On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers, Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity! CXXI. But still the Shade remained: the blue eyes glared, Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared, CXXII. And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust His other arm forth-Wonder upon wonder ! It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust, Which beat as if there was a warm heart under. He found, as people on most trials must, That he had made at first a silly blunder, And that in his confusion he had caught Only the wall, instead of what he sought. CXXIII. The Ghost, if Ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole Forth into something much like flesh and blood; Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl, And they revealed-alas! that e'er they should! In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk, The phantom of her frolic Grace-Fitz-Fulke! 1 i. A beardless chin -.-[MS.} 1. [End of Canto 16. B. My. 6, 1823.—MS.] CANTO THE SEVENTEENTH.1 I. THE world is full of orphans: firstly, those Than others crowded in the Forest's maze- Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less. II. The next are "only Children," as they are styled, That where their education, harsh or mild, Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe, 1. [May 8, 1823.-MS. More than one "Seventeenth Canto," or so-called continuation of Don Juan, has been published. Some of these "Sequels" pretend to be genuine, while others are undisguisedly imitations or parodies. For an account of these spurious and altogether worthless continuations, see "Bibliography," vol. vii. There was, however, a foundation for the myth. Before Byron left Italy he had begun (May 8, 1823) a seventeenth canto, and when he sailed for Greece he took the new stanzas with him. Trelawny found "fifteen stanzas of the seventeenth canto of Don Juan" in Byron's room at Missolonghi (Recollections, etc., 1858, p. 237). The MS., together with other papers, was handed over to John Cam Hobhouse, and is now in the possession of his daughter, the Lady Dorchester. The copyright was purchased by the late John Murray. The fourteen (not fifteen) stanzas are now printed and published for the first time.] The sufferers-be 't in heart or intellect- III. But to return unto the stricter rule As far as words make rules-our common notion A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean, The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied. IV. Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward, Is like a duckling by Dame Partlett reared, V. There is a common-place book argument, "If you are right, then everybody's wrong"! So often urged, so loudly and so long; VI. Therefore I would solicit free discussion Upon all points-no matter what, or whose- The last is apt the former to accuse 1. The Italians, at least in some parts of Italy, call bastards and foundlings the mules-why, I cannot see, unless they mean to infer that the offspring of matrimony are asses. VOL. VI. 2 R Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion, VII. The Sacraments have been reduced to two, Not witches only b-ches-who create 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 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; So that I almost think that the same skin XII. Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth, XIII. I leave the thing a problem, like all things :- The company whose birth, wealth, worth, has cost My trembling Lyre already several strings, Assembled 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 |