Her nails were touched with henna; but, again,
The power of Art was turned to nothing, for
They could not look more rosy than before.
LXXVI
The henna should be deeply dyed to make
The skin relieved appear more fairly fair;
She had no need of this, day ne’er will break
On mountain tops more heavenly white than her:
The eye might doubt if it were well awake,
She was so like a vision; I might err,
But Shakespeare also says, ’tis very silly
“To gild refinèd gold, or paint the lily.”296
LXXVII
Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,
But a white baracan, and so transparent
The sparkling gems beneath you might behold,
Like small stars through the milky way apparent;
His turban, furled in many a graceful fold,
An emerald aigrette, with Haidée’s hair in ’t,
Surmounted as its clasp—a glowing crescent,
Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.
LXXVIII
And now they were diverted by their suite,
Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet,
Which made their new establishment complete;
The last was of great fame, and liked to show it;
His verses rarely wanted their due feet—
And for his theme—he seldom sung below it,
He being paid to satirise or flatter,
As the Psalm says, “inditing a good matter.”
LXXIX
He praised the present, and abused the past,
Reversing the good custom of old days,
An Eastern anti-jacobin at last
He turned, preferring pudding to no praise—
For some few years his lot had been o’ercast
By his seeming independent in his lays,
But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha—
With truth like Southey, and with verse297 like Crashaw.298
LXXX
He was a man who had seen many changes,
And always changed as true as any needle;
His Polar Star being one which rather ranges,
And not the fixed—he knew the way to wheedle:
So vile he ’scaped the doom which oft avenges;
And being fluent (save indeed when fee’d ill),
He lied with such a fervour of intention—
There was no doubt he earned his laureate pension.
LXXXI
But he had genius—when a turncoat has it,
The Vates irritabilis299 takes care
That without notice few full moons shall pass it;
Even good men like to make the public stare:—
But to my subject—let me see—what was it?—
Oh!—the third canto—and the pretty pair—
Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode
Of living in their insular abode.
LXXXII
Their poet, a sad trimmer, but, no less,300
In company a very pleasant fellow,
Had been the favourite of full many a mess
Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;301
And though his meaning they could rarely guess,
Yet still they deigned to hiccup or to bellow
The glorious meed of popular applause,
Of which the first ne’er knows the second cause.302
LXXXIII
But now being lifted into high society,
And having picked up several odds and ends
Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,
He deemed, being in a lone isle, among friends,
That, without any danger of a riot, he
Might for long lying make himself amends;
And, singing as he sung in his warm youth,
Agree to a short armistice with Truth.
LXXXIV
He had travelled ’mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,
And knew the self-loves of the different nations;
And having lived with people of all ranks,
Had something ready upon most occasions—
Which got him a few presents and some thanks.
He varied with some skill his adulations;
To “do at Rome as Romans do,”303 a piece
Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.
LXXXV
Thus, usually, when he was asked to sing,
He gave the different nations something national;
’Twas all the same to him—“God save the King,”
Or “Ça ira,” according to the fashion all:
His Muse made increment of anything,
From the high lyric down to the low rational;304305
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?
LXXXVI
In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;
In England a six canto quarto tale;
In Spain he’d make a ballad or romance on
The last war—much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he’d prance on
Would be old Goethe’s—(see what says De Staël);306
In Italy he’d ape the “Trecentisti;”
In Greece, he’d sing some sort of hymn like this t’ ye:307
I
The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of War and Peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their Sun, is set.II
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The Hero’s harp, the Lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your Sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”308III
The mountains look on Marathon—309
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.IV310
A King sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And, when the Sun set, where were they?V
And where are they? and where art thou,
My Country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!311
And must thy Lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?VI
’Tis something, in the dearth of Fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.VII
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of
