C. Of poets who come down to us through distance Where twenty agés gather o'er a náme, CI. And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory 's but an airy lust, Too often in its fury overcoming all Who would, as 't were, identify their dust From out the wide destruction which, entombing all, Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, CII. The very generations of the dead Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an age is fled, And, buried, sinks beneath 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. сіп. I canter by the spot éach afternoon Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy, But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face, While weeds and ordure rankle round the base." I CIV. pass each day where Dante's bones are laid; A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid To the bard's tomb and not the warrior's column. The time must come when both, alike decay'd, The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death or Homer's birth. CV. With human blood that column was cemented, Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild CVI. Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke, Song in the world, will seek what then they sought; As on the beach the waves at last are broke, Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought, Dash into poetry, which is but passion, Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion. CVII. If in the course of such a life as was At once adventurous and contemplative, Men who partake all passions as they pass, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give Their images again as in a glass, And in such colours that they seem to live; You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem. CVIII. Oh! ye, who make the fortunes of all books! Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks? Ah! must I then the only minstrel be CIX. 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, CX. Oh! "darkly, deeply, beautifully Diue," i 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 pairs of that hue); Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the patrician left-legs, which adorn The festal midnight and the levee morn. CXI. Yet some or you are most seraphic creatures: For sometimes such a world of virtues cover : CXII. Humboiat, une first of travellers,” but not CXIII. But to the narrative.- -The vessel bound Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound, And there, with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians, CXIV. Some went on dearly; fifteen hundred dollars Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven : CXV. Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price Which the West-Indian market scarce would bring; Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice What 't was 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. CXVI. 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 chuse, The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim. CXVII. All this must de reserved for further song; Must be postponed discreetly for the present; 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. See Herodotus. NOTES TO CANTO IV. Note 1. Stanza xii. "Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore. Note 2. Stanza lix. A vein had burst. This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of conflicting and different passions. The Doge Francis Foscari, on his deposition, in 1457, hearing the bell of St. Mark announce the election of his successor, 'mourut subitement d'une hémorragie causée par une veine qui s'éclata dans sa poitrine." (See Sismondi and Daru, vols. i. and ii.), at the age of eighty years, when "who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" Before I was sixteen years of age, I was witness to a melancholy instance of the same effect of mixed passions upon a young person; who, however, did not die in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim some years afterwards to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes intimately connected with agitation of mind. Note 3, Stanza Ixxx. But sold by the impresario at no high rate. This is a fact. A few years ago a man engaged a company for some foreign theatre; embarked them at an Italian port, and, carrying them to Algiers, sold them all. One of the women, returned from her captivity, I heard sing, by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera of "L'Italiana in Algeri,” at Venice, in the beginning of 1817. Note 4. Stanza lxxxvi. From all the pope makes yearly, 't would perplex To find three perfect pipes of the third sex. It is strange that it should be the pope and the sultan who are the chief encouragers of this branch of trade-women being prohibited as singers at St. Peter's, and not deemed trust-worthy as guardians of the haram. Note 5. Stanza ciii. While weeds and ordure rankle round the base. The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is about two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to the road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix, who gained the battle, was killed in it; there fell on both sides twenty thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its site is described in the text. |