To Homer’s Iliad, since it drew to Troy
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan’s bed;
Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy
Was much inferior to King Menelaüs:—
But thus it is some women will betray us.
LXXIII
There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,
Unless like wise Tiresias1084 we had proved
By turns the difference of the several sexes;
Neither can show quite how they would be loved.
The Sensual for a short time but connects us—
The Sentimental boasts to be unmoved;
But both together form a kind of Centaur,
Upon whose back ’tis better not to venture.
LXXIV
A something all-sufficient for the heart
Is that for which the sex are always seeking:
But how to fill up that same vacant part?
There lies the rub—and this they are but weak in.
Frail mariners afloat without a chart,
They run before the wind through high seas breaking;
And when they have made the shore through every shock,
’Tis odd—or odds—it may turn out a rock.
LXXV
There is a flower called “Love in Idleness,”1085
For which see Shakespeare’s ever-blooming garden;—
I will not make his great description less,
And beg his British godship’s humble pardon,
If, in my extremity of rhyme’s distress,
I touch a single leaf where he is warden;—
But, though the flower is different, with the French
Or Swiss Rousseau—cry “Voilà la Pervenche!”1086
LXXVI
Eureka! I have found it! What I mean
To say is, not that Love is Idleness,
But that in Love such idleness has been
An accessory, as I have cause to guess.
Hard Labour’s an indifferent go-between;
Your men of business are not apt to express
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,
Conveyed Medea as her supercargo.
LXXVII
“Beatus ille procul!” from “negotiis,”1087
Saith Horace; the great little poet’s wrong;
His other maxim, “Noscitur à sociis,”1088
Is much more to the purpose of his song;
Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,
Unless good company be kept too long;
But, in his teeth, whate’er their state or station,
Thrice happy they who have an occupation!
LXXVIII
Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,
Eve made up millinery with fig leaves—
The earliest knowledge from the Tree so knowing,
As far as I know, that the Church receives:
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
That many of the ills o’er which Man grieves,
And still more Women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.
LXXIX
And hence high life is oft a dreary void,
A rack of pleasures, where we must invent
A something wherewithal to be annoyed.
Bards may sing what they please about Content;
Contented, when translated, means but cloyed;
And hence arise the woes of Sentiment,
Blue-devils—and Blue-stockings—and Romances
Reduced to practice, and performed like dances.
LXXX
I do declare, upon an affidavit,
Romances I ne’er read like those I have seen;
Nor, if unto the World I ever gave it,
Would some believe that such a tale had been:
But such intent I never had, nor have it;
Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.1089
LXXXI
“An oyster may be crossed in love”1090—and why?
Because he mopeth idly in his shell,
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,
Much as a monk may do within his cell:
And à-propos of monks, their Piety
With Sloth hath found it difficult to dwell:
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.
LXXXII
O Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,
Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
Thou moral Washington of Africa!
But there’s another little thing, I own,
Which you should perpetrate some summer’s day,
And set the other half of Earth to rights;
You have freed the blacks—now pray shut up the whites.
LXXXIII
Shut up the bald-coot1091 bully Alexander!
Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;
Teach them that “sauce for goose is sauce for gander,”
And ask them how they like to be in thrall?
Shut up each high heroic Salamander,
Who eats fire gratis (since the pay’s but small);
Shut up—no, not the King, but the Pavilion,1092
Or else ’twill cost us all another million.
LXXXIV
Shut up the World at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among Mankind;
But till that point d’appui is found, alas!
Like Archimedes, I leave Earth as ’twas.
LXXXV
Our gentle Adeline had one defect—
Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wrecked,
Because ’tis frailer, doubtless, than a staunch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an Earthquake’s ruin.
LXXXVI
She loved her Lord, or thought so; but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move
Our feelings ’gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene and noble—conjugal, but cold.
LXXXVII
There was no great disparity of years,
Though much in temper; but they never clashed:
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
Or like the Rhone by Leman’s waters washed,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The River from the Lake, all bluely dashed
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.1093
LXXXVIII
Now when she once had ta’en an interest
In anything, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best,
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guessed,
And gathered as they
