We'll put about, and try another tack
With Juan, left half-killed some stanzas back.

LXXV.

Wounded and fetter'd, 'cabin'd, cribb'd, confined,'
Some days and nights elapsed before that he
Could altogether call the past to mind;
And when he did, he found himself at sea,
Sailing six knots an hour before the wind;
The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee-
Another time he might have liked to see 'em,
But now was not inuch pleased with Cape Sigum.

LXXVI.

There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is
(Flank'd by the Hellespont and by the sea)
Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles;
They say so-(Bryant says the contrary);
And farther downward, tall and towering still, is
The tumulus-of whom? Heaven knows; 't may
Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus;

All heroes, who, if living still, would slay us.
LXXVII.

High barrows, without marble or a name,
A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain,
And Ida in the distance, still the same,

And old Scamander (if 'tis he), remain:
The situation seems still form'd for fame-

A hundred thousand men might fight again With ease; but where I sought for Ilion's walls, The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls. LXXVIII.

fbe

Troops of untended horses; here and there
Some little hamilets, with new names uncouth;
Some shepherds (unlike Paris), led to stare
A moment at the European youth,
Whom to the spot their schoolboy feelings bear;
A Turk, with beads in hand and pipe in mouth,
Extremely taken with his own religion,
Are what I found there-but the devil a Phrygian.
LXXIX.

Don Juan, here permitted to emerge

From his dull cabin, found himself a slave: Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge,

O'ershadow'd there by many a hero's grave. Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge A few brief questions; and the answers gave No very satisfactory information About his past or present situation.

LXXX.

He saw some fellow-captives, who appear'd
To be Italians, as they were in fact.
From them, at least, their destiny he heard,
Which was an odd one: a troop going to act
In Sicily-all singers, duly rear'd

In their vocation, had not been attack'd,
In sailing from Livorno, by the pirate,
But sold by the impresario, at no high rate.*

This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company for some foreign theatre, embarked them at an Italian port, and, carrying them to Algeria, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of L'Italiana in Algeria,' at Venice in the beginning of 1817.

LXXXI.

By one of these, the buffo of the party,
Juan was told about their curious case;
For although destined to the Turkish mart, he
Still kept his spirits up-at least his face.
The little fellow really look'd quite hearty,

And bore him with some gaiety and grace,
Showing a much more reconciled demeanour,
Than did the prima donna and the tenor.
LXXXII.

In a few words he told their hapless story,
Saying, 'Our Machiavellian impresario,
Making a signal off some promontory,

Hail'd a strange brig-Corpo di Caio Mario!
We were transferr'd on board her in a hurry,
Without a single scudo of salario ;
But if the Sultan has a taste for song,
We will revive our fortunes before long.
LXXXIII.

'The prima donna, though a little old,
And haggard with a dissipated life,
And subject, when the house is thin, to cold,

Has some good notes: and then the tenor's wife,

With no great voice, is pleasing to behold;
Last carnival she made a deal of strife,
By carrying off Count Cæsare Cicogna
From an old Roman princess at Bologna.
LXXXIV.

'And then there are the dancers: there's the Nini,
With more than one profession-gains by all;
Then there's that laughing slut the Pelegrini,
She, too, was fortunate last carnival,
And made at least five hundred good zecchini,
But spends so fast she has not now a paul;
And then there's the Grotesca-such a dancer!
Where men have souls or bodies, she must answer.

In fact, he had no singing education,

An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuncless fellow; But being the prima donna's near relation,

Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, They hired hin, though to hear him you'd believe An ass was practising recitative.

LXXXVIII.

Twould not become myself to dwell upon

My own merits, and though young,-I see, siryou

Have got a travell'd air, which speaks you one
To whom the opera is by no means new:
You've heard of Raucocanti?-I'm the man;

The time may come when you may hear me too: You was not last year at the fair of Lugo,

But next, when I'm engaged to sing there-do go. LXXXIX.

'Our baritone I almost had forgot,

A pretty lad, but bursting with conceit: With graceful action, science not a jot,

A voice of no great compass, and not sweet, He always is complaining of his lot,

Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street; In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe, Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth.'

XCIV.

Juan's companion was a Romagnole.

But bred within the March of old Ancona, With eyes that look'd into the very soul

(And other chief points of a 'bella donna'), Bright-and as black and burning as a coal; And through her clear brunette complexion

shone a

Great wish to please-a most attractive dower, Especially when added to the power.

XCV.

But all that power was wasted upon him,

For sorrow o'er each sense held stern command: Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim;

And though thus chain'd, as natural her hand Touch'd his, nor that nor any handsome linb (And she had some not easy to withstand) Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel brittle; Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little.

XCVI.

No matter-we should ne'er too much inquire,

But facts are facts; no knight could be more true,

And firmer faith no ladye-love desire:

We will omit the proofs, save one or two. 'Tis said no one in hand can hold a fire

By thought of frosty Caucasus;' but few,

I really think: yet Juan's then ordeal
Was more triumphant, and not much less real.

XCVII.

Here I might enter on a chaste description,
Having withstood temptation in my youth,
But hear that several people take exception

At the first two books having too much truth.
Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon,
Because the publisher declares, in sooth,
Through needles' eyes it easier for a camel is
To pass, than those two cantos into families.
XCVIII.

'Tis all the same to me: I'm fond of yielding. And therefore leave them to the purer page Of Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding.

Who say strange things, for so correct an age.

I once had great alacrity in wielding

My pen, and liked poetic war to wage, And recollect the time when all this cant Would have provoked remarks which now it shan't.

XCIX.

As boys lov rows, my boyhood liked a squabble; But at this hour I wish to part in peace, Leaving such to the literary rabble,

Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease, While the right hand which wrote it stiil is able, Or of some centuries to take a lease: The grass upon my grave will grow as long, And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song.

C.

Of poets who come down to us through distance
Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Faine,
Life seems the smallest portion of existence:
Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,
'Tis as a snowball, which derives assistance
From every flake, and yet rolls on the same,

Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow; But, after all, tis nothing but cold snow.

CI.

And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory's but an airy lust,

Too often in its fury overcoming all

Who would as 'twere identify their dust From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, Leaves nothing till the coming of the justSave change: I've stood upon Achilles tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome.

CII.

The very generations of the dead

Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an age is fled,

And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom Where are the epitaphs our fathers read,

Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal death?

CIII.

I canter by the spot each afternoon,

Where perished, in his fame, the hero-boy, Who lived too long for men, but died too soon For human vanity-the young De Foix:

A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn,

But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face, While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.

CIV.

I pass, each day, where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust; but reverence here is paid
To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column.
The time must come when both, alike decay'd,

The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume,
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,
Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.

CV.

With human blood that column was cemented,
With human filth that column is defiled;
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented
To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd:
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented
Should ever be those bloodhounds, from whose
wild

Instinct of gore and glory carth has known
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.

CVI.

Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke,
Its fuines are frankincense to human thought;
And the unquiet feelings, which first woke
Song in the world, will seek what then they sought;
As on the beach the waves at last are broke,
Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought
Dash into poetry, which is but passion,
Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.
CVII.

If in the course of such a life as was

At once adventurous and contemplative, Men who partake all passions as they pass, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give

Their images again, as in a glass,

And in such colours that they seem to live; You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.

CVIII.

O ye who make the fortunes of all books!
Benign Ceruleans of the second sex!
Who advertise new poems by your looks,
Your 'imprimatur' will ye not annex?
What I must I go to the oblivious cooks-

Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks ?|
Ah must I then the only minstrel be,
Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea?
CIX.

What! can I prove a lion' then no more?

A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling? To bear the compliments of many a bore,

And sigh, I can't get out,' like Yorick's starling? Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore,

[ing,)

CXIII.

But to the narrative. The vessel, bound With slaves to sell off in the capital, After the usual process, might be found

At anchor under the seraglio wall.

Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound, Were landed in the market, one and all,

And there, with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians,

Bought up for different purposes and passions.

CXIV.

Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars
For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours

Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven.
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven;
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
'Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.
CXV.

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price Which the West Indian market scarce would bring:

Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice
What 'twas ere Abolition; and the thing
Need not seem very wonderful, for vice

Is always much more splendid than a king:
The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity,
Are saving-vice spares nothing for a rarity.

CXVI.

But for the destiny of this young troop,

How some were bought by pashas, some by Jews,

How some to burdens were obliged to stoop,

And others rose to the command of crews As renegadoes; while, in hapless group,

Hoping no very old vizier might choose, The females stood, as one by one, they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:

CXVII.

All this must be reserved for further song;
Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant
(Because this canto has become too long,)
Must be postponed discreetly for the present.
I'm sensible redundancy is wrong,

But could not for the muse of me put less in 't;
And now delay the progress of Don Juan,
Till what is call'd, in Ossian, the fifth Duan.