The Works of Lord Byron

Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the black

Oh! to possess such lustre—and then lack!

She died, but not alone; she held within A second principle of life, which might Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin; But closed its little being without light, And went down to the grave unborn, wherein Blossom and bough lie wither'd with one blight;

In vain the dews of Heaven descend above The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.

Could altogether call the past to mind ; And when he did, he found himself at sea, Sailing six knots an hour before the wind; The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee-Another time he might have liked to see'em, But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigaeum.

There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is (Flank'd by the Hellespont and by the sea) Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles; They say so— (Bryant says the contrary) And further downward, tall and towering still, is

The tumulus- of whom? Heaven knows; 't may be Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus,—

Thus lived - thus died she; never more on her Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not | All heroes who if living still would slay us.

It seems when this allotment was made out, But hear that several people take exception There chanced to be an odd male and odd | At the first two books having too much truth; Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship

female,

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

soon,

Because the publisher declares, in sooth, Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is

To pass, than those two cantos into families.

Tis all the same to me; I'm fond of yielding,
And therefore leave them to the purer page
Of Smollet, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding,
Who say strange things for so correct an age;
I once had great alacrity in wielding
My pen, and liked poetic war to wage,
And recollect the time when all this cant
Would have provoked remarks which now
it shan't.

As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble;

But at this hour I wish to part in peace,
Leaving such to the literary rabble,
Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease,
While the right hand which wrote it still is
able,

Or of some centuries to take a lease;
The grass upon my grave will grow as long,
And sigh to midnight-winds, but not to song.

Of poets who come down to us through
distance
Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of
Fame,
Life seems the smallest portion of existence;
Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,
"Tis as a snowball which derives assistance
From every flake,and yet rolls on the same,
Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow,
But after all 'tis nothing but cold snow.

And so great names are nothing more than nominal,

And love of glory 's but an airy lust,
Too often in its fury overcoming all
Who would, as 'twere, identify their dust
From out the wide destruction, which en-
tombing all,
Leaves nothing till the coming of the just—
Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt
of Rome.

The very generations of the dead
Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,
Until the memory of an age is fled,
And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's
doom:

Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?
Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom

Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath,

And lose their own in universal death.

I canter by the spot each afternoon
Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy,
Who lived too long for men, but died too

soon

For human vanity, the young de Foix!
A broken pillar not uncouthly hewn,
But which neglect is hastening to destroy,
Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,
While weeds and ordure rankle round the
base.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid
To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's
column:

The time must come when both, alike
decay'd,

The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,

Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.

Oh! ye, who make the fortunes of all books!
Benign ceruleans of the second sex!
Who advertise new poems by your looks,
Your "imprimatur" will ye not annex?
What, must I go to the oblivious cooks,
Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian
wrecks?

Ah! must I then the only minstrel be
Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea?

What, can I prove "a lion" then no more? A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling,

To bear the compliments of many a bore, And sigh “I can't get out," like Yorick's starling?

Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore
(Because the world won't read him, always
snarling),

That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery,
Drawn by the blue-coat-misses of a coterie.

Oh! “darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
As some one somewhere sings about the sky,
And I, ye learned ladies, say of you;
They say your stockings are so (Heaven
knows why,

I have examined few pair of that hue); With human blood that column was Blue as the garters which serenely lie

cemented,

With human filth that column is defiled,
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were
vented

To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd;
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented
Should ever be those blood-hounds, from
whose wild

Instinct of gore and glory earth has known
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.

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

Its fumes are frankincense to human thought;
And the unquiet feelings, which first woke
Song in the world, will seek what then they
sought;

As on the beach the waves at last are broke,
Thus to their extreme verge the passions
brought,

Dash into poetry, which is but passion,
Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.

If in the course of such a life as was
At once adventurous and contemplative,
Men who partake all passions as they pass,
Acquire the deep and bitter power to give
Their images again, as in a glass,
And in such colours that they seem to live;
You may do right forbidding them to
show'cm,

But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.

Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn
The festal midnight and the levee-morn.

And there, with Georgians, Russians, and | Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due
Circassians,
severity
Bought up for different purposes and Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

passions.

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing, Some went off dearly: fifteen hundred dollars Except in such a way as not to attract; For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, | Plain—simple—short, and by no means inWarranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours viting, Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven: But with a moral to each error tack'd, Her sale sent home some disappointed Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,

bawlers,

Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven ;

But when the offer went beyond, they knew 'Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.

Twelve negresses fromNubia brought a price Which the West-Indian market scarce would bring;

Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it
twice

What 'twas ere Abolition; and the thing
Need not seem very wonderful, for vice
Is always much more splendid than a king:
The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity,
Are saving-vice spares nothing for a rarity.

But for the destiny of this young troop,
How some were bought by pachas, some
by Jews,

How some to burdens were obliged to stoop,
And others rose to the command of crews
As renegadoes; while in hapless group,
Hoping no very old vizier might choose,
The females stood, as one by one they
pick'd 'em,

To make a mistress,or fourth wife, or victim:

All this must be reserved for further song;
Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant,
(Because this canto has become too long)
Must be postponed discreetly for the present;
I'm sensible redundancy is wrong,
But could not for the muse of me put less in't:
And now delay the progress of Don Juan,
Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Duan.

CANTO V.

WHEN amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And praise their rhymes as Venus yokes her
doves,

They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may make you understand;

And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

« Previous Continue »

Books

The Works of Lord Byron: Complete in One Volume