Page images
PDF
EPUB

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here. Canto IV. Stanza 184.

DON JUAN.

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,

Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes
From civic revelry to rural mirth;
Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps;
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth;
Sweet is revenge-especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

Canto I. Stanzas 123, 124.

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,

'Tis woman's whole existence; man may range

The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,

And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,

To love again, and be again undone.

[blocks in formation]

I was most ready to return a blow,

And would not brook at all this sort of thing,
In my hot youth, when George the Third was king.

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,

I think I must take up with avarice.

Stanza 212.

Stanza 216.

Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations— Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,

It mends their morals-never mind the pain.

Canto II. Stanza I.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,— Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell,

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave,

N

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.
Canto II.

And thus like to an angel o'er the dying
Who die in righteousness, she lean'd.

Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,

Stanza 52.

Stanza 144.

For love must be sustain'd like flesh and bloodWhile Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly : Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food.

Stanza 170.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication :
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation :
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk
Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion :
But to return,-Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headach, you shall see what then.

An infant, when it gazes on a light,

Stanza 179.

A child, the moment when it drains the breast,

A devotee when soars the host in sight,

An Arab with a stranger for a guest.

A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,

Feel rapture, but not such true joy are reaping

As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping. Canto II. Stanza 196.

Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring
To them but mockeries of the past alone,

And their revenge is as the tiger's spring,
Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real
Torture is theirs-what they inflict they feel!
Stanza 199.

O love! what is it in this world of ours

Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah! why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh!

As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers,
And place them on their breast-but place to die-
Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish

Are laid within our bosoms but to perish.

[blocks in formation]

he nears,

And as the spot where they appear
Surprised at these unwonted signs of idling,
He hears, alas! no music of the spheres,
But an unhallow'd, earthly sound of fiddling.
Stanza 28.

The cubless tigress in her jungle raging

Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;
The ocean, when its yeasty war is waging,
Is awful to the vessel near the rock;
But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,

Their fury being spent by its own shock,
Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire
Of a strong human heart, and in a sire.

Canto III.

A lady with her daughters or her nieces
Shine like a guinea and seven-shilling pieces.

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,—
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set.

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,

Stanza 58.

Stanza 60.

Stanza 86.

In nameless print, that I have no devotion;
But set those persons down with me to pray,
And you shall see who has the properest notion

Of getting into heaven the shortest way;

My altars are the mountains and the ocean,

Earth, air, stars, all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced and will receive the soul.

Stanza 104.

« PreviousContinue »