Selected Works of George Gordon, Lord Byron

     LXXI
Courteous and cautious therefore in his county,
  He was all things to all men, and dispensed
To some civility, to others bounty,
  And promises to all--which last commenced
To gather to a somewhat large amount, he
  Not calculating how much they condensed;
But what with keeping some, and breaking others,
His word had the same value as another's.

     LXXII
A friend to freedom and freeholders--yet
  No less a friend to government--he held,
That he exactly the just medium hit
  'Twixt place and patriotism--albeit compell'd,
Such was his sovereign's pleasure (though unfit,
  He added modestly, when rebels rail'd),
To hold some sinecures he wish'd abolish'd,
But that with them all law would be demolish'd.

     LXXIII
He was 'free to confess' (whence comes this phrase?
  Is 't English? No--'t is only parliamentary)
That innovation's spirit now-a-days
  Had made more progress than for the last century.
He would not tread a factious path to praise,
  Though for the public weal disposed to venture high;
As for his place, he could but say this of it,
That the fatigue was greater than the profit.

     LXXIV
Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life
  Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;
But could he quit his king in times of strife,
  Which threaten'd the whole country with perdition?
When demagogues would with a butcher's knife
  Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)
The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings
Have tied together commons, lords, and kings.

     LXXV
Sooner 'come lace into the civil list
  And champion him to the utmost'--he would keep it,
Till duly disappointed or dismiss'd:
  Profit he care not for, let others reap it;
But should the day come when place ceased to exist,
  The country would have far more cause to weep it:
For how could it go on? Explain who can!
He gloried in the name of Englishman.

     LXXVI
He was as independent--ay, much more--
  Than those who were not paid for independence,
As common soldiers, or a common--shore,
  Have in their several arts or parts ascendance
O'er the irregulars in lust or gore,
  Who do not give professional attendance.
Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager
To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar.

     LXXVII
All this (save the last stanza) Henry said,
  And thought. I say no more--I 've said too much;
For all of us have either heard or read--
  Off--or upon the hustings--some slight such
Hints from the independent heart or head
  Of the official candidate. I 'll touch
No more on this--the dinner-bell hath rung,
And grace is said; the grace I should have sung--

     LXXVIII
But I 'm too late, and therefore must make play.
  'T was a great banquet, such as Albion old
Was wont to boast--as if a glutton's tray
  Were something very glorious to behold.
But 't was a public feast and public day,--
  Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,
And every body out of their own sphere.

     LXXIX
The squires familiarly formal, and
  My lords and ladies proudly condescending;
The very servants puzzling how to hand
  Their plates--without it might be too much bending
From their high places by the sideboard's stand--
  Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending.
For any deviation from the graces
Might cost both man and master too--their places.

     LXXX
There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen,
  Whose hounds ne'er err'd, nor greyhounds deign'd to lurch;
Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers, seen
  Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search
Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen.
  There were some massy members of the church,
Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches,
And several who sung fewer psalms than catches.

     LXXXI
There were some country wags too--and, alas!
  Some exiles from the town, who had been driven
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass,
  And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven.
And lo! upon that day it came to pass,
  I sate next that o'erwhelming son of heaven,
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,
The loudest wit I e'er was deafen'd with.

     LXXXII
I knew him in his livelier London days,
  A brilliant diner out, though but a curate;
And not a joke he cut but earn'd its praise,
  Until preferment, coming at a sure rate
(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!
  Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?),
Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln,
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.

     LXXXIII
His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;
  But both were thrown away amongst the fens;
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.
  No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax:
  The poor priest was reduced to common sense,
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,
To hammer a horse laugh from the thick throng.

     LXXXIV
There is a difference, says the song, 'between
  A beggar and a queen,' or was (of late
The latter worse used of the two we 've seen--
  But we 'll say nothing of affairs of state);
A difference ''twixt a bishop and a dean,'
  A difference between crockery ware and plate,
As between English beef and Spartan broth--
And yet great heroes have been bred by both.

     LXXXV
But of all nature's discrepancies, none
  Upon the whole is greater than the difference
Beheld between the country and the town,
  Of which the latter merits every preference
From those who have few resources of their own,
  And only think, or act, or feel, with reference
To some small plan of interest or ambition--
Both which are limited to no condition.

     LXXXVI
But 'en avant!' The light loves languish o'er
  Long banquets and too many guests, although
A slight repast makes people love much more,
  Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know
Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore
  With vivifying Venus, who doth owe
To these the invention of champagne and truffles:
Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles.

     LXXXVII
Dully past o'er the dinner of the day;
  And Juan took his place, he knew not where,
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait,
  And sitting as if nail'd upon his chair:
Though knives and forks clank'd round as in a fray,
  He seem'd unconscious of all passing there,
Till some one, with a groan, exprest a wish
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish.

     LXXXVIII
On which, at the third asking of the bans,
  He started; and perceiving smiles around
Broadening to grins, he colour'd more than once,
  And hastily--as nothing can confound
A wise man more than laughter from a dunce--
  Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound,
And with such hurry, that ere he could curb it
He had paid his neighbour's prayer with half a turbot.

     LXXXIX
This was no bad mistake, as it occurr'd,
  The supplicator being an amateur;
But others, who were left with scarce a third,
  Were angry--as they well might, to be sure.
They wonder'd how a young man so absurd
  Lord Henry at his table should endure;
And this, and his not knowing how much oats
Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes.

     XC
They little knew, or might have sympathised,
  That he the night before had seen a ghost,
A prologue which but slightly harmonised
  With the substantial company engross'd
By matter, and so much materialised,
  That one scarce knew at what to marvel most
Of two things--how (the question rather odd is)
Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.

     XCI
But what confused him more than smile or stare
  From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around,
Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air,
  Especially as he had been renown'd
For some vivacity among the fair,
  Even in the country circle's narrow bound
(For little things upon my lord's estate
Were good small talk for others still less great)--

     XCII
Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his,
  And something like a smile upon her cheek.
Now this he really rather took amiss:
  In those who rarely smile, their smiles bespeak
A strong external motive; and in this
  Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique
Or hope, or love, with any of the wiles
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles.

     XCIII
'T was a mere quiet smile of contemplation,
  Indicative of some surprise and pity;
And Juan grew carnation with vexation,
  Which was not very wise, and still less witty,
Since he had gain'd at least her observation,
  A most important outwork of the city--
As Juan should have known, had not his senses
By last night's ghost been driven from their defences.

     XCIV
But what was bad, she did not blush in turn,
  Nor seem embarrass'd--quite the contrary;
Her aspect was as usual, still--not stern--
  And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye,
Yet grew a little pale--with what? concern?
  I know not; but her colour ne'er was high--
Though sometimes faintly flush'd--and always clear,
As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.

     XCV
But Adeline was occupied by fame
  This day; and watching, witching, condescending
To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game,
  And dignity with courtesy so blending,
As all must blend whose part it is to aim
  (Especially as the sixth year is ending)
At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's
Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections.

     XCVI
Though this was most expedient on the whole,
  And usual--Juan, when he cast a glance
On Adeline while playing her grand role,
  Which she went through as though it were a dance,
Betraying only now and then her soul
  By a look scarce perceptibly askance
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real;

     XCVII
So well she acted all and every part
  By turns--with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart.
  They err--'t is merely what is call'd mobility,
A thing of temperament and not of art,
  Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false--though true; for surely they 're sincerest
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.

     XCVIII
This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,
  Heroes sometimes, though seldom--sages never;
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,
  Little that 's great, but much of what is clever;
Most orators, but very few financiers,
  Though all Exchequer chancellors endeavour,
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours,
And grow quite figurative with their figures.

     XCIX
The poets of arithmetic are they
  Who, though they prove not two and two to be
Five, as they might do in a modest way,
  Have plainly made it out that four are three,
Judging by what they take, and what they pay.
  The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea,
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives.

     C
While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces,
  The fair Fitz-Fulke seem'd very much at ease;
Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces,
  Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize
The ridicules of people in all places--
  That honey of your fashionable bees--
And store it up for mischievous enjoyment;
And this at present was her kind employment.

     CI
However, the day closed, as days must close;
  The evening also waned--and coffee came.
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose,
  And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame,
Retired: with most unfashionable bows
  Their docile esquires also did the same,
Delighted with their dinner and their host,
But with the Lady Adeline the most.

     CII
Some praised her beauty; others her great grace;
  The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity
Was obvious in each feature of her face,
  Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity.
Yes; she was truly worthy her high place!
  No one could envy her deserved prosperity.
And then her dress--what beautiful simplicity
Draperied her form with curious felicity!

     CIII
Meanwhile Sweet Adeline deserved their praises,
  By an impartial indemnification
For all her past exertion and soft phrases,
  In a most edifying conversation,
Which turn'd upon their late guests' miens and faces,
  And families, even to the last relation;
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses,
And truculent distortion of their tresses.

     CIV, she said little--'t was the rest that broke
  Forth into universal epigram;
But then 't was to the purpose what she spoke:
  Like Addison's 'faint praise,' so wont to damn,
Her own but served to set off every joke,
  As music chimes in with a melodrame.
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend!
I ask but this of mine, to--not defend.

     CV
There were but two exceptions to this keen
  Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; one
Aurora, with her pure and placid mien;
  And Juan, too, in general behind none
In gay remark on what he had heard or seen,
  Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone:
In vain he heard the others rail or rally,
He would not join them in a single sally.

     CVI
'T is true he saw Aurora look as though
  She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook
Its motive for that charity we owe
  But seldom pay the absent, nor would look
Farther--it might or might not be so.
  But Juan, sitting silent in his nook,
Observing little in his reverie,
Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.

     CVII
The ghost at least had done him this much good,
  In making him as silent as a ghost,
If in the circumstances which ensued
  He gain'd esteem where it was worth the most.
And certainly Aurora had renew'd
  In him some feelings he had lately lost,
Or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal,
Are so divine, that I must deem them real:--

     CVIII
The love of higher things and better days;
  The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is call'd the world, and the world's ways;
  The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
  Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another's bosom is the zone.

     CIX
Who would not sigh Ai ai Tan Kuuerheian
  That hath a memory, or that had a heart?
Alas! her star must fade like that of Dian:
  Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart.
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an
  Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart
Of Eros: but though thou hast play'd us many tricks,
Still we respect thee, 'Alma Venus Genetrix!'

     CX
And full of sentiments, sublime as billows
  Heaving between this world and worlds beyond,
Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows
  Arrived, retired to his; but to despond
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows
  Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

     CXI
The night was as before: he was undrest,
  Saving his night-gown, which is an undress;
Completely 'sans culotte,' and without vest;
  In short, he hardly could be clothed with less:
But apprehensive of his spectral guest,
  He sate with feelings awkward to express
(By those who have not had such visitations),
Expectant of the ghost's fresh operations.

     CXII
And not in vain he listen'd;--Hush! what 's that?
  I see--I see--Ah, no!--'t is not--yet 't is--
Ye powers! it is the--the--the--Pooh! the cat!
  The devil may take that stealthy pace of his!
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat,
  Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss,
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous,
And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.

     CXIII
Again--what is 't? The wind? No, no--this time
  It is the sable friar as before,
With awful footsteps regular as rhyme,
  Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more.
Again through shadows of the night sublime,
  When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore
The starry darkness round her like a girdle
Spangled with gems--the monk made his blood curdle.

     CXIV
A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,
  Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter,
Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,
  Sounding like very supernatural water,
Came over Juan's ear, which throbb'd, alas!
  For immaterialism 's a serious matter;
So that even those whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tete-a-tete.

     CXV
Were his eyes open?--Yes! and his mouth too.
  Surprise has this effect--to make one dumb,
Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through
  As wide as if a long speech were to come.
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,
  Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:
His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What open'd next?--the door.

     CXVI
It open'd with a most infernal creak,
  Like that of hell. 'Lasciate ogni speranza
Voi che entrate!' The hinge seem'd to speak,
  Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza;
Or--but all words upon such themes are weak:
  A single shade 's sufficient to entrance
Hero--for what is substance to a spirit?
Or how is 't matter trembles to come near it?

     CXVII
The door flew wide,--not swiftly, but, as fly
  The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight,--
And then swung back; nor close--but stood awry,
  Half letting in long shadows on the light,
Which still in Juan's candlesticks burn'd high,
  For he had two, both tolerably bright,
And in the door-way, darkening darkness, stood
The sable friar in his solemn hood.

     CXVIII
Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken
  The night before; but being sick of shaking,
He first inclined to think he had been mistaken;
  And then to be ashamed of such mistaking;
His own internal ghost began to awaken
  Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking--
Hinting that soul and body on the whole
Were odds against a disembodied soul.

     CXIX
And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce,
  And he arose, advanced--the shade retreated;
But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,
  Follow'd, his veins no longer cold, but heated,
Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,
  At whatsoever risk of being defeated:
The ghost stopp'd, menaced, then retired, until
He reach'd the ancient wall, then stood stone still.

     CXX
Juan put forth one arm--Eternal powers!
  It touched no soul, nor body, but the wall,
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers,
  Chequer'd with all the tracery of the hall;
He shudder'd, as no doubt the bravest cowers
  When he can't tell what 't is that doth appal.
How odd, a single hobgoblin's non-entity
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity.

     CXXI
But still the shade remain'd: the blue eyes glared,
  And rather variably for stony death:
Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,
  The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl show'd he had been fair-hair'd;
  A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,
Gleam'd forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peep'd, just escaped from a grey cloud.

     CXXII
And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust
  His other arm forth--Wonder upon wonder!
It press'd upon a hard but glowing bust,
  Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.
He found, as people on most trials must,
  That he had made at first a silly blunder,
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought.

     CXXIII
The ghost, if ghost it were, seem'd a sweet soul
  As ever lurk'd beneath a holy hood:
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole
  Forth into something much like flesh and blood;
Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,
  And they reveal'd--alas! that e'er they should!
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,
The phantom of her frolic Grace--Fitz-Fulke!