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,
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.'
So perish every tyrant's robe piecemeal!

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 recal

Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber. Titus exclaim'd, « I've lost a day!» Of all

The nights and days most people can remember, (I've had of both, some not to be disdain'd)

I wish they'd state how many they have gain'd.

XII.

And Juan, on retiring for the night,

Felt restless, and perplex'd, and compromised;
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright
Then 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 sigh'd.

XIII.

He sigh'd;--the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happen'd 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—«Oh, thou! »

Of amatory egotism the tuism,

Which further to explain would be a truism.

XIV.

But lover, poet, or astronomer,

Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold, Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her: Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err;)

Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;

The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways,

And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.

XV.

Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed
For contemplation rather than his pillow:
The gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow,
With all the mystery by midnight caused;

Below his window waved (of course) a willow;
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade.

XVI.

Upon his table or his toilet,-which
Of these is not exactly ascertain'd—
(I state this, for I'm cautious to a pitch

Of nicety, where a fact is to be gain'd)
A lamp burn'd high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a gothic ornament remain'd,
In chisell❜d stone and painted glass, and all,
That time has left our fathers of their hall.

XVII.

Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw His chamber door wide open-and went forth Into a gallery, of a sombre hue,

Long, furnish'd with old pictures of great worth, Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too, As doubtless should be people of high birth. But by dim lights the portraits of the dead Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.

XVIII.

The forms of the grim knights and pictured saints
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint

Of your own footsteps-voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint

Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,

As if to ask how you can dare to keep

A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.

XIX.

And the pale smile of beauties in the grave,
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams
Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave
Along the canvass; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,

But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.

A picture is the past; e'en ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.

XX.

As Juan mused on mutability,

Or on his mistress-terms synonymous—
No sound except the echo of his sigh

Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent- or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.

XXI.

It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, array'd
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made;

He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.

XXII.

Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,

But thought, like most men, there was nothing in 't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with
And did he see this? or was it a vapour?

paper.

XXIII.

Once, twice, thrice pass'd, repass'd-the thing of air, Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t' other place;

And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,

Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base

As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair

Twine like a knot of snakes around his face, He tax'd his tongue for words, which were not granted, To ask the reverend person what he wanted.