And without turning his facetious head,
Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant air,
Presented the o’erflowing cup, and said,
“Talking’s dry work, I have no time to spare.”
A second hiccuped, “Our old Master’s dead,
You’d better ask our Mistress who’s his heir.”
“Our Mistress!” quoth a third: “Our Mistress!—pooh!—
You mean our Master—not the old, but new.”
XLIV
These rascals, being new comers, knew not whom
They thus addressed—and Lambro’s visage fell—
And o’er his eye a momentary gloom
Passed, but he strove quite courteously to quell
The expression, and endeavouring to resume
His smile, requested one of them to tell
The name and quality of his new patron,
Who seemed to have turned Haidée into a matron.
XLV
“I know not,” quoth the fellow, “who or what
He is, nor whence he came—and little care;
But this I know, that this roast capon’s fat,
And that good wine ne’er washed down better fare;
And if you are not satisfied with that,
Direct your questions to my neighbour there;
He’ll answer all for better or for worse,
For none likes more to hear himself converse.”283
XLVI
I said that Lambro was a man of patience,
And certainly he showed the best of breeding,
Which scarce even France, the Paragon of nations,
E’er saw her most polite of sons exceeding;
He bore these sneers against his near relations,
His own anxiety, his heart, too, bleeding,
The insults, too, of every servile glutton,
Who all the time was eating up his mutton.
XLVII
Now in a person used to much command—
To bid men come, and go, and come again—
To see his orders done, too, out of hand—
Whether the word was death, or but the chain—
It may seem strange to find his manners bland;
Yet such things are, which I cannot explain,
Though, doubtless, he who can command himself
Is good to govern—almost as a Guelf.
XLVIII
Not that he was not sometimes rash or so,
But never in his real and serious mood;
Then calm, concentrated, and still, and slow,
He lay coiled like the Boa in the wood;
With him it never was a word and blow,
His angry word once o’er, he shed no blood,
But in his silence there was much to rue,
And his one blow left little work for two.
XLIX
He asked no further questions, and proceeded
On to the house, but by a private way,
So that the few who met him hardly heeded,
So little they expected him that day;
If love paternal in his bosom pleaded
For Haidée’s sake, is more than I can say,
But certainly to one deemed dead returning,
This revel seemed a curious mode of mourning.
L
If all the dead could now return to life,
(Which God forbid!) or some, or a great many,
For instance, if a husband or his wife284
(Nuptial examples are as good as any),
No doubt whate’er might be their former strife,
The present weather would be much more rainy—
Tears shed into the grave of the connection
Would share most probably its resurrection.
LI
He entered in the house no more his home,
A thing to human feelings the most trying,
And harder for the heart to overcome,
Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;
To find our hearthstone turned into a tomb,
And round its once warm precincts palely lying
The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief,
Beyond a single gentleman’s belief.
LII
He entered in the house—his home no more,
For without hearts there is no home;—and felt
The solitude of passing his own door
Without a welcome: there he long had dwelt,
There his few peaceful days Time had swept o’er,
There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt
Over the innocence of that sweet child,
His only shrine of feelings undefiled.
LIII
He was a man of a strange temperament,
Of mild demeanour though of savage mood,
Moderate in all his habits, and content
With temperance in pleasure, as in food,
Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meant
For something better, if not wholly good;
His Country’s wrongs and his despair to save her
Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.
LIV
The love of power, and rapid gain of gold,
The hardness by long habitude produced,
The dangerous life in which he had grown old,
The mercy he had granted oft abused,
The sights he was accustomed to behold,
The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised,
Had cost his enemies a long repentance,
And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance.
LV
But something of the spirit of old Greece
Flashed o’er his soul a few heroic rays,
Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece
His predecessors in the Colchian days;
’Tis true he had no ardent love for peace—
Alas! his country showed no path to praise:
Hate to the world and war with every nation
He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.
LVI
Still o’er his mind the influence of the clime
Shed its Ionian elegance, which showed
Its power unconsciously full many a time—
A taste seen in the choice of his abode,
A love of music and of scenes sublime,
A pleasure in the gentle stream that flowed
Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,
Bedewed his spirit in his calmer hours.
LVII
But whatsoe’er he had of love reposed
On that belovèd daughter; she had been
The only thing which kept his heart unclosed
Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen,
A lonely pure affection unopposed:
There wanted but the loss of this to wean
His feelings from all milk of human kindness,
And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.285
LVIII
The cubless tigress in her jungle raging
Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;
The Ocean when its yeasty war is waging
Is awful to the vessel near the rock;
But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,
Their fury being spent by its own shock,
Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire286
Of a strong human heart, and in a Sire.
LIX
It is a hard although a common case
