And Galvanism has set some corpses grinning,98
But has not answered like the apparatus
Of the Humane Society’s beginning,
By which men are unsuffocated gratis:
What wondrous new machines have late been spinning!
I said the small-pox has gone out of late;
Perhaps it may be followed by the great.99
CXXXI
’Tis said the great came from America;
Perhaps it may set out on its return—
The population there so spreads, they say
’Tis grown high time to thin it in its turn,
With war, or plague, or famine—any way,
So that civilisation they may learn;
And which in ravage the more loathsome evil is—
Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis?
CXXXII
This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions;
Sir Humphry Davy’s lantern,100 by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels,101 voyages to the Poles102
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.
CXXXIII
Man’s a phenomenon, one knows not what,
And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure;
’Tis pity though, in this sublime world, that
Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes Sin’s a pleasure;103
Few mortals know what end they would be at,
But whether Glory, Power, or Love, or Treasure,
The path is through perplexing ways, and when
The goal is gained, we die, you know—and then—
CXXXIV
What then?—I do not know, no more do you—
And so good night.—Return we to our story:
’Twas in November, when fine days are few,
And the far mountains wax a little hoary,
And clap a white cape on their mantles blue;104
And the sea dashes round the promontory,
And the loud breaker boils against the rock,
And sober suns must set at five o’clock.
CXXXV
’Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy night;105
No moon, no stars, the wind was low or loud
By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth was bright
With the piled wood, round which the family crowd;
There’s something cheerful in that sort of light,
Even as a summer sky’s without a cloud:
I’m fond of fire, and crickets, and all that,106107
A lobster salad,108 and champagne, and chat.
CXXXVI
’Twas midnight—Donna Julia was in bed,
Sleeping, most probably—when at her door
Arose a clatter might awake the dead,
If they had never been awoke before,
And that they have been so we all have read,
And are to be so, at the least, once more;—
The door was fastened, but with voice and fist
First knocks were heard, then “Madam—Madam—hist!
CXXXVII
“For God’s sake, Madam—Madam—here’s my master,109
With more than half the city at his back—
Was ever heard of such a curst disaster!
’Tis not my fault—I kept good watch—Alack!
Do pray undo the bolt a little faster—
They’re on the stair just now, and in a crack
Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly—
Surely the window’s not so very high!”
CXXXVIII
By this time Don Alfonso was arrived,
With torches, friends, and servants in great number;
The major part of them had long been wived,
And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber
Of any wicked woman, who contrived
By stealth her husband’s temples to encumber:
Examples of this kind are so contagious,
Were one not punished, all would be outrageous.
CXXXIX
I can’t tell how, or why, or what suspicion
Could enter into Don Alfonso’s head;
But for a cavalier of his condition
It surely was exceedingly ill-bred,
Without a word of previous admonition,
To hold a levee round his lady’s bed,
And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword,
To prove himself the thing he most abhorred.
CXL
Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep,
(Mind—that I do not say—she had not slept),
Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep;
Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept,
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap,
As if she had just now from out them crept:110
I can’t tell why she should take all this trouble
To prove her mistress had been sleeping double.
CXLI
But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid,
Appeared like two poor harmless women, who
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid,
Had thought one man might be deterred by two,
And therefore side by side were gently laid,
Until the hours of absence should run through,
And truant husband should return, and say,
“My dear—I was the first who came away.”
CXLII
Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried,
“In Heaven’s name, Don Alfonso, what d’ ye mean?
Has madness seized you? would that I had died
Ere such a monster’s victim I had been!111
What may this midnight violence betide,
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen?
Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill?
Search, then, the room!”—Alfonso said, “I will.”
CXLIII
He searched, they searched, and rummaged everywhere,
Closet and clothes’ press, chest and window-seat,
And found much linen, lace, and several pair
Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete,
With other articles of ladies fair,
To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat:
Arras they pricked and curtains with their swords,
And wounded several shutters, and some boards.
CXLIV
Under the bed they searched, and there they found—
No matter what—it was not that they sought;
They opened windows, gazing if the ground
Had signs or footmarks, but the earth said nought;
And then they stared each others’ faces round:
’Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought,
And seems to me almost a sort of blunder,
Of looking in the bed as well as under.
CXLV
During this inquisition Julia’s tongue112
Was not asleep—“Yes, search and search,” she cried,
“Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong!
It was for this that I became a bride!
For this in silence I have suffered long
A husband like Alfonso at my side;
But now I’ll bear no more, nor here remain,
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain.
CXLVI
“Yes, Don
