782, by Captain Inglefield," _Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea_, 1812, iii.

41.]

[bc] _Perhaps the whole would have got drunk, but for_.--[MS.]

{91}[104] ["A midshipman was appointed to guard the spirit-room, to repress that unhappy desire of a devoted crew _to die in a state of intoxication._ The sailors, though in other respects orderly in conduct, here pressed eagerly upon him.

"_'Give us some grog,'_ they exclaimed, _'it will be all one an hour hence.'--'I know we must die,'_ replied the gallant officer, coolly, _'but let us die like men!'--Armed with a brace of pistols,_ he kept his post, even while the ship was sinking."--"Loss of the _Earl of Abergavenny,_ February 5, 1805," _Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea_, 1812, iii. 418. John Wordsworth, the poet's brother, was captain of the _Abergavenny_. See _Life of William Wordsworth_, by Professor Knight, 1889, i. 370-380; see, too, Coleridge's _Anima Poetae_, 1895, p. 132. For a contemporary report, see a Maltese paper, _Il Cartaginense_, April 17, 1805.]

[105] ["However, by great exertions of the chain-pumps, we _held our own_.... All who were not seamen by profession, had been employed in _thrumming a sail which was pa.s.sed under the ship's bottom, and I thought_ had some effect....