Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

CIV.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid

To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column:
The time must come, when both alike decay'd,
The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume,
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,
Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.

CV.

With human blood that column was cemented,
With human filth that column is defiled,
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented
To shew his loathing of the spot he soil'd;
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented

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

CVI.

Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought; And the unquiet feelings, which first woke

Song in the world, will seek what then they sought; As on the beach the waves at last are broke,

Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought, Dash into poetry, which is but passion,

Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.

CVII.

If in the course of such a life as was

At once adventurous and contemplative, Men who partake all passions as they pass, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give Their images again as in a glass,

And in such colours that they seem to live; You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.

CVIII.

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 Castilian tea?

CIX.

What, can I prove" a lion" then no more?
A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hotpress 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.

CX.

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); Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the patrician left-legs, which adorn The festal midnight, and the levee morn.

CXI.

Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures→→→
But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover,
You read my stanzas, and I read your features;
And-but no matter, all those things are over;
Still I have no dislike to learned natures,

For sometimes such a world of virtues cover;
I know one woman of that purple school,
The loveliest, chastest, best, but quite a fool.

CXII.

Humboldt," the first of travellers," but not
The last, if late accounts be accurate,
Invented, by some name I have forgot,
As well as the sublime discovery's date,
An airy instrument, with which he sought
To ascertain the atmospheric state,
By measuring" the intensity of blue:"
Oh, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!

CXIII.

But to the narrative: the vessel bound
With slaves to sell off in the capital,
After the usual process, might be found
At anchor under the seraglio wall;
Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound,
Were landed in the market, one and all,

And there with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians,
Bought up for different purposes and passions.

CXIV.

Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars
For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours

Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven:
Her sale sent home some disappointed 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.

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 '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.

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 choose, The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim.

- CXVII.

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.

END OF CANTO FOURTH.

NOTES TO CANTO FOURTH.

Note 1, page 154, stanza xii.
"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore.

See Herodotus.

Note 2, page 165, 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 bells of St. Mark announce the election of his successor, "mourût subitement d'une hemorragie 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, page 171, stanza lxxx.

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.

« ZurückWeiter »