Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave,
He would have hospitably cured the stranger,
And sold him instantly when out of danger.
CXXXI
And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best
(A virgin always on her maid relies)
To place him in the cave for present rest:
And when, at last, he opened his black eyes,
Their charity increased about their guest;
And their compassion grew to such a size,
It opened half the turnpike-gates to Heaven—
(St. Paul says, ’tis the toll which must be given).
CXXXII
They made a fire—but such a fire as they
Upon the moment could contrive with such
Materials as were cast up round the bay—
Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch
Were nearly tinder, since, so long they lay,
A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch;
But, by God’s grace, here wrecks were in such plenty,
That there was fuel to have furnished twenty.
CXXXIII
He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,222
For Haidée stripped her sables off to make
His couch; and, that he might be more at ease,
And warm, in case by chance he should awake,
They also gave a petticoat apiece,
She and her maid—and promised by daybreak
To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish
For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish.
CXXXIV
And thus they left him to his lone repose:
Juan slept like a top, or like the dead,
Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows),
Just for the present; and in his lulled head
Not even a vision of his former woes
Throbbed in accursèd dreams, which sometimes spread223
Unwelcome visions of our former years,
Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.
CXXXV
Young Juan slept all dreamless:—but the maid,
Who smoothed his pillow, as she left the den
Looked back upon him, and a moment stayed,
And turned, believing that he called again.
He slumbered; yet she thought, at least she said
(The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen),
He had pronounced her name—but she forgot
That at this moment Juan knew it not.
CXXXVI
And pensive to her father’s house she went,
Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who
Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant,
She being wiser by a year or two:
A year or two’s an age when rightly spent,
And Zoe spent hers, as most women do,
In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge
Which is acquired in Nature’s good old college.
CXXXVII
The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still
Fast in his cave, and nothing clashed upon
His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill,
And the young beams of the excluded Sun,
Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill;
And need he had of slumber yet, for none
Had suffered more—his hardships were comparative224
To those related in my grand-dad’s “Narrative.”225
CXXXVIII
Not so Haidée: she sadly tossed and tumbled,
And started from her sleep, and, turning o’er,
Dreamed of a thousand wrecks, o’er which she stumbled,
And handsome corpses strewed upon the shore;
And woke her maid so early that she grumbled,
And called her father’s old slaves up, who swore
In several oaths—Armenian, Turk, and Greek—
They knew not what to think of such a freak.
CXXXIX
But up she got, and up she made them get,
With some pretence about the Sun, that makes
Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set;
And ’tis, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks
Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet
With mist, and every bird with him awakes,
And night is flung off like a mourning suit
Worn for a husband—or some other brute.226
CXL
I say, the Sun is a most glorious sight,
I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late
I have sat up on purpose all the night,227228
Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;
And so all ye, who would be in the right
In health and purse, begin your day to date
From daybreak, and when coffined at fourscore,
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.
CXLI
And Haidée met the morning face to face;
Her own was freshest, though a feverish flush
Had dyed it with the headlong blood, whose race
From heart to cheek is curbed into a blush,
Like to a torrent which a mountain’s base,
That overpowers some Alpine river’s rush,
Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles spread;
Or the Red Sea—but the sea is not red.229
CXLII
And down the cliff the island virgin came,
And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew,
While the Sun smiled on her with his first flame,
And young Aurora kissed her lips with dew,
Taking her for a sister; just the same
Mistake you would have made on seeing the two,
Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,
Had all the advantage, too, of not being air.230
CXLIII
And when into the cavern Haidée stepped
All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw
That like an infant Juan sweetly slept;
And then she stopped, and stood as if in awe
(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept
And wrapped him closer, lest the air, too raw,
Should reach his blood, then o’er him still as Death
Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his scarce-drawn breath.
CXLIV
And thus like to an Angel o’er the dying
Who die in righteousness, she leaned; and there
All tranquilly the shipwrecked boy was lying,
As o’er him lay the calm and stirless air:
But Zoe the meantime some eggs was frying,
Since, after all, no doubt the youthful pair
Must breakfast—and, betimes, lest they should ask it,
She drew out her provision from the basket.
CXLV
She knew that the best feelings must have victual,
And that a shipwrecked youth would hungry be;
Besides, being less in love, she yawned a little,
And felt her veins chilled by the neighbouring sea;
And so, she cooked their breakfast to a tittle;
I can’t say that she gave them any tea,
But there were eggs,
