The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 134

[806]

["d.a.m.n with faint praise, a.s.sent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer."

Pope _on Addison, Prologue to the Satires_, lines 201, 202.]

{604}[807] [Bion, _Epitaphium Adonidis_, line 28.]

[808] [" ... genetrix hominum, divomque voluptas, Alma Venus!" Lucret., _De Rerum Nat_., lib. i. lines 1, 2.]

{605}[809] [_Job_ iv. 13.]

[810] See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer--"Karl--Karl--was willst du mit mir?"

[For Johann Georg Schrepfer (1730(?)-1774), see J.S.B. Schlegel's _Tagebuch, etc._, 1806, and _Schwarmer und Schwindler_, von Dr. Eugen Sierke, 1874, pp. 298-332.]

{606}[811] [_Inferno_, Canto III. line 9.]

[og] _When once discovered it don't like to come near it_.--[MS.]

{607}[oh] _A beardless chin_----.--[MS.]

[812] [End of Canto 16. B. My. 6, 1823.--MS.]

CANTO THE SEVENTEENTH.[813]

I.

The world is full of orphans: firstly, those Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase; But many a lonely tree the loftier grows Than others crowded in the Forest's maze-- The next are such as are not doomed to lose Their tender parents, in their budding days, But, merely, their parental tenderness, Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.

II.

The next are "_only_ Children," as they are styled, Who grow up _Children_ only, since th' old saw p.r.o.nounces that an "only's" a spoilt child-- But not to go too far, I hold it law, That where their education, harsh or mild, Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe, The sufferers--be 't in heart or intellect-- Whate'er the _cause_, are orphans in _effect_.

III.

But to return unto the stricter rule-- As far as words make rules--our common notion Of orphan paints at once a parish school, A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean, A human (what the Italians nickname) "Mule!"[814]

A theme for Pity or some worse emotion; Yet, if examined, it might be admitted The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.

IV.

Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared With Nature's genial Genitors? so that A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward, (I'll take the likeness I can first come at,) Is like--a duckling by Dame Partlett reared, And frights--especially if 'tis a daughter, Th' old Hen--by running headlong to the water.

V.

There is a common-place book argument, Which glibly glides from every tongue; When any dare a new light to present, "If you are right, then everybody's wrong"!

Suppose the converse of this precedent So often urged, so loudly and so long; "If you are wrong, then everybody's right"!

Was ever everybody yet so quite?

VI.

Therefore I would solicit free discussion Upon all points--no matter what, or whose-- Because as Ages upon Ages push on, The last is apt the former to accuse Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion, Heedless of p.r.i.c.ks because it was obtuse: What was a paradox becomes a truth or A something like it--witness Luther!

VII.

The Sacraments have been reduced to two, And Witches unto none, though somewhat late Since burning aged women (save a few-- Not witches only b--ches--who create Mischief in families, as some know or knew, Should still be singed, but lightly, let me state,) Has been declared an act of inurbanity, _Malgre_ Sir Matthew Hales's great humanity.

VIII.

Great Galileo was debarred the Sun, Because he fixed it; and, to stop his talking, How Earth could round the solar orbit run, Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking: The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun To think his skull had not some need of caulking; But now, it seems, he's right--his notion just: No doubt a consolation to his dust.

IX.

Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates--but pages Might be filled up, as vainly as before, With the sad usage of all sorts of sages, Who in his life-time, each, was deemed a Bore!

The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages: This they must bear with and, perhaps, much more; The wise man's sure when he no more can share it, he Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity.

X.

If such doom waits each intellectual Giant, We little people in our lesser way, In Life's small rubs should surely be more pliant, And so for one will I--as well I may--Would that I were less bilious--but, oh, fie on 't!

Just as I make my mind up every day, To be a "_totus, teres_," Stoic, Sage, The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.

XI.

Temperate I am--yet never had a temper; Modest I am--yet with some slight a.s.surance; Changeable too--yet somehow "_Idem semper_:"

Patient--but not enamoured of endurance; Cheerful--but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper: Mild--but at times a sort of "_Hercules furens_:"

So that I almost think that the same skin For one without--has two or three within.

XII.

Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth, Left in a tender moonlight situation, Such as enables Man to show his strength Moral or physical: on this occasion Whether his virtue triumphed--or, at length, His vice--for he was of a kindling nation-- Is more than I shall venture to describe;-- Unless some Beauty with a kiss should bribe.

XIII.

I leave the thing a problem, like all things:-- The morning came--and breakfast, tea and toast, Of which most men partake, but no one sings.

The company whose birth, wealth, worth, has cost My trembling Lyre already several strings, a.s.sembled with our hostess, and mine host; The guests dropped in--the last but one, Her Grace, The latest, Juan, with his virgin face.

XIV.

Which best it is to encounter--Ghost, or none, 'Twere difficult to say--but Juan looked As if he had combated with more than one, Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked The light, that through the Gothic window shone: Her Grace, too, had a sort of air rebuked-- Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept A vigil, or dreamt rather more than slept.

THE END.