LXXVI
She cannot do these things, nor one or two
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style
Which takes so much—to give the Devil his due;
Nor is she quite so ready with her smile,
Nor settles all things in one interview,
(A thing approved as saving time and toil);—
But though the soil may give you time and trouble,
Well cultivated, it will render double.
LXXVII
And if in fact she takes to a grande passion,
It is a very serious thing indeed:
Nine times in ten ’tis but caprice or fashion,
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead,
The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,
Or wish to make a rival’s bosom bleed:
But the tenth instance will be a tornado,
For there’s no saying what they will or may do.
LXXVIII
The reason’s obvious: if there’s an éclat,
They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias;
And when the delicacies of the Law
Have filled their papers with their comments various,
Society, that china without flaw,
(The Hypocrite!) will banish them like Marius,
To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt:978
For Fame’s a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.
LXXIX
Perhaps this is as it should be;—it is
A comment on the Gospel’s “Sin no more,
And be thy sins forgiven:”—but upon this
I leave the Saints to settle their own score.
Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss,
An erring woman finds an opener door
For her return to Virtue—as they call
That Lady, who should be at home to all.979
LXXX
For me, I leave the matter where I find it,
Knowing that such uneasy virtue leads
People some ten times less in fact to mind it,
And care but for discoveries, and not deeds.
And as for Chastity, you’ll never bind it
By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads,
But aggravate the crime you have not prevented,
By rendering desperate those who had else repented.
LXXXI
But Juan was no casuist, nor had pondered
Upon the moral lessons of mankind:
Besides, he had not seen of several hundred
A lady altogether to his mind.
A little blasé—’tis not to be wondered
At, that his heart had got a tougher rind:
And though not vainer from his past success,
No doubt his sensibilities were less.
LXXXII
He also had been busy seeing sights—
The Parliament and all the other houses;
Had sat beneath the Gallery at nights,
To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses)
The World to gaze upon those Northern Lights,
Which flashed as far as where the musk-bull browses;980
He had also stood at times behind the Throne—
But Grey981 was not arrived, and Chatham gone.982
LXXXIII
He saw, however, at the closing session,
That noble sight, when really free the nation,
A King in constitutional possession
Of such a Throne as is the proudest station,
Though Despots know it not—till the progression
Of Freedom shall complete their education.
’Tis not mere Splendour makes the show august
To eye or heart—it is the People’s trust.
LXXXIV
There, too, he saw (whate’er he may be now)
A Prince, the prince of Princes at the time,983
With fascination in his very bow,
And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though Royalty was written on his brow,
He had then the grace, too, rare in every clime,
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,
A finished Gentleman from top to toe.984
LXXXV
And Juan was received, as hath been said,
Into the best society; and there
Occurred what often happens, I’m afraid,
However disciplined and debonnaire:—
The talent and good humour he displayed,
Besides the marked distinction of his air,
Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation,
Even though himself avoided the occasion.
LXXXVI
But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why,
Is not to be put hastily together;
And as my object is Morality
(Whatever people say), I don’t know whether
I’ll leave a single reader’s eyelid dry,
But harrow up his feelings till they wither,
And hew out a huge monument of pathos,
As Philip’s son proposed to do with Athos.985
LXXXVII
Here the twelfth canto of our Introduction
Ends. When the body of the Book’s begun,
You’ll find it of a different construction
From what some people say ’twill be when done;
The plan at present ’s simply in concoction.
I can’t oblige you, reader, to read on;
That’s your affair, not mine: a real spirit
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.
LXXXVIII
And if my thunderbolt not always rattles,
Remember, reader! you have had before,
The worst of tempests and the best of battles,
That e’er were brewed from elements or gore,
Besides the most sublime of—Heaven knows what else;
An usurer could scarce expect much more—
But my best canto—save one on astronomy—
Will turn upon “Political Economy.”986
LXXXIX
That is your present theme for popularity:
Now that the public hedge hath scarce a stake,
It grows an act of patriotic charity,
To show the people the best way to break.
My plan (but I, if but for singularity,
Reserve it) will be very sure to take.
Meantime, read all the National-Debt sinkers,
And tell me what you think of our great thinkers.987
Canto XIII988
I
I now mean to be serious;—it is time,
Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious;
A jest at Vice by Virtue’s called a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad’s a source of the sublime,
Although, when long, a little apt to weary us;
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,
As an old temple dwindled to a column.
II
The Lady Adeline Amundeville
(’Tis an old Norman name, and to be found
In pedigrees, by those who wander still
Along the last fields of that Gothic ground)
Was high-born, wealthy by her father’s will,
And beauteous, even where beauties most abound,
In Britain—which, of course, true patriots find
The goodliest soil
