But to the main point, where we have been tending: I also would suggest the fitting time,
She now conceived all difficulties past,

And deem'd herself extremely condescending
When being made her property at last,
Without more preface, in her blue eyes blending
Passion and power, a glance on him she cast,

And merely saying, "Christian, canst thou love?
Conceived that phrase was quite enough to move.

CXVII.

And so it was, in proper time and place,

But Juan, who had still his mind o'erflowing With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face,

Felt the warm blood, which in his face was glowing, Rush back upon his heart, which fill'd apace,

And left his cheeks as pale as snowdrops blowing: These words went through his soul like Arab spears, So that he spoke not, but burst into tears.

CXVIII.

She was a good deal shock'd; not shock'd at tears,
For women shed and use them at their liking;
But there is something when man's eye appears
Wet, still more disagreeable and striking:
A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half sears,
Like molten lead, as if you thrust a pike in
His heart, to force it out, for (to be shorter)
To them 'tis a relief, to us a torture.

CXIX.

And she would have consoled, but knew not how;
Having no equals, nothing which had e'er
Infected her with sympathy till now,

And never having dreamt what 'twas to bear
Aught of a serious sorrowing kind, although

There might arise some pouting petty care To cross her brow, she wonder'd how so near Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear.

CXX.

But nature teaches more than power can spoil,
And when a strong although a strange sensation
Moves-female hearts are such a genial soil

For kinder feelings, whatsoe'er their nation,
They naturally pour the "wine and oil,"
Samaritans in every situation;

And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew not why,
Felt an odd glistening moisture in her eye.

CXXI.

But tears must stop like all things else; and soon
Juan, who for an instant had been moved
To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone

Of one who dared to ask if "he had loved,"
Call'd back the stoic to his eyes, which shone
Bright with the very weakness he reproved;
And although sensitive to peauty, he
Felt most indignant still at not being free.

To gentlemen in any such like case,

That is to say-in a meridian clime;
With us there is more law given to the case,
But here a small delay forms a great crime:

So recollect that the extremest grace

Is just two minutes for your declaration-
A moment more would hurt your reputation.

CXXIV.

Juan's was good; and might have been still better
But he had got Haidee into his head:
However strange, he could not yet forget her,
Which made him seem exceedingly ill-bred
Gulbeyaz, who look'd on him as her debtor
For having had him to the palace led,
Began to blush up to the eyes, and then
Grow deadly pale, and then blush back again.

CXXV.

At length, in an imperial way, she laid

Her hand on his, and bending on his eyes,
Which needed not an empire to persuade,

Look'd into his for love, where none replies:
Her brow grew black, but she would not upbraid,
That being the last thing a proud woman tries.
She rose, and, pausing one chaste moment, threw
Herself upon his breast, and there she grew.

CXXVI.

This was an awkward test, as Juan found,

But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride;
With gentle force her white arms he unwound,

And seated her all drooping by his side.
Then rising haughtily he glanced around,
And looking coldly in her face, he cried,
'The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor I
Serve a sultana's sensual phantasy.

CXXVII.

"Thou ask'st if I can love? be this the proot
How much I have loved-that I love not thee!
In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and woof,
Were fitter for me: love is for the free!

I am not dazzled by this splendid roof;
Whate'er thy power, and great it seems to be--
Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch around a throne
And hands obey-our hearts are still our own."

CXXVIII.

This was a truth to us extremely trite,

Not so to her who ne'er had heard such things;
She deem'd her least command must yield delight
Earth being only made for queens and kings
If hearts lay on the left side or the right

She hardly knew, to such perfection brings
Legitimacy its born votaries, when

Aware of their due royal rights o'er men.

A storm it raged, and like the storm it pass'd,
Pass'd without words-in fact she could not speak

While some more desperate dowager has been waging | And then her sex's shame broke in at last,

CXLIII.

So he began to stammer some excuses;

But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrow'd all that e'er the muses

Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter,
Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses;

Just as a languid smile began to flatter
His peace was making, but before he ventured
Further, old Baba rather briskly enter'd.

CXLIV.

Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the Moon!"
('Twas thus he spake,) "and Empress of the Earth!
Whose frown would put the spheres all out of tune,
Whose smile makes all the planets dance with
mirth,

Your slave brings tidings-he hopes not too soon-
Which your sublime attention may be worth:
The Sun himself has sent me like a ray,
To hint that he is coming up this way."

CXLV.

Is it," exclaim'd Gulbeyaz, "as you say?
I wish to heaven he would not shine till morning!
But bid my women form the milky way. [ing-
Hence, my old comet! give the stars due warn-
And, Christian! mingle with them as you may,

CL.

He saw with his own eyes the moon was round
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he had journey'd fifty miles, and found
No sign that it was circular any where;
His empire also was without a bound:

'Tis true, a little troubled here and there,
By rebel pachas, and encroaching giaours,
But then they never came to the Seven Towers

CLI.

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent

To lodge there when a war broke out, according
To the true law of nations, which ne'er meant
Those scoundrels who have never had a swor 1 in
Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent

Their spleen in making strife, and safely wording
Their lies, yclept despatches, without risk, or
The singeing of a single inky whisker.

CLII.

He had fifty daughters and four dozens sons,
Of whom all such as came of age were stow'd.
The former in a palace, where like nuns

They lived till some bashaw was sent abroad, When she, whose turn it was, wedded at once. Sometimes at six years old-though this seeins odd And as you'd have me pardon your past scorn- 'Tis true; the reason is, that the bashaw Here they were interrupted by a humming [ing-"Must make a present to his sire in law. Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's coming!'

CLVII.
The Turks do well to shut-at least, sometimes-
The women up-because, in sad reality,
Their chastity in these unhappy climes

Is not a thing of that astringent quality,
Which in the North prevents precocious crimes,
And makes our snow less pure than our morality;
The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice,
Has quite the contrary effect on vice.

CLVIII.

Thus far our chronicle; and now we pause,
Though not for want of matter; but 'tis time,
According to the ancient epic laws,

To slacken sail, and anchor with our rhyme.
Let this fifth canto meet with due applause,

The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime; Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, perhaps You'll pardon to my muse a few short naps.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

CANTOS VI. VII. AND VIII.

papers-and the harangue of the coroner in ar eulogy, over the bleeding body of the deceased-(an Antony worthy of such a Cæsar)-and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere or honorable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law-a felon or a madman-and in either case no great subject for panegyric. In his life he waswhat all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejanit of Europe. I may at least serve as a consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of mankind.-Let us hear no more of this man, and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shal: the Patriot of Humanity repose by the Werther of Politics!!!

With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire :

"La pudeur s'est enfuite des cœurs, et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres."

"Plus les mœurs sont depravées, plus les expres sions devienment mesurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the and hypocritical mass which leavens the present following cantos (i. e. the 7th and 8th) are taken English generation, and is the only answer they from a French work, entitled, "Histoire de la Nou- deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of velle Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to blasphemer-which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circum- reformer, &c., are the changes which the hirelings stance of his saving the infant, which was the actual are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young-should be welcome to all who recollect on whom volunteer in the Russian service, and afterwards the it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name Christ were put to death publicly as blasphemers, and memory can never cease to be regarded with and so have been and may be many who dare to reverence. In the course of these cantos, a stanza oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of God and the mind of man. But persecution is not Londonderry, but written some time before his de- refutation, nor even triumph: the wretched infidel, cease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, as he is called, is probably happier in his prison they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am than the proudest of his assailants. With his aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of opinions I have nothing to do-they may be right his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions or wrong-but he has suffered for them, and that of all whom his whole existence was consumed in very suffering for conscience' sake will make može endeavoring to enslave. That he was an amiable proselytes to Deism than the example of heterodox man in private life, may or may not be true; but prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to opwith this the public have nothing to do: and as to pression, or over-pensioned homicides to the imlamenting his death, it will be time enough when pious alliance which insults the world with the Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth. As a name of " Holy!" I have no wish to trample minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as on the dishonored or the dead; but it would be the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in well if the adherents to the classes from whence intellect that ever tyrannized over a country. It is those persons sprung, should abate a little of the the first time, indeed, since the Normans, that Eng-cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing land has been insulted by a minister (at least) who and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and-could not speak English, and that Parliament per- but enough for the present. mitted to be dictated to in the language of Mrs.

Malaprop.

I say by the law of the land-the laws of humanity judge more gently; Of the manner of his death little need be said, but as the legitimates have always the law in their own mouths, let then make except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington the most of it. From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genina, or Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been almost a universal one: an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Leid C. If ever of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an man saved his country, Canning can; but will he? 1, for one, hope so. elegant lunatic-a sentimental suicide-he merely orthodoxy and heterodoxy, "-Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy rut the "carotid artery" (blessings on their learn-my lord, is my dory, and heterodoxy is another's man's doxy." A prelate ng!) and lo! the pageant, and the abbey, and of the present day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, which hu not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect, that which Bentham calls the syllables of color yelled forth" by the news- Church-of-Englandism"

When Lord Sandwich said he did not know the difference betweer.

CANTO VI

I.

THERE is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood "-you know the rest, And most of us have found it, now and then;

At least we think so, though but few have guess'd

The moment, till too late to come again.

But no doubt every thing is for the best

Of which the surest sign is in the end;

VII.

We left our hero and third heroine in

A kind of state more awkward than uncommon
For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin
For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:
Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,

And don't agree at all with the wise Roman
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententions,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.

VIII.

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;
I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;
But I detest all fiction, even in song,

And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.
Her reason being weak, her passions strong,

She thought that her lord's heart (even could he Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine [claim it'

When things are at the worst, they sometimes mend. Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

II.

There is a tide in the affairs of women

46

[where!

Which, taken at the flood, leads "-God knows Those navigators must be able seamen

Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair; Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen

With its strange whirls and eddies can compare:
Men, with their heads, reflect on this and that-
But women, with their hearts, on heaven knows what.
III.

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,
Young, beautiful, and daring-who would risk
A throne, the world, the universe, to be

Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk
The stars from out the sky, than not be free

As are the billows when the breeze is brisk-Though such a she's a devil, (if that there be one,) Yet she would make full many a Manichean.

IV.

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset
By commonest ambition, that when passion
O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,

Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.
If Antony be well remember'd yet,

'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion; But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories.

V.

He died at fifty for a queen of forty;

I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty, For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds, are but a sport-I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I

Gave what I had-a heart: as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.

VI.

Twas the boy's "mite," and like the "widow's,"
Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now; [may
But whether such things do or do not weigh,

All who have loved, or love, will still allow
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say,
And Love's a God, or was before the brow
Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears
Of-but Chronology best knows the years.

IX.

I am not, like Cassio, "an arithmetician,"
But by "the bookish theoric" it appears,
If 'tis summ'd up with feminine precision,
That, adding to the account his highness' years
The fair Sultana err'd from inanition;

For, were the Sultan just to all his dears,
She could but claim the fifteen-hundreth part
Of what should be monopoly-the heart.

X.

It is observed that ladies are litigions

Upon all legal objects of possession,
And not the least so when they are religions, [sion.
Which doubles what they think of the transgres-
With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,

As the tribunal shows through many a session,
When they suspect that any one goes shares
In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.

XI.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,

The heathens also, though with lesser latitude,
Are apt to carry things with a high hand,

And take what kings call "an imposing attitude; '
And for their rights connubial make a stand, [tndoj
When their liege husbands treat them with ingrati
And as four wives must have quadruple claims,
The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.

XII.

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)
The favorite; but what's favor among four?
Polygamy may well be held in dread,
Not only as a sin, but as a bore:
Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed,
Will scarcely find philosophy for more;
And all (except Mahometans) forbear
To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."

XIII.

His highness, the sublimest of mankind,—
So styled according to the usual forms
Of every monarch, till they are consigned

To those sad hungry jacobins, the worms,
Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,-
His highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,
Expecting all the welcome of a lover,

(A "Highland welcome" all the wide world over