She saw he did not understand Romaic.
CLXII
And then she had recourse to nods, and signs,
And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye,
And read (the only book she could) the lines
Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy,
The answer eloquent, where the Soul shines
And darts in one quick glance a long reply;
And thus in every look she saw expressed
A world of words, and things at which she guessed.
CLXIII
And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes,
And words repeated after her, he took
A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise,
No doubt, less of her language than her look:
As he who studies fervently the skies
Turns oftener to the stars than to his book,
Thus Juan learned his alpha beta better
From Haidée’s glance than any graven letter.
CLXIV
’Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,
When both the teacher and the taught are young,
As was the case, at least, where I have been;234
They smile so when one’s right, and when one’s wrong
They smile still more, and then there intervene
Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss;—235
I learned the little that I know by this:
CLXV
That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, and Greek,
Italian not at all, having no teachers;236
Much English I cannot pretend to speak,
Learning that language chiefly from its preachers,
Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every week
I study, also Blair—the highest reachers
Of eloquence in piety and prose—
I hate your poets, so read none of those.
CLXVI
As for the ladies, I have nought to say,
A wanderer from the British world of Fashion,237
Where I, like other “dogs, have had my day,”
Like other men, too, may have had my passion—
But that, like other things, has passed away,
And all her fools whom I could lay the lash on:
Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me
But dreams of what has been, no more to be.238
CLXVII
Return we to Don Juan. He begun239
To hear new words, and to repeat them; but
Some feelings, universal as the Sun,
Were such as could not in his breast be shut
More than within the bosom of a nun:
He was in love—as you would be, no doubt,
With a young benefactress—so was she,
Just in the way we very often see.
CLXVIII
And every day by daybreak—rather early
For Juan, who was somewhat fond of rest—
She came into the cave, but it was merely
To see her bird reposing in his nest;240
And she would softly stir his locks so curly,
Without disturbing her yet slumbering guest,
Breathing all gently o’er his cheek and mouth,241
As o’er a bed of roses the sweet South.
CLXIX
And every morn his colour freshlier came,
And every day helped on his convalescence;
’Twas well, because health in the human frame
Is pleasant, besides being true Love’s essence,
For health and idleness to Passion’s flame
Are oil and gunpowder; and some good lessons
Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus,
Without whom Venus will not long attack us.242
CLXX
While Venus fills the heart, (without heart really
Love, though good always, is not quite so good,)
Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli—
For Love must be sustained like flesh and blood—
While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly:
Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;243
But who is their purveyor from above
Heaven knows—it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove.
CLXXI
When Juan woke he found some good things ready,
A bath, a breakfast, and the finest eyes
That ever made a youthful heart less steady,
Besides her maid’s, as pretty for their size;
But I have spoken of all this already—
A repetition’s tiresome and unwise—
Well—Juan, after bathing in the sea,
Came always back to coffee and Haidée.
CLXXII
Both were so young, and one so innocent,
That bathing passed for nothing; Juan seemed
To her, as ’twere, the kind of being sent,
Of whom these two years she had nightly dreamed,
A something to be loved, a creature meant
To be her happiness, and whom she deemed
To render happy; all who joy would win
Must share it—Happiness was born a Twin.
CLXXIII
It was such pleasure to behold him, such
Enlargement of existence to partake
Nature with him, to thrill beneath his touch,
To watch him slumbering, and to see him wake:
To live with him for ever were too much;
But then the thought of parting made her quake;
He was her own, her ocean-treasure, cast
Like a rich wreck—her first love, and her last.244
CLXXIV
And thus a moon rolled on, and fair Haidée
Paid daily visits to her boy, and took
Such plentiful precautions, that still he
Remained unknown within his craggy nook;
At last her father’s prows put out to sea,
For certain merchantmen upon the look,
Not as of yore to carry off an Io,
But three Ragusan vessels, bound for Scio.
CLXXV
Then came her freedom, for she had no mother,
So that, her father being at sea, she was
Free as a married woman, or such other
Female, as where she likes may freely pass,
Without even the encumbrance of a brother,
The freest she that ever gazed on glass:
I speak of Christian lands in this comparison,
Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garrison.
CLXXVI
Now she prolonged her visits and her talk
(For they must talk), and he had learnt to say
So much as to propose to take a walk—
For little had he wandered since the day
On which, like a young flower snapped from the stalk,
Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay—
And thus they walked out in the afternoon,
And saw the sun set opposite the moon.245
CLXXVII
It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast,
With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore,
Guarded by shoals and rocks as
