{ "id": "lord-byron/canto-i", "title": "Canto I", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "Lord Byron", "poet_slug": "lord-byron", "language": "en", "book": "Don Juan", "book_slug": "don-juan", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 3, "container": null, "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1824, "venue": "Don Juan (1824)", "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://github.com/standardebooks/lord-byron_don-juan", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/lord-byron_don-juan", "file": "canto-1.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18762", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000667686" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-20" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 1776, "n_stanzas": 222, 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"ordinal": "CCXXI", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 220, 221 ] }, { "ordinal": "CCXXII", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 221, 222 ] } ], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "I want a hero: an uncommon want,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When every year and month sends forth a new one,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The age discovers he is not the true one;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "We all have seen him, in the pantomime,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Each in their turn like Banquo’s monarchs stalk,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Followers of Fame, “nine farrow” of that sow:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Were French, and famous people, as we know;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With many of the military set,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Exceedingly remarkable at times,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But not at all adapted to my rhymes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Nelson was once Britannia’s god of War,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And still should be so, but the tide is turned;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis with our hero quietly inurned;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Because the army’s grown more popular,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At which the naval people are concerned;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Besides, the Prince is all for the land-service,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Brave men were living before Agamemnon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And since, exceeding valorous and sage,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But then they shone not on the poet’s page,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And so have been forgotten:⁠—I condemn none,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But can’t find any in the present age", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So, as I said, I’ll take my friend Don Juan.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Most epic poets plunge “in medias res”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then your hero tells, whene’er you please,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What went before⁠—by way of episode,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "While seated after dinner at his ease,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beside his mistress in some soft abode,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "That is the usual method, but not mine⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My way is to begin with the beginning;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The regularity of my design", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And therefore I shall open with a line", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Narrating somewhat of Don Juan’s father,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And also of his mother, if you’d rather.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Famous for oranges and women⁠—he", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who has not seen it will be much to pity,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So says the proverb⁠—and I quite agree;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cadiz perhaps⁠—but that you soon may see;⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Don Juan’s parents lived beside the river,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A noble stream, and called the Guadalquivir.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "His father’s name was José⁠—Don, of course⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A true Hidalgo, free from every stain", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his source", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through the most Gothic gentlemen of Spain;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A better cavalier ne’er mounted horse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or, being mounted, e’er got down again,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Than José, who begot our hero, who", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Begot⁠—but that’s to come⁠—Well, to renew:", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "His mother was a learnèd lady, famed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For every branch of every science known⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In every Christian language ever named,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With virtues equalled by her wit alone:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And even the good with inward envy groan,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Finding themselves so very much exceeded,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In their own way, by all the things that she did.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Her memory was a mine: she knew by heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All Calderon and greater part of Lopé;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So, that if any actor missed his part,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She could have served him for the prompter’s copy;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For her Feinagle’s were an useless art,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And he himself obliged to shut up shop⁠—he", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Could never make a memory so fine as", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That which adorned the brain of Donna Inez.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Her favourite science was the mathematical,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her serious sayings darkened to sublimity;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In short, in all things she was fairly what I call", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A prodigy⁠—her morning dress was dimity,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And other stuffs, with which I won’t stay puzzling.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She knew the Latin⁠—that is, “the Lord’s prayer,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Greek⁠—the alphabet⁠—I’m nearly sure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She read some French romances here and there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Although her mode of speaking was not pure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For native Spanish she had no great care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At least her conversation was obscure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As if she deemed that mystery would ennoble ’em.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She liked the English and the Hebrew tongue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And said there was analogy between ’em;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She proved it somehow out of sacred song,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But I must leave the proofs to those who’ve seen ’em;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But this I heard her say, and can’t be wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all may think which way their judgments lean ’em,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "“ ’Tis strange⁠—the Hebrew noun which means ‘I am,’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The English always use to govern d⁠⸺⁠n.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Some women use their tongues⁠—she looked a lecture,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "An all-in-all sufficient self-director,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The Law’s expounder, and the State’s corrector,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose suicide was almost an anomaly⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "One sad example more, that “All is vanity,”⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(The jury brought their verdict in “Insanity!”)", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "In short, she was a walking calculation,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Miss Edgeworth’s novels stepping from their covers,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or Mrs. Trimmer’s books on education,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or “Coelebs’ Wife” set out in quest of lovers,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Morality’s prim personification,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In which not Envy’s self a flaw discovers;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To others’ share let “female errors fall,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For she had not even one⁠—the worst of all.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Oh! she was perfect past all parallel⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of any modern female saint’s comparison;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So far above the cunning powers of Hell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her Guardian Angel had given up his garrison;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Even her minutest motions went as well", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save thine “incomparable oil,” Macassar!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Perfect she was, but as perfection is", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Insipid in this naughty world of ours,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Where our first parents never learned to kiss", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Don José, like a lineal son of Eve,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Went plucking various fruit without her leave.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He was a mortal of the careless kind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With no great love for learning, or the learned,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who chose to go where’er he had a mind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And never dreamed his lady was concerned;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The world, as usual, wickedly inclined", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To see a kingdom or a house o’erturned,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Whispered he had a mistress, some said two.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But for domestic quarrels one will do.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A great opinion of her own good qualities;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And such, indeed, she was in her moralities;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But then she had a devil of a spirit,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sometimes mixed up fancies with realities,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And let few opportunities escape", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of getting her liege lord into a scrape.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This was an easy matter with a man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And even the wisest, do the best they can,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That you might “brain them with their lady’s fan;”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And fans turn into falchions in fair hands,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And why and wherefore no one understands.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis pity learnèd virgins ever wed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With persons of no sort of education,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grow tired of scientific conversation:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I don’t choose to say much upon this head,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’m a plain man, and in a single station,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But⁠—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Don José and his lady quarrelled⁠—why,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not any of the many could divine,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Though several thousand people chose to try,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas surely no concern of theirs nor mine;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I loathe that low vice⁠—curiosity;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But if there’s anything in which I shine,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis in arranging all my friends’ affairs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not having, of my own, domestic cares.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And so I interfered, and with the best", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Intentions, but their treatment was not kind;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I think the foolish people were possessed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For neither of them could I ever find,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Although their porter afterwards confessed⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that’s no matter, and the worst’s behind,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For little Juan o’er me threw, down stairs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A pail of housemaid’s water unawares.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And mischief-making monkey from his birth;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His parents ne’er agreed except in doting", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon the most unquiet imp on earth;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Instead of quarrelling, had they been but both in", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their senses, they’d have sent young master forth", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To school, or had him soundly whipped at home,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To teach him manners for the time to come.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Don José and the Donna Inez led", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For some time an unhappy sort of life,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They lived respectably as man and wife,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Their conduct was exceedingly well-bred,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And gave no outward signs of inward strife,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Until at length the smothered fire broke out,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And put the business past all kind of doubt.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For Inez called some druggists and physicians,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tried to prove her loving lord was mad,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But as he had some lucid intermissions,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She next decided he was only bad;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Yet when they asked her for her depositions,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No sort of explanation could be had,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Save that her duty both to man and God", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Required this conduct⁠—which seemed very odd.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And opened certain trunks of books and letters,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then she had all Seville for abettors,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Besides her good old grandmother (who doted);", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The hearers of her case became repeaters,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some for amusement, others for old grudges.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And then this best and meekest woman bore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With such serenity her husband’s woes,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Never to say a word about them more⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Calmly she heard each calumny that rose,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And saw his agonies with such sublimity,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That all the world exclaimed, “What magnanimity!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is philosophic in our former friends;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The more so in obtaining our own ends;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And what the lawyers call a “malus animus”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Conduct like this by no means comprehends:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Revenge in person’s certainly no virtue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But then ’tis not my fault, if others hurt you.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And if our quarrels should rip up old stories,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And help them with a lie or two additional,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m not to blame, as you well know⁠—no more is", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Any one else⁠—they were become traditional;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Besides, their resurrection aids our glories", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By contrast, which is what we just were wishing all:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And Science profits by this resurrection⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Their friends had tried at reconciliation,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then their relations, who made matters worse.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(’Twere hard to tell upon a like occasion", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To whom it may be best to have recourse⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I can’t say much for friend or yet relation):", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lawyers did their utmost for divorce,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But scarce a fee was paid on either side", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before, unluckily, Don José died.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He died: and most unluckily, because,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "According to all hints I could collect", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "From Counsel learnèd in those kinds of laws,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Although their talk’s obscure and circumspect)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A thousand pities also with respect", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To public feeling, which on this occasion", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was manifested in a great sensation.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But ah! he died; and buried with him lay", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The public feeling and the lawyers’ fees:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His house was sold, his servants sent away,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Jew took one of his two mistresses,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A priest the other⁠—at least so they say:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I asked the doctors after his disease⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He died of the slow fever called the tertian,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And left his widow to her own aversion.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet José was an honourable man,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That I must say, who knew him very well;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Therefore his frailties I’ll no further scan,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Indeed there were not many more to tell:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if his passions now and then outran", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Discretion, and were not so peaceable", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "As Numa’s (who was also named Pompilius),", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He had been ill brought up, and was born bilious.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Whate’er might be his worthlessness or worth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Let’s own⁠—since it can do no good on earth⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was a trying moment that which found him", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where all his household gods lay shivered round him:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "No choice was left his feelings or his pride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Save Death or Doctors’ Commons⁠—so he died.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which, with a long minority and care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Promised to turn out well in proper hands:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And answered but to Nature’s just demands;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "An only son left with an only mother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is brought up much more wisely than another.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sagest of women, even of widows, she", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And worthy of the noblest pedigree,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(His Sire was of Castile, his Dam from Aragon):", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Then, for accomplishments of chivalry,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In case our Lord the King should go to war again,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how to scale a fortress⁠—or a nunnery.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But that which Donna Inez most desired,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw into herself each day before all", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The learnèd tutors whom for him she hired,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was, that his breeding should be strictly moral:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Much into all his studies she inquired,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so they were submitted first to her, all,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Arts, sciences⁠—no branch was made a mystery", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Juan’s eyes, excepting natural history.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The languages, especially the dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The arts, at least all such as could be said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To be the most remote from common use,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In all these he was much and deeply read:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But not a page of anything that’s loose,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or hints continuation of the species,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was ever suffered, lest he should grow vicious.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "His classic studies made a little puzzle,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But never put on pantaloons or bodices;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Ovid’s a rake, as half his verses show him,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Anacreon’s morals are a still worse sample,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I don’t think Sappho’s Ode a good example,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where the Sublime soars forth on wings more ample;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But Virgil’s songs are pure, except that horrid one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beginning with “Formosum Pastor Corydon.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Lucretius’ irreligion is too strong", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For early stomachs, to prove wholesome food;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I can’t help thinking Juvenal was wrong,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Although no doubt his real intent was good,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For speaking out so plainly in his song,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So much indeed as to be downright rude;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then what proper person can be partial", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Juan was taught from out the best edition,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Expurgated by learnèd men, who place,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Judiciously, from out the schoolboy’s vision,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Too much their modest bard by this omission,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pitying sore his mutilated case,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "They only add them all in an appendix,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index;", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For there we have them all “at one fell swoop,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Instead of being scattered through the pages;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "They stand forth marshalled in a handsome troop,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Till some less rigid editor shall stoop", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To call them back into their separate cages,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Instead of standing staring all together,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like garden gods⁠—and not so decent either.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The Missal too (it was the family Missal)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was ornamented in a sort of way", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which ancient mass-books often are, and this all", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Kinds of grotesques illumined; and how they,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who saw those figures on the margin kiss all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could turn their optics to the text and pray,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is more than I know⁠—But Don Juan’s mother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Kept this herself, and gave her son another.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And homilies, and lives of all the saints;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He did not take such studies for restraints;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But how Faith is acquired, and then insured,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So well not one of the aforesaid paints", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which make the reader envy his transgressions.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This, too, was a sealed book to little Juan⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I can’t but say that his mamma was right,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "If such an education was the true one.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She scarcely trusted him from out her sight;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her maids were old, and if she took a new one,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You might be sure she was a perfect fright;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She did this during even her husband’s life⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I recommend as much to every wife.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Young Juan waxed in goodliness and grace;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At six a charming child, and at eleven", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With all the promise of as fine a face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As e’er to Man’s maturer growth was given:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He studied steadily, and grew apace,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And seemed, at least, in the right road to Heaven,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For half his days were passed at church, the other", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between his tutors, confessor, and mother.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At six, I said, he was a charming child,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Although in infancy a little wild,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They tamed him down amongst them: to destroy", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His natural spirit not in vain they toiled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At least it seemed so; and his mother’s joy", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Was to declare how sage, and still, and steady,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her young philosopher was grown already.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I had my doubts, perhaps I have them still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But what I say is neither here nor there:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I knew his father well, and have some skill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In character⁠—but it would not be fair", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "From sire to son to augur good or ill:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But scandal’s my aversion⁠—I protest", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against all evil speaking, even in jest.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For my part I say nothing⁠—nothing⁠—but", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This I will say⁠—my reasons are my own⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That if I had an only son to put", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To school (as God be praised that I have none),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis not with Donna Inez I would shut", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Him up to learn his catechism alone,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "No⁠—no⁠—I’d send him out betimes to college,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For there it was I picked up my own knowledge.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "For there one learns⁠—’tis not for me to boast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though I acquired⁠—but I pass over that,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "As well as all the Greek I since have lost:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I say that there’s the place⁠—but “Verbum sat,”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I think I picked up too, as well as most,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knowledge of matters⁠—but no matter what⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I never married⁠—but, I think, I know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That sons should not be educated so.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seemed", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And everybody but his mother deemed", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Him almost man; but she flew in a rage", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bit her lips (for else she might have screamed)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "If any said so⁠—for to be precocious", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Selected for discretion and devotion,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There was the Donna Julia, whom to call", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pretty were but to give a feeble notion", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of many charms in her as natural", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As sweetness to the flower, or salt to Ocean,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(But this last simile is trite and stupid.)", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The darkness of her Oriental eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Accorded with her Moorish origin;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(Her blood was not all Spanish; by the by,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin;)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Boabdil wept: of Donna Julia’s kin", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Some went to Africa, some stayed in Spain⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her great great grandmamma chose to remain.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She married (I forget the pedigree)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His blood less noble than such blood should be;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At such alliances his sires would frown,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In that point so precise in each degree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That they bred in and in, as might be shown,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Marrying their cousins⁠—nay, their aunts, and nieces,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This heathenish cross restored the breed again,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ruined its blood, but much improved its flesh;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But there’s a rumour which I fain would hush,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis said that Donna Julia’s grandmamma", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "However this might be, the race went on", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Improving still through every generation,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Until it centred in an only son,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who left an only daughter; my narration", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "May have suggested that this single one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I shall have much to speak about), and she", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Her eye (I’m very fond of handsome eyes)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Flashed an expression more of pride than ire,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And love than either; and there would arise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A something in them which was not desire,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which struggled through and chastened down the whole.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Her glossy hair was clustered o’er a brow", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her eyebrow’s shape was like the aërial bow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Possessed an air and grace by no means common:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her stature tall⁠—I hate a dumpy woman.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Wedded she was some years, and to a man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And yet, I think, instead of such a one", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twere better to have two of five-and-twenty,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Especially in countries near the sun:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now I think on ’t, “mi vien in mente,”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And all the fault of that indecent sun,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That howsoever people fast and pray,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is much more common where the climate’s sultry,", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Happy the nations of the moral North!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where all is virtue, and the winter season", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(’Twas snow that brought St. Anthony to reason);", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By laying whate’er sum, in mulct, they please on", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The lover, who must pay a handsome price,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because it is a marketable vice.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alfonso was the name of Julia’s lord,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A man well looking for his years, and who", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorred:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They lived together as most people do,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Suffering each other’s foibles by accord,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And not exactly either one or two;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Jealousy dislikes the world to know it.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Julia was⁠—yet I never could see why⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Between their tastes there was small sympathy,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For not a line had Julia ever penned:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Some people whisper (but, no doubt, they lie,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Malice still imputes some private end)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso’s marriage,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And that still keeping up the old connection,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which Time had lately rendered much more chaste,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She took his lady also in affection,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And certainly this course was much the best:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She flattered Julia with her sage protection,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And complimented Don Alfonso’s taste;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At least she left it a more slender handle.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I can’t tell whether Julia saw the affair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With other people’s eyes, or if her own", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Discoveries made, but none could be aware", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of this, at least no symptom e’er was shown;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Indifferent from the first, or callous grown:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m really puzzled what to think or say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She kept her counsel in so close a way.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Caressed him often⁠—such a thing might be", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But I am not so sure I should have smiled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "These few short years make wondrous alterations,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Whate’er the cause might be, they had become", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And much embarrassment in either eye;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There surely will be little doubt with some", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That Donna Julia knew the reason why,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But as for Juan, he had no more notion", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than he who never saw the sea of Ocean.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Yet Julia’s very coldness still was kind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And tremulously gentle her small hand", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Withdrew itself from his, but left behind", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And slight, so very slight, that to the mind", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twas but a doubt; but ne’er magician’s wand", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Wrought change with all Armida’s fairy art", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like what this light touch left on Juan’s heart.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And if she met him, though she smiled no more,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She looked a sadness sweeter than her smile,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She must not own, but cherished more the while", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For that compression in its burning core;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even Innocence itself has many a wile,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And will not dare to trust itself with truth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Love is taught hypocrisy from youth.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But Passion most dissembles, yet betrays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And in whatever aspect it arrays", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Itself, ’tis still the same hypocrisy;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Coldness or Anger, even Disdain or Hate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are masks it often wears, and still too late.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And burning blushes, though for no transgression,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All these are little preludes to possession,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of which young Passion cannot be bereft,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And merely tend to show how greatly Love is", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Embarrassed at first starting with a novice.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Poor Julia’s heart was in an awkward state;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She felt it going, and resolved to make", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The noblest efforts for herself and mate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Honour’s, Pride’s, Religion’s, Virtue’s sake:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her resolutions were most truly great,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She prayed the Virgin Mary for her grace,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As being the best judge of a lady’s case.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She vowed she never would see Juan more,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And next day paid a visit to his mother,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And looked extremely at the opening door,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which, by the Virgin’s grace, let in another;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Grateful she was, and yet a little sore⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Again it opens, it can be no other,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis surely Juan now⁠—No! I’m afraid", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That night the Virgin was no further prayed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She now determined that a virtuous woman", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should rather face and overcome temptation,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That flight was base and dastardly, and no man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should ever give her heart the least sensation,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That is to say, a thought beyond the common", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Preference, that we must feel, upon occasion,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For people who are pleasanter than others,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But then they only seem so many brothers.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And even if by chance⁠—and who can tell?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Devil’s so very sly⁠—she should discover", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That all within was not so very well,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, if still free, that such or such a lover", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Such thoughts, and be the better when they’re over;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if the man should ask, ’tis but denial:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I recommend young ladies to make trial.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And, then, there are such things as Love divine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bright and immaculate, unmixed and pure,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Such as the angels think so very fine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And matrons, who would be no less secure,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Platonic, perfect, “just such love as mine;”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus Julia said⁠—and thought so, to be sure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And so I’d have her think, were I the man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On whom her reveries celestial ran.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Such love is innocent, and may exist", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between young persons without any danger.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A hand may first, and then a lip be kissed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For my part, to such doings I’m a stranger,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But hear these freedoms form the utmost list", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of all o’er which such love may be a ranger:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "If people go beyond, ’tis quite a crime,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But not my fault⁠—I tell them all in time.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Love, then, but Love within its proper limits,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was Julia’s innocent determination", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In young Don Juan’s favour, and to him its", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Exertion might be useful on occasion;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He might be taught, by Love and her together⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I really don’t know what, nor Julia either.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Fraught with this fine intention, and well fenced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In mail of proof⁠—her purity of soul⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She, for the future, of her strength convinced,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that her honour was a rock, or mole,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Exceeding sagely from that hour dispensed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With any kind of troublesome control;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But whether Julia to the task was equal", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is that which must be mentioned in the sequel.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Her plan she deemed both innocent and feasible,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Not Scandal’s fangs could fix on much that’s seizable,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or if they did so, satisfied to mean", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Nothing but what was good, her breast was peaceable⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A quiet conscience makes one so serene!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That all the Apostles would have done as they did.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And if in the mean time her husband died,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But Heaven forbid that such a thought should cross", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her brain, though in a dream! (and then she sighed)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Never could she survive that common loss;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But just suppose that moment should betide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I only say suppose it⁠—inter nos:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(This should be entre nous, for Julia thought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In French, but then the rhyme would go for nought.)", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I only say, suppose this supposition:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Juan being then grown up to man’s estate", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Would fully suit a widow of condition,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even seven years hence it would not be too late;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And in the interim (to pursue this vision)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The mischief, after all, could not be great,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For he would learn the rudiments of Love,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I mean the seraph way of those above.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "So much for Julia! Now we’ll turn to Juan.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Poor little fellow! he had no idea", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of his own case, and never hit the true one;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In feelings quick as Ovid’s Miss Medea,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He puzzled over what he found a new one,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But not as yet imagined it could be a", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Thing quite in course, and not at all alarming,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which, with a little patience, might grow charming.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Silent and pensive, idle, restless, slow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His home deserted for the lonely wood,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Tormented with a wound he could not know,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His, like all deep grief, plunged in solitude:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m fond myself of solitude or so,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But then, I beg it may be understood,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "By solitude I mean a Sultan’s (not", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A Hermit’s), with a haram for a grot.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where Transport and Security entwine,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Here is the Empire of thy perfect bliss,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And here thou art a God indeed divine.”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The bard I quote from does not sing amiss,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With the exception of the second line,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For that same twining “Transport and Security”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are twisted to a phrase of some obscurity.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The Poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To the good sense and senses of mankind,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The very thing which everybody feels,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As all have found on trial, or may find,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That no one likes to be disturbed at meals", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or love.⁠—I won’t say more about “entwined”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or “Transport,” as we knew all that before,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But beg “Security” will bolt the door.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Young Juan wandered by the glassy brooks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thinking unutterable things; he threw", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Himself at length within the leafy nooks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There poets find materials for their books,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And every now and then we read them through,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So that their plan and prosody are eligible,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so pursued", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His self-communion with his own high soul,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had mitigated part, though not the whole", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of its disease; he did the best he could", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With things not very subject to control,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And turned, without perceiving his condition,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He thought about himself, and the whole earth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And how the deuce they ever could have birth;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "How many miles the moon might have in girth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of air-balloons, and of the many bars", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "In thoughts like these true Wisdom may discern", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Longings sublime, and aspirations high,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which some are born with, but the most part learn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To plague themselves withal, they know not why:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Twas strange that one so young should thus concern", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His brain about the action of the sky;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "If you think ’twas Philosophy that this did,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I can’t help thinking puberty assisted.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And heard a voice in all the winds; and then", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how the goddesses came down to men:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He missed the pathway, he forgot the hours,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when he looked upon his watch again,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He found how much old Time had been a winner⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He also found that he had lost his dinner.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his book,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Boscan, or Garcilasso;⁠—by the wind", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Even as the page is rustled while we look,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So by the poesy of his own mind", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As if ’twere one whereon magicians bind", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "According to some good old woman’s tale.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus would he while his lonely hours away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dissatisfied, not knowing what he wanted;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Nor glowing reverie, nor poet’s lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A bosom whereon he his head might lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hear the heart beat with the love it granted,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With⁠—several other things, which I forget,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could not escape the gentle Julia’s eyes;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She saw that Juan was not at his ease;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her only son with question or surmise;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Whether it was she did not see, or would not,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or, like all very clever people, could not.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This may seem strange, but yet ’tis very common;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For instance⁠—gentlemen, whose ladies take", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Leave to o’erstep the written rights of Woman,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And break the⁠—Which commandment is ’t they break?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(I have forgot the number, and think no man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake;)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A real husband always is suspicious,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But still no less suspects in the wrong place,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The last indeed’s infallibly the case:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thus parents also are at times short-sighted:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though watchful as the lynx, they ne’er discover,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The while the wicked world beholds delighted,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Young Hopeful’s mistress, or Miss Fanny’s lover,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Till some confounded escapade has blighted", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The plan of twenty years, and all is over;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then the mother cries, the father swears,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wonders why the devil he got heirs.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But Inez was so anxious, and so clear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of sight, that I must think, on this occasion,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She had some other motive much more near", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For leaving Juan to this new temptation,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But what that motive was, I shan’t say here;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps to finish Juan’s education,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Perhaps to open Don Alfonso’s eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In case he thought his wife too great a prize.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "It was upon a day, a summer’s day;⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Summer’s indeed a very dangerous season,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And so is spring about the end of May;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing reason;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But whatsoe’er the cause is, one may say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And stand convicted of more truth than treason,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That there are months which nature grows more merry in⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "March has its hares, and May must have its heroine.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas on a summer’s day⁠—the sixth of June:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I like to be particular in dates,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Not only of the age, and year, but moon;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They are a sort of post-house, where the Fates", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Change horses, making History change its tune,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Leaving at last not much besides chronology,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Excepting the post-obits of theology.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas on the sixth of June, about the hour", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of half-past six⁠—perhaps still nearer seven⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When Julia sate within as pretty a bower", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As e’er held houri in that heathenish heaven", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Described by Muhammad, and Anacreon Moore,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With all the trophies of triumphant song⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He won them well, and may he wear them long!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She sate, but not alone; I know not well", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How this same interview had taken place,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And even if I knew, I should not tell⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "People should hold their tongues in any case;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "No matter how or why the thing befell,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But there were she and Juan, face to face⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When two such faces are so, ’t would be wise,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But very difficult, to shut their eyes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "How beautiful she looked! her conscious heart", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Oh Love! how perfect is thy mystic art,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "How self-deceitful is the sagest part", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along!⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The precipice she stood on was immense,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So was her creed in her own innocence.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She thought of her own strength, and Juan’s youth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And of the folly of all prudish fears,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Victorious Virtue, and domestic Truth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then of Don Alfonso’s fifty years:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I wish these last had not occurred, in sooth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because that number rarely much endears,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sounds ill in love, whate’er it may in money.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "When people say, “I’ve told you fifty times,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They mean to scold, and very often do;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When poets say, “I’ve written fifty rhymes,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They make you dread that they’ll recite them too;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At fifty love for love is rare, ’tis true,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But then, no doubt, it equally as true is,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "By all the vows below to Powers above,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She never would disgrace the ring she wore,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Nor leave a wish which wisdom might reprove;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And while she pondered this, besides much more,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "One hand on Juan’s carelessly was thrown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quite by mistake⁠—she thought it was her own;", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Unconsciously she leaned upon the other,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which played within the tangles of her hair;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And to contend with thoughts she could not smother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She seemed by the distraction of her air.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Twas surely very wrong in Juan’s mother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To leave together this imprudent pair,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She who for many years had watched her son so⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’m very certain mine would not have done so.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The hand which still held Juan’s, by degrees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gently, but palpably confirmed its grasp,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "As if it said, “Detain me, if you please;”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet there’s no doubt she only meant to clasp", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Had she imagined such a thing could rouse", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I cannot know what Juan thought of this,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But what he did, is much what you would do;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His young lip thanked it with a grateful kiss,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then, abashed at its own joy, withdrew", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In deep despair, lest he had done amiss⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Love is so very timid when ’tis new:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She blushed, and frowned not, but she strove to speak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The sun set, and up rose the yellow moon:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Devil’s in the moon for mischief; they", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who called her chaste, methinks, began too soon", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their nomenclature; there is not a day,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The longest, not the twenty-first of June,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sees half the business in a wicked way,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "On which three single hours of moonshine smile⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then she looks so modest all the while!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There is a dangerous silence in that hour,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A stillness, which leaves room for the full soul", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To open all itself, without the power", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of calling wholly back its self-control;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The silver light which, hallowing tree and tower,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sheds beauty and deep softness o’er the whole,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Breathes also to the heart, and o’er it throws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A loving languor, which is not repose.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half retiring from the glowing arm,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which trembled like the bosom where ’twas placed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet still she must have thought there was no harm,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or else ’twere easy to withdraw her waist;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But then the situation had its charm,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then⁠—God knows what next⁠—I can’t go on;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’m almost sorry that I e’er begun.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Oh Plato! Plato! you have paved the way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With your confounded fantasies, to more", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Immoral conduct by the fancied sway", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Your system feigns o’er the controlless core", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of human hearts, than all the long array", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of poets and romancers:⁠—You’re a bore,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A charlatan, a coxcomb⁠—and have been,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At best, no better than a go-between.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And Julia’s voice was lost, except in sighs,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until too late for useful conversation;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not that Remorse did not oppose Temptation;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A little still she strove, and much repented,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And whispering “I will ne’er consent”⁠—consented.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis said that Xerxes offered a reward", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To those who could invent him a new pleasure:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Methinks the requisition’s rather hard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And must have cost his Majesty a treasure:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For my part, I’m a moderate-minded bard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fond of a little love (which I call leisure);", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I care not for new pleasures, as the old", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are quite enough for me, so they but hold.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Oh Pleasure! you’re indeed a pleasant thing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Although one must be damned for you, no doubt:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I make a resolution every spring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of reformation, ere the year run out,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet still, I trust, it may be kept throughout:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m very sorry, very much ashamed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaimed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here my chaste Muse a liberty must take⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Start not! still chaster reader⁠—she’ll be nice hence⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Forward, and there is no great cause to quake;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This liberty is a poetic licence,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which some irregularity may make", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the design, and as I have a high sense", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of Aristotle and the Rules, ’tis fit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To beg his pardon when I err a bit.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This licence is to hope the reader will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal day,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Without whose epoch my poetic skill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For want of facts would all be thrown away),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But keeping Julia and Don Juan still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In sight, that several months have passed; we’ll say", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Twas in November, but I’m not so sure", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the day⁠—the era’s more obscure.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "We’ll talk of that anon.⁠—’Tis sweet to hear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By distance mellowed, o’er the waters sweep;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "From leaf to leaf; ’tis sweet to view on high", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Our coming, and look brighter when we come;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The lisp of children, and their earliest words.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From civic revelry to rural mirth;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sweet to the father is his first-born’s birth,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Sweet is revenge⁠—especially to women⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The unexpected death of some old lady,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or gentleman of seventy years complete,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who’ve made “us youth” wait too⁠—too long already,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For an estate, or cash, or country seat,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still breaking, but with stamina so steady,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That all the Israelites are fit to mob its", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Next owner for their double-damned post-obits.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By blood or ink; ’tis sweet to put an end", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To strife; ’tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Particularly with a tiresome friend:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dear is the helpless creature we defend", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We ne’er forget, though there we are forgot.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is first and passionate Love⁠—it stands alone,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Like Adam’s recollection of his fall;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked⁠—all ’s known⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And Life yields nothing further to recall", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Man’s a strange animal, and makes strange use", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of his own nature, and the various arts,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And likes particularly to produce", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some new experiment to show his parts;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "This is the age of oddities let loose,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where different talents find their different marts;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "You’d best begin with truth, and when you’ve lost your", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Labour, there’s a sure market for imposture.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What opposite discoveries we have seen!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "One makes new noses, one a guillotine,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But Vaccination certainly has been", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A kind antithesis to Congreve’s rockets,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With which the Doctor paid off an old pox,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By borrowing a new one from an ox.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Galvanism has set some corpses grinning,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But has not answered like the apparatus", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of the Humane Society’s beginning,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "By which men are unsuffocated gratis:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I said the small-pox has gone out of late;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps it may be followed by the great.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Tis said the great came from America;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps it may set out on its return⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The population there so spreads, they say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With war, or plague, or famine⁠—any way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So that civilisation they may learn;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This is the patent age of new inventions", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For killing bodies, and for saving souls,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All propagated with the best intentions;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern, by which coals", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Man’s a phenomenon, one knows not what,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis pity though, in this sublime world, that", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes Sin’s a pleasure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Few mortals know what end they would be at,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The path is through perplexing ways, and when", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The goal is gained, we die, you know⁠—and then⁠—", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What then?⁠—I do not know, no more do you⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so good night.⁠—Return we to our story:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Twas in November, when fine days are few,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And the far mountains wax a little hoary,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And the sea dashes round the promontory,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And the loud breaker boils against the rock,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And sober suns must set at five o’clock.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There’s something cheerful in that sort of light,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even as a summer sky’s without a cloud:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A lobster salad, and champagne, and chat.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "’Twas midnight⁠—Donna Julia was in bed,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sleeping, most probably⁠—when at her door", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Arose a clatter might awake the dead,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If they had never been awoke before,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And that they have been so we all have read,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And are to be so, at the least, once more;⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The door was fastened, but with voice and fist", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "First knocks were heard, then “Madam⁠—Madam⁠—hist!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“For God’s sake, Madam⁠—Madam⁠—here’s my master,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With more than half the city at his back⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis not my fault⁠—I kept good watch⁠—Alack!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Do pray undo the bolt a little faster⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They’re on the stair just now, and in a crack", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Surely the window’s not so very high!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With torches, friends, and servants in great number;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The major part of them had long been wived,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of any wicked woman, who contrived", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By stealth her husband’s temples to encumber:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Examples of this kind are so contagious,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were one not punished, all would be outrageous.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I can’t tell how, or why, or what suspicion", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Could enter into Don Alfonso’s head;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But for a cavalier of his condition", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Without a word of previous admonition,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To hold a levee round his lady’s bed,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Mind⁠—that I do not say⁠—she had not slept),", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As if she had just now from out them crept:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I can’t tell why she should take all this trouble", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Appeared like two poor harmless women, who", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had thought one man might be deterred by two,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And therefore side by side were gently laid,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Until the hours of absence should run through,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And truant husband should return, and say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“My dear⁠—I was the first who came away.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“In Heaven’s name, Don Alfonso, what d’ ye mean?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Has madness seized you? would that I had died", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Ere such a monster’s victim I had been!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "What may this midnight violence betide,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Search, then, the room!”⁠—Alfonso said, “I will.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He searched, they searched, and rummaged everywhere,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Closet and clothes’ press, chest and window-seat,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And found much linen, lace, and several pair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With other articles of ladies fair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Arras they pricked and curtains with their swords,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wounded several shutters, and some boards.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Under the bed they searched, and there they found⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No matter what⁠—it was not that they sought;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "They opened windows, gazing if the ground", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then they stared each others’ faces round:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of looking in the bed as well as under.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "During this inquisition Julia’s tongue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was not asleep⁠—“Yes, search and search,” she cried,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "“Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It was for this that I became a bride!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For this in silence I have suffered long", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A husband like Alfonso at my side;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But now I’ll bear no more, nor here remain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no more,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If ever you indeed deserved the name,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is ’t worthy of your years?⁠—you have threescore⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is ’t wise or fitting, causeless to explore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For facts against a virtuous woman’s fame?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How dare you think your lady would go on so?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Is it for this I have disdained to hold", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The common privileges of my sex?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That I have chosen a confessor so old", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And deaf, that any other it would vex,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And never once he has had cause to scold,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But found my very innocence perplex", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So much, he always doubted I was married⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How sorry you will be when I’ve miscarried!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Was it for this that no Cortejo e’er", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I yet have chosen from out the youth of Seville?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is it for this I scarce went anywhere,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Except to bull-fights, mass, play, rout, and revel?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is it for this, whate’er my suitors were,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I favoured none⁠—nay, was almost uncivil?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is it for this that General Count O’Reilly,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who took Algiers, declares I used him vilely?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Did not his countryman, Count Corniani,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Call me the only virtuous wife in Spain?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Were there not also Russians, English, many?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Count Strongstroganoff I put in pain,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the Irish peer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who killed himself for love (with wine) last year.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Have I not had two bishops at my feet?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan Nunez;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And is it thus a faithful wife you treat?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I wonder in what quarter now the moon is:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I praise your vast forbearance not to beat", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Me also, since the time so opportune is⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Oh, valiant man! with sword drawn and cocked trigger,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now, tell me, don’t you cut a pretty figure?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Was it for this you took your sudden journey,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under pretence of business indispensable", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With that sublime of rascals your attorney,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of having played the fool? though both I spurn, he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Deserves the worst, his conduct’s less defensible,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Because, no doubt, ’twas for his dirty fee,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And not from any love to you nor me.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“If he comes here to take a deposition,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By all means let the gentleman proceed;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "You’ve made the apartment in a fit condition:⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There’s pen and ink for you, sir, when you need⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Let everything be noted with precision,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I would not you for nothing should be fee’d⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But, as my maid’s undressed, pray turn your spies out.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Oh!” sobbed Antonia, “I could tear their eyes out.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“There is the closet, there the toilet, there", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The antechamber⁠—search them under, over;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The chimney⁠—which would really hold a lover.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And make no further noise, till you discover", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The secret cavern of this lurking treasure⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And when ’tis found, let me, too, have that pleasure.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Doubt upon me, confusion over all,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Pray have the courtesy to make it known", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who is the man you search for? how d’ ye call", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Him? what’s his lineage? let him but be shown⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I hope he’s young and handsome⁠—is he tall?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Tell me⁠—and be assured, that since you stain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My honour thus, it shall not be in vain.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“At least, perhaps, he has not sixty years,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At that age he would be too old for slaughter,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or for so young a husband’s jealous fears⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Antonia! let me have a glass of water.)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I am ashamed of having shed these tears,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They are unworthy of my father’s daughter;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "My mother dreamed not in my natal hour,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That I should fall into a monster’s power.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Perhaps ’tis of Antonia you are jealous,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You saw that she was sleeping by my side,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When you broke in upon us with your fellows:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Look where you please⁠—we’ve nothing, sir, to hide;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Only another time, I trust, you’ll tell us,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or for the sake of decency abide", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A moment at the door, that we may be", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dressed to receive so much good company.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“And now, sir, I have done, and say no more;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The little I have said may serve to show", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The guileless heart in silence may grieve o’er", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wrongs to whose exposure it is slow:⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I leave you to your conscience as before,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twill one day ask you why you used me so?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "God grant you feel not then the bitterest grief!⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Antonia! where’s my pocket-handkerchief?”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; pale", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Waved and o’ershading her wan cheek, appears", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Its snow through all;⁠—her soft lips lie apart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And louder than her breathing beats her heart.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Antonia bustled round the ransacked room,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And, turning up her nose, with looks abused", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Not one, except the attorney, was amused;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Knowing they must be settled by the laws.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Following Antonia’s motions here and there,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With much suspicion in his attitude;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For reputations he had little care;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So that a suit or action were made good,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Small pity had he for the young and fair,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And ne’er believed in negatives, till these", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were proved by competent false witnesses.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When, after searching in five hundred nooks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And treating a young wife with so much rigour,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He gained no point, except some self-rebukes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Added to those his lady with such vigour", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Had poured upon him for the last half-hour,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quick, thick, and heavy⁠—as a thunder-shower.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At first he tried to hammer an excuse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And indications of hysterics, whose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job’s;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He saw too, in perspective, her relations,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then he tried to muster all his patience.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But sage Antonia cut him short before", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The anvil of his speech received the hammer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With “Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Or madam dies.”⁠—Alfonso muttered, “D⁠⸺⁠n her,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But nothing else, the time of words was o’er;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He cast a rueful look or two, and did,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "With him retired his “posse comitatus,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The attorney last, who lingered near the door", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Antonia let him⁠—not a little sore", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "At this most strange and unexplained “hiatus”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In Don Alfonso’s facts, which just now wore", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "An awkward look; as he revolved the case,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The door was fastened in his legal face.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No sooner was it bolted, than⁠—Oh Shame!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Oh Sin! Oh Sorrow! and Oh Womankind!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "How can you do such things and keep your fame,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unless this world, and t’ other too, be blind?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Nothing so dear as an unfilched good name!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But to proceed⁠—for there is more behind:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, from the bed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He had been hid⁠—I don’t pretend to say", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How, nor can I indeed describe the where⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No doubt, in little compass, round or square;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But pity him I neither must nor may", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His suffocation by that pretty pair;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Twere better, sure, to die so, than be shut", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And, secondly, I pity not, because", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "He had no business to commit a sin,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws;⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At least ’twas rather early to begin,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So much as when we call our old debts in", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And find a deuced balance with the Devil.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Of his position I can give no notion:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis written in the Hebrew Chronicle,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "How the physicians, leaving pill and potion,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When old King David’s blood grew dull in motion,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And that the medicine answered very well;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Perhaps ’twas in a different way applied,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For David lived, but Juan nearly died.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What’s to be done? Alfonso will be back", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The moment he has sent his fools away.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Antonia’s skill was put upon the rack,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But no device could be brought into play⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And how to parry the renewed attack?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But pressed her bloodless lip to Juan’s cheek.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He turned his lip to hers, and with his hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Called back the tangles of her wandering hair;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Even then their love they could not all command,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And half forgot their danger and despair:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Antonia’s patience now was at a stand⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Come, come, ’tis no time now for fooling there,”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She whispered, in great wrath⁠—“I must deposit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This pretty gentleman within the closet:", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who can have put my master in this mood?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "What will become on ’t⁠—I’m in such a fright,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Devil’s in the urchin, and no good⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why, don’t you know that it may end in blood?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "You’ll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Had it but been for a stout cavalier", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of twenty-five or thirty⁠—(come, make haste)", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But for a child, what piece of work is here!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I really, madam, wonder at your taste⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(Come, sir, get in)⁠—my master must be near:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There, for the present, at the least, he’s fast,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if we can but till the morning keep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Our counsel⁠—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep.)”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Closed the oration of the trusty maid:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "She loitered, and he told her to be gone,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An order somewhat sullenly obeyed;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "However, present remedy was none,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And no great good seemed answered if she staid:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She snuffed the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alfonso paused a minute⁠—then begun", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He would not justify what he had done,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But there were ample reasons for it, none", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of which he specified in this his pleading:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of rhetoric, which the learned call “rigmarole.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Julia said nought; though all the while there rose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A ready answer, which at once enables", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A matron, who her husband’s foible knows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "By a few timely words to turn the tables,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which, if it does not silence, still must pose⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "’Tis to retort with firmness, and when he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso’s loves with Inez were well known;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But whether ’twas that one’s own guilt confounds⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that can’t be, as has been often shown,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A lady with apologies abounds;⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It might be that her silence sprang alone", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "From delicacy to Don Juan’s ear,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To whom she knew his mother’s fame was dear.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There might be one more motive, which makes two;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso ne’er to Juan had alluded⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Mentioned his jealousy, but never who", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had been the happy lover, he concluded,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Concealed amongst his premises; ’tis true,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His mind the more o’er this its mystery brooded;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To speak of Inez now were, one may say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like throwing Juan in Alfonso’s way.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A hint, in tender cases, is enough;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Silence is best: besides, there is a tact⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But it will serve to keep my verse compact)⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A lady always distant from the fact:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The charming creatures lie with such a grace,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There’s nothing so becoming to the face.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "They blush, and we believe them; at least I", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Have always done so; ’tis of no great use,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "In any case, attempting a reply,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And when at length they’re out of breath, they sigh,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "A tear or two, and then we make it up;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then⁠—and then⁠—and then⁠—sit down and sup.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alfonso closed his speech, and begged her pardon,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And laid conditions he thought very hard on,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Denying several little things he wanted:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With useless penitence perplexed and haunted;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Beseeching she no further would refuse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When, lo! he stumbled o’er a pair of shoes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "A pair of shoes!⁠—what then? not much, if they", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are such as fit with ladies’ feet, but these", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(No one can tell how much I grieve to say)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were masculine; to see them, and to seize,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Was but a moment’s act.⁠—Ah! well-a-day!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Alfonso first examined well their fashion,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then flew out into another passion.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "He left the room for his relinquished sword,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Julia instant to the closet flew.", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "“Fly, Juan, fly! for Heaven’s sake⁠—not a word⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The door is open⁠—you may yet slip through", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The passage you so often have explored⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Here is the garden-key⁠—Fly⁠—fly⁠—Adieu!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Haste⁠—haste! I hear Alfonso’s hurrying feet⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Day has not broke⁠—there’s no one in the street.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "None can say that this was not good advice,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The only mischief was, it came too late;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Of all experience ’tis the usual price,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A sort of income-tax laid on by fate:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Juan had reached the room-door in a trice,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And might have done so by the garden-gate,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who threatened death⁠—so Juan knocked him down.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Dire was the scuffle, and out went the light;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Antonia cried out “Rape!” and Julia “Fire!”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But not a servant stirred to aid the fight.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso, pommelled to his heart’s desire,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Swore lustily he’d be revenged this night;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Juan, too, blasphemed an octave higher;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "His blood was up: though young, he was a Tartar,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And not at all disposed to prove a martyr.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alfonso’s sword had dropped ere he could draw it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And they continued battling hand to hand,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For Juan very luckily ne’er saw it;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His temper not being under great command,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "If at that moment he had chanced to claw it,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso’s days had not been in the land", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Much longer.⁠—Think of husbands’, lovers’ lives!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And how ye may be doubly widows⁠—wives!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Alfonso grappled to detain the foe,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Juan throttled him to get away,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And blood (’twas from the nose) began to flow;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At last, as they more faintly wrestling lay,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Juan contrived to give an awkward blow,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And then his only garment quite gave way;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but there,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I doubt, all likeness ends between the pair.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Lights came at length, and men, and maids, who found", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "An awkward spectacle their eyes before;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Antonia in hysterics, Julia swooned,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Alfonso leaning, breathless, by the door;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Some half-torn drapery scattered on the ground,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Some blood, and several footsteps, but no more:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Juan the gate gained, turned the key about,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And liking not the inside, locked the out.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here ends this canto.⁠—Need I sing, or say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "How Juan, naked, favoured by the night,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Who favours what she should not, found his way,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And reached his home in an unseemly plight?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The pleasant scandal which arose next day,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The nine days’ wonder which was brought to light,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And how Alfonso sued for a divorce,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were in the English newspapers, of course.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If you would like to see the whole proceedings,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The depositions, and the Cause at full,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The names of all the witnesses, the pleadings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of Counsel to nonsuit, or to annul,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "There’s more than one edition, and the readings", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are various, but they none of them are dull:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The best is that in short-hand ta’en by Gurney,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who to Madrid on purpose made a journey.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But Donna Inez, to divert the train", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of one of the most circulating scandals", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That had for centuries been known in Spain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At least since the retirement of the Vandals,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "First vowed (and never had she vowed in vain)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And then, by the advice of some old ladies,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She sent her son to be shipped off from Cadiz.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "She had resolved that he should travel through", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All European climes, by land or sea,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To mend his former morals, and get new,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Especially in France and Italy⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(At least this is the thing most people do.)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Julia was sent into a convent⁠—she", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Grieved⁠—but, perhaps, her feelings may be better", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shown in the following copy of her Letter:⁠—", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“They tell me ’tis decided you depart:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis wise⁠—’tis well, but not the less a pain;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I have no further claim on your young heart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Mine is the victim, and would be again:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To love too much has been the only art", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I used;⁠—I write in haste, and if a stain", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Be on this sheet, ’tis not what it appears;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“I loved, I love you, for this love have lost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "State, station, Heaven, Mankind’s, my own esteem,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And yet can not regret what it hath cost,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So dear is still the memory of that dream;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Yet, if I name my guilt, ’tis not to boast,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ve nothing to reproach, or to request.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Tis a Woman’s whole existence; Man may range", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The Court, Camp, Church, the Vessel, and the Mart;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory, offer in exchange", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Pride, Fame, Ambition, to fill up his heart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And few there are whom these can not estrange;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Men have all these resources, We but one,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To love again, and be again undone.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“You will proceed in pleasure, and in pride,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beloved and loving many; all is o’er", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For me on earth, except some years to hide", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My shame and sorrow deep in my heart’s core:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "These I could bear, but cannot cast aside", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The passion which still rages as before⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And so farewell⁠—forgive me, love me⁠—No,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That word is idle now⁠—but let it go.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But still I think I can collect my mind;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "My blood still rushes where my spirit’s set,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As roll the waves before the settled wind;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "My heart is feminine, nor can forget⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To all, except one image, madly blind;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“I have no more to say, but linger still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And dare not set my seal upon this sheet,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And yet I may as well the task fulfil,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My misery can scarce be more complete;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And I must even survive this last adieu,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bear with life, to love and pray for you!”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This note was written upon gilt-edged paper", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It trembled as magnetic needles do,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And yet she did not let one tear escape her;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The seal a sun-flower; “Elle vous suit partout,”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The motto cut upon a white cornelian;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wax was superfine, its hue vermilion.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This was Don Juan’s earliest scrape; but whether", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I shall proceed with his adventures is", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Dependent on the public altogether;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We’ll see, however, what they say to this:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Their favour in an author’s cap’s a feather,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And no great mischief’s done by their caprice;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if their approbation we experience,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perhaps they’ll have some more about a year hence.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "My poem’s epic, and is meant to be", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Divided in twelve books; each book containing,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With Love, and War, a heavy gale at sea,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "New characters; the episodes are three:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A panoramic view of Hell’s in training,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "After the style of Virgil and of Homer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So that my name of Epic’s no misnomer.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "All these things will be specified in time,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With strict regard to Aristotle’s rules,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The Vade Mecum of the true sublime,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which makes so many poets, and some fools:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Prose poets like blank-verse, I’m fond of rhyme,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’ve got new mythological machinery,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And very handsome supernatural scenery.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "There’s only one slight difference between", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Me and my epic brethren gone before,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And here the advantage is my own, I ween", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Not that I have not several merits more,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But this will more peculiarly be seen);", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They so embellish, that ’tis quite a bore", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whereas this story’s actually true.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If any person doubt it, I appeal", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To History, Tradition, and to Facts,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To plays in five, and operas in three acts;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All these confirm my statement a good deal,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that which more completely faith exacts", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is, that myself, and several now in Seville,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Saw Juan’s last elopement with the Devil.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If ever I should condescend to prose,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ll write poetical commandments, which", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That went before; in these I shall enrich", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "My text with many things that no one knows,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And carry precept to the highest pitch:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’ll call the work “Longinus o’er a Bottle,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And Campbell’s Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Commit⁠—flirtation with the muse of Moore.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby’s Muse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His Pegasus, nor anything that’s his;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Thou shalt not bear false witness like “the Blues”⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(There’s one, at least, is very fond of this);", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This is true criticism, and you may kiss⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Exactly as you please, or not⁠—the rod;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But if you don’t, I’ll lay it on, by G‑d!", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If any person should presume to assert", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "This story is not moral, first, I pray,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "That they will not cry out before they’re hurt,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Then that they’ll read it o’er again, and say", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That this is not a moral tale, though gay:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to show", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The very place where wicked people go.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If, after all, there should be some so blind", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To their own good this warning to despise,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Led by some tortuosity of mind,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And cry that they “the moral cannot find,”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Should captains the remark, or critics, make,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "They also lie too⁠—under a mistake.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The public approbation I expect,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And beg they’ll take my word about the moral,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which I with their amusement will connect", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(So children cutting teeth receive a coral);", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Meantime they’ll doubtless please to recollect", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My epical pretensions to the laurel:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’ve bribed my Grandmother’s Review⁠—the British.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I sent it in a letter to the Editor,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who thanked me duly by return of post⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I’m for a handsome article his creditor;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And break a promise after having made it her,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Denying the receipt of what it cost,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And smear his page with gall instead of honey,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All I can say is⁠—that he had the money.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "I think that with this holy new alliance", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I may ensure the public, and defy", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All other magazines of art or science,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Have not essayed to multiply their clients,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because they tell me ’twere in vain to try,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And that the Edinburgh Review and Quarterly", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Treat a dissenting author very martyrly.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Non ego hoc ferrem calidus juventâ", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Consule Planco” Horace said, and so", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Say I; by which quotation there is meant a", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hint that some six or seven good years ago", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I was most ready to return a blow,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And would not brook at all this sort of thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In my hot youth⁠—when George the Third was King.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But now at thirty years my hair is grey⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(I wonder what it will be like at forty?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "I thought of a peruke the other day⁠—)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Have squandered my whole summer while ’twas May,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And feel no more the spirit to retort; I", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Have spent my life, both interest and principal,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And deem not, what I deemed⁠—my soul invincible.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No more⁠—no more⁠—Oh! never more on me", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Which out of all the lovely things we see", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Extracts emotions beautiful and new,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Hived in our bosoms like the bag o’ the bee.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Think’st thou the honey with those objects grew?", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Alas! ’twas not in them, but in thy power", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To double even the sweetness of a flower.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "No more⁠—no more⁠—Oh! never more, my heart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Once all in all, but now a thing apart,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The illusion’s gone for ever, and thou art", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And in thy stead I’ve got a deal of judgment,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "My days of love are over; me no more", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Can make the fool of which they made before⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In short, I must not lead the life I did do;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The credulous hope of mutual minds is o’er,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The copious use of claret is forbid too,", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I think I must take up with avarice.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Ambition was my idol, which was broken", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And the two last have left me many a token", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "O’er which reflection may be made at leisure:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Now, like Friar Bacon’s Brazen Head, I’ve spoken,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“Time is, Time was, Time’s past:”⁠—a chymic treasure", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What is the end of Fame? ’tis but to fill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A certain portion of uncertain paper:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Some liken it to climbing up a hill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And bards burn what they call their “midnight taper,”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "To have, when the original is dust,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt’s King", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cheops erected the first Pyramid", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And largest, thinking it was just the thing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "But somebody or other rummaging,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Burglariously broke his coffin’s lid:", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Let not a monument give you or me hopes,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But I, being fond of true philosophy,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Say very often to myself, “Alas!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "All things that have been born were born to die,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "You’ve passed your youth not so unpleasantly,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And if you had it o’er again⁠—’t would pass⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "So thank your stars that matters are no worse,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But for the present, gentle reader! and", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still gentler purchaser! the Bard⁠—that’s I⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so⁠—“your humble servant, and Good-bye!”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "We meet again, if we should understand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Each other; and if not, I shall not try", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "Your patience further than by this short sample⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "’Twere well if others followed my example.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Go, little Book, from this my solitude!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I cast thee on the waters⁠—go thy ways!", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The World will find thee after many days.”", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "When Southey’s read, and Wordsworth understood,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I can’t help putting in my claim to praise⁠—", "indent": 1 }, { "text": "The four first rhymes are Southey’s every line:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For God’s sake, reader! take them not for mine.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }