With Scio wine—and all for love, not money.
CXLVI
And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and
The coffee made, would fain have wakened Juan;
But Haidée stopped her with her quick small hand,
And without word, a sign her finger drew on
Her lip, which Zoe needs must understand;
And, the first breakfast spoilt, prepared a new one,
Because her mistress would not let her break
That sleep which seemed as it would ne’er awake.
CXLVII
For still he lay, and on his thin worn cheek
A purple hectic played like dying day
On the snow-tops of distant hills; the streak
Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay,
Where the blue veins looked shadowy, shrunk, and weak;
And his black curls were dewy with the spray,
Which weighed upon them yet, all damp and salt,
Mixed with the stony vapours of the vault.
CXLVIII
And she bent o’er him, and he lay beneath,
Hushed as the babe upon its mother’s breast,
Drooped as the willow when no winds can breathe,
Lulled like the depth of Ocean when at rest,
Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath,
Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest;231
In short, he was a very pretty fellow,
Although his woes had turned him rather yellow.
CXLIX
He woke and gazed, and would have slept again,
But the fair face which met his eyes forbade
Those eyes to close, though weariness and pain
Had further sleep a further pleasure made:
For Woman’s face was never formed in vain
For Juan, so that even when he prayed
He turned from grisly saints, and martyrs hairy,
To the sweet portraits of the Virgin Mary.
CL
And thus upon his elbow he arose,
And looked upon the lady, in whose cheek
The pale contended with the purple rose,
As with an effort she began to speak;
Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose,
Although she told him, in good modern Greek,
With an Ionian accent, low and sweet,
That he was faint, and must not talk, but eat.
CLI
Now Juan could not understand a word,
Being no Grecian; but he had an ear,
And her voice was the warble of a bird,232
So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear,
That finer, simpler music ne’er was heard;233
The sort of sound we echo with a tear,
Without knowing why—an overpowering tone,
Whence Melody descends as from a throne.
CLII
And Juan gazed as one who is awoke
By a distant organ, doubting if he be
Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke
By the watchman, or some such reality,
Or by one’s early valet’s cursèd knock;
At least it is a heavy sound to me,
Who like a morning slumber—for the night
Shows stars and women in a better light.
CLIII
And Juan, too, was helped out from his dream,
Or sleep, or whatsoe’er it was, by feeling
A most prodigious appetite; the steam
Of Zoe’s cookery no doubt was stealing
Upon his senses, and the kindling beam
Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, kneeling,
To stir her viands, made him quite awake
And long for food, but chiefly a beef-steak.
CLIV
But beef is rare within these oxless isles;
Goat’s flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton,
And, when a holiday upon them smiles,
A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on:
But this occurs but seldom, between whiles,
For some of these are rocks with scarce a hut on;
Others are fair and fertile, among which
This, though not large, was one of the most rich.
CLV
I say that beef is rare, and can’t help thinking
That the old fable of the Minotaur—
From which our modern morals, rightly shrinking,
Condemn the royal lady’s taste who wore
A cow’s shape for a mask—was only (sinking
The allegory) a mere type, no more,
That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle,
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle.
CLVI
For we all know that English people are
Fed upon beef—I won’t say much of beer,
Because ’tis liquor only, and being far
From this my subject, has no business here;
We know, too, they are very fond of war,
A pleasure—like all pleasures—rather dear;
So were the Cretans—from which I infer,
That beef and battles both were owing to her.
CLVII
But to resume. The languid Juan raised
His head upon his elbow, and he saw
A sight on which he had not lately gazed,
As all his latter meals had been quite raw,
Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised,
And, feeling still the famished vulture gnaw,
He fell upon whate’er was offered, like
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.
CLVIII
He ate, and he was well supplied; and she,
Who watched him like a mother, would have fed
Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see
Such appetite in one she had deemed dead:
But Zoe, being older than Haidée,
Knew (by tradition, for she ne’er had read)
That famished people must be slowly nurst,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
CLIX
And so she took the liberty to state,
Rather by deeds than words, because the case
Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate
Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace
The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate,
Unless he wished to die upon the place—
She snatched it, and refused another morsel,
Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill.
CLX
Next they—he being naked, save a tattered
Pair of scarce decent trousers—went to work,
And in the fire his recent rags they scattered,
And dressed him, for the present, like a Turk,
Or Greek—that is, although it not much mattered,
Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, dirk—
They furnished him, entire, except some stitches,
With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches.
CLXI
And then fair Haidée tried her tongue at speaking,
But not a word could Juan comprehend,
Although he listened so that the young Greek in
Her earnestness would ne’er have made an end;
And, as he interrupted not, went eking
Her speech out to her protégé and friend,
Till pausing at the last
