Upon, in sheets white as what bards call “driven
Snow,”540 Well! ’tis all hap-hazard when one weds.
Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been
Perhaps as wretched if a peasants quean.
XXVI
Don Juan in his feminine disguise,541
With all the damsels in their long array,
Had bowed themselves before th’ imperial eyes,
And at the usual signal ta’en their way
Back to their chambers, those long galleries
In the seraglio, where the ladies lay
Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there
Beating for Love, as the caged bird’s for air.
XXVII
I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse
The Tyrant’s542 wish, “that Mankind only had
One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:”
My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,543
And much more tender on the whole than fierce;
It being (not now, but only while a lad)
That Womankind had but one rosy mouth,544
To kiss them all at once from North to South.
XXVIII
Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands
And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied
In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands
The giant thought of being a Titan’s bride,
Or travelling in Patagonian lands;
So let us back to Lilliput, and guide
Our hero through the labyrinth of Love
In which we left him several lines above.
XXIX
He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,545
At the given signal joined to their array;
And though he certainly ran many risks,
Yet he could not at times keep, by the way,
(Although the consequences of such frisks
Are worse than the worst damages men pay
In moral England, where the thing’s a tax,)
From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.
XXX
Still he forgot not his disguise:—along
The galleries from room to room they walked,
A virgin-like and edifying throng,
By eunuchs flanked; while at their head there stalked
A dame who kept up discipline among
The female ranks, so that none stirred or talked,
Without her sanction on their she-parades:
Her title was “the Mother of the Maids.”
XXXI
Whether she was a “Mother,” I know not,
Or whether they were “Maids” who called her Mother;
But this is her Seraglio title, got
I know not how, but good as any other;
So Cantemir546 can tell you, or De Tott:547
Her office was to keep aloof or smother
All bad propensities in fifteen hundred
Young women, and correct them when they blundered.
XXXII
A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made
More easy by the absence of all men—
Except his Majesty—who, with her aid,
And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then
A slight example, just to cast a shade
Along the rest, contrived to keep this den
Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,
Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent.
XXXIII
And what is that? Devotion, doubtless—how
Could you ask such a question?—but we will
Continue. As I said, this goodly row
Of ladies of all countries at the will548
Of one good man, with stately march and slow,
Like water-lilies floating down a rill—
Or rather lake—for rills do not run slowly—
Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.
XXXIV
But when they reached their own apartments, there,
Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,
Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere
When freed from bonds (which are of no great use
After all), or like Irish at a fair,
Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce
Established between them and bondage, they
Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play.
XXXV
Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer;
Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything:
Some thought her dress did not so much become her,
Or wondered at her ears without a ring;
Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,
Others contended they were but in spring;
Some thought her rather masculine in height,
While others wished that she had been so quite.
XXXVI
But no one doubted on the whole, that she
Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,
And fresh, and “beautiful exceedingly,”549
Who with the brightest Georgians550 might compare:
They wondered how Gulbeyaz, too, could be
So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)
Her Throne and Power, and everything beside.
XXXVII
But what was strangest in this virgin crew,
Although her beauty was enough to vex,
After the first investigating view,
They all found out as few, or fewer, specks
In the fair form of their companion new,
Than is the custom of the gentle sex,
When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,
In a new face “the ugliest creature breathing.”
XXXVIII
And yet they had their little jealousies,
Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,
Whether there are such things as sympathies
Without our knowledge or our approbation,
Although they could not see through his disguise,
All felt a soft kind of concatenation,
Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what
You please—we will not quarrel about that:
XXXIX
But certain ’tis they all felt for their new
Companion something newer still, as ’twere
A sentimental friendship through and through,
Extremely pure, which made them all concur
In wishing her their sister, save a few
Who wished they had a brother just like her,
Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,
They would prefer to Padisha551 or Pacha.
XL
Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka,552 and Dudù—in short
(To save description), fair as fair can be
Were they, according to the best report,
Though differing in stature and degree,
And clime and time, and country and complexion—
They all alike admired their new connection.
XLI
Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;
Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,
With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,
And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread,
But rather skim the earth;
