XCII.

It seems when this allotment was made out,
There chanced to be an odd male, and odd female,
Who (after some discussion and some doubt,

If the soprano might be doom'd to be male,
They placed him o'er the women as a scout)
Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male
Was Juan, who-an awkward thing at his age-
Pair'd off with a Bacchante blooming visage

XCIII.

With Raucocanti lucklessly was chain'd
The tenor; these two hated with a hate
Found only on the stage, and each more pain'd
With this his tuneful neighbour than his fate;
Sad strife arose, for they were so cross-grain'd,
Instead of bearing up without debate,

That each pull'd different ways with many an oath,
"Arcades ambo," id est-blackguards both.

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 their 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 limb

(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 enquire,
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 the 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 Smollet, 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 sha'n't.

XCIX.

As boys love 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 still 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,

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 shew his loathing of the spot he soil'd;
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented

Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild
Instinct of gore and glory earth has known
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.

CVI.

Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke,
Its fumes 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.

C.

Of poets who come down to us through distance
Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame,
.Life seems the smallest portion of existence;

Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,
'Tis as a snow-ball 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 just—

Save 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 it's 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 perish'd 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. [5]