XCVII.

The night (I sing by night-sometimes an owl,
And now and then a nightingale)—is dim,
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn:
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl-
I wish to Heaven they would not look so grim;
The dying embers dwindle in the grate-
I think too that I have sat up too late :

XCVIII.

And therefore, though 't is by no means my way
To rhyme at noon-when I have other things
To think of, if I ever think—I say

I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,
And prudently postpone, until mid-day,
Treating a topic which, alas! but brings
Shadows;-but you must be in my condition,
Before you learn to call this superstition.

XCIX.

Between two worlds Life hovers like a star,

'Twixt Night and Morn, upon the horizon's verge. How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be !

The eternal surge

Of Time and Tide rolls on and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves Of Empires heave but like some passing waves.2

the souls of other people as to decline their visits, of which he had some apprehension.

[Bayle (see art. "Hobbes" [Dict. Crit. and Hist., 1736, iii. 471, note N.]) quotes from Vita Hobb., p. 106: " He was as falsely accused by some of being unwilling to be alone, because he was afraid of spectres and apparitions, vain bugbears of fools, which he had chased away by the light of his Philosophy," and proceeds to argue that, perhaps, after all, Hobbes was afraid of the dark. "He was timorous to the last degree, and consequently he had reason to distrust his imagination when he was alone in a chamber in the night; for in spite of him the memory of what he had read and heard concerning apparitions would revive, though he was not persuaded of the reality of these things." See, however, for his own testimony that he was "not afrayd of sprights," Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons, by John Aubrey, 1813, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 624.]

1. [Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5, lines 41, 42.]

2. End of Canto 15th Mch 25, 1823. B.-[MS.}

CANTO THE SIXTEENTH.1

I.

THE antique Persians taught three useful things,
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.2
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings-
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;

Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.

II.

The cause of this effect, or this defect,—

"For this effect defective comes by cause,"Is what I have not leisure to inspect;

But this I must say in my own applause, Of all the Muses that I recollect,

Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws In some things, mine 's beyond all contradiction The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.

III.

And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats
From anything, this Epic will contain

A wilderness of the most rare conceits,

3

Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain. "T is true there be some bitters with the sweets, Yet mixed so slightly, that you can't complain,

1. March 29, 1823.

2. [Herodotus, Hist., i. 136.]

3. [Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2, line 103.]

But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
"De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis." 1

IV.

But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost-

What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast,

Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell? 'T is time to strike such puny doubters dumb as The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.

V.

Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority

Is always greatest at a miracle.

But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because 't is so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with "quia impossibile."

VI.

2

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe:-if 't is improbable, you must,
And if it is impossible, you shall:

'T is always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely to recall

Those holier Mysteries which the wise and just Receive as Gospel, and which grow more rooted, As all truths must, the more they are disputed:

VII.

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,

That in the course of some six thousand years,

1. [The story is told of St. Thomas Aquinas, that he wrote a work De Omnibus Rebus, which was followed by a second treatise, De Quibusdam Aliis.]

2. [Not St. Augustine, but Tertullian. See his treatise, De Carne Christi, cap. V. c. (Opera, 1744, p. 310): "Crucifixus est Dei filius: non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei filius: prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit: certum est quia impossibile est."]

All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears : 1

And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears

'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still
In its behalf-let those deny who will.

VIII.

The dinner and the soirée too were done,

The supper too discussed, the dames admired, The banqueteers had dropped off one by oneThe song was silent, and the dance expired: The last thin petticoats were vanished, gone

Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired,

And nothing brighter gleamed through the saloon
Than dying tapers-and the peeping moon.

IX.

The evaporation of a joyous day

Is like the last glass of champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;
Or like a system coupled with a doubt;
Or like a soda bottle when its spray

Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;
Or like a billow left by storms behind,
Without the animation of the wind;

X.

Or like an opiate, which brings troubled rest,
Or none; or like-like nothing that I know
Except itself;-such is the human breast;
A thing, of which similitudes can show
No real likeness,-like the old Tyrian vest

Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,

1. ["That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears."—Rasselas, chap. xxx., Works, ed. 1800, iii. 372, 373.]

If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.1
So perish every Tyrant's robe piece-meal!

XI.

But next to dressing for a rout or ball,

Undressing is a woe; our robe de chambre May sit like that of Nessus, and recall

Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber. Titus exclaimed, "I've lost a day!" 3 Of all

The nights and days most people can remember, (I have had of both, some not to be disdained,) I wish they'd state how many they have gained.

XII.

And Juan, on retiring for the night,

Felt restless, and perplexed, and compromised :
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright
Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;
If he had known exactly his own plight,
He probably would have philosophised:
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sighed.

XIII.

He sighed ;-the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happened luckily, the chaste orb shone
As clear as such a climate will allow;
And Juan's mind was in the proper tone

To hail her with the apostrophe-"O thou!"
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,*

Which further to explain would be a truism.

1. The composition of the old Tyrian purple, whether from a shellfish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an article of dispute; and even its colour-some say purple, others scarlet: I say nothing. [Kermes is cochineal, the Greek KÓKKIVOν. The shell-fish (murex) is the Purpura patula. Both substances were used as dyes.] 2. [See Ovid, Heroid, Epist. ix. line 161.]

3. [Titus used to promise to "bear in mind," "to keep on his list," the petitions of all his supplicants, and once, at dinner-time, his conscience smote him, that he had let a day go by without a single grant, or pardon, or promotion. Hence his confession. "Amici, diem perdidi!" Vide Suetonius, De XII. Cæs., "Titus," lib. viii. cap. 8.]

·4. [Tuism is not in Johnson's Dictionary. Coleridge has a note