Or done, is light to what she’ll say or do;—
The oldest thing on record, and yet new!
LXV
Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections,
To thee both oh! and ah! belong, of right,
In Love and War) how odd are the connections
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!
Just now yours were cut out in different sections:
First Ismail’s capture caught your fancy quite;
Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch:
And thirdly he who brought you the despatch!
LXVI
Shakespeare talks of “the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:”790
And some such visions crossed her Majesty,
While her young herald knelt before her still.
’Tis very true the hill seemed rather high,
For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill
Smoothed even the Simplon’s steep, and by God’s blessing,
With Youth and Health all kisses are “Heaven-kissing.”
LXVII
Her Majesty looked down, the youth looked up—
And so they fell in love;—she with his face,
His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid’s cup
With the first draught intoxicates apace,
A quintessential laudanum or “Black Drop,”
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base
Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye
In love drinks all Life’s fountains (save tears) dry.
LXVIII
He, on the other hand, if not in love,
Fell into that no less imperious passion,
Self-love—which, when some sort of thing above
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,
Or Duchess—Princess—Empress, “deigns to prove”791
(’Tis Pope’s phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,
For one especial person out of many,
Make us believe ourselves as good as any.
LXIX
Besides, he was of that delighted age
Which makes all female ages equal—when
We don’t much care with whom we may engage,
As bold as Daniel in the lions’ den,
So that we can our native sun assuage
In the next ocean, which may flow just then—
To make a twilight in, just as Sol’s heat is
Quenched in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis.
LXX
And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),
Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,
Because each lover looked a sort of King,
Made up upon an amatory pattern,
A royal husband in all save the ring—792
Which, (being the damnedest part of matrimony,)
Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey:
LXXI
And when you add to this, her Womanhood
In its meridian, her blue eyes793 or gray—
(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,
Or better, as the best examples say:
Napoleon’s, Mary’s794 (Queen of Scotland), should
Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,
Too wise to look through optics black or blue)—
LXXII
Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,795
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,
Her preference of a boy to men much bigger
(Fellows whom Messalina’s self would pension),
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,
With other extras, which we need not mention—
All these, or any one of these, explain
Enough to make a stripling very vain.
LXXIII
And that’s enough, for Love is vanity,
Selfish in its beginning as its end,796
Except where ’tis a mere insanity,
A maddening spirit which would strive to blend
Itself with Beauty’s frail inanity,
On which the Passion’s self seems to depend;
And hence some heathenish philosophers
Make Love the main-spring of the Universe.
LXXIV
Besides Platonic love, besides the love
Of God, the love of sentiment, the
loving Of faithful pairs—(I needs must rhyme with dove,
That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving
’Gainst reason—Reason ne’er was hand-and-glove
With rhyme, but always leant less to improving
The sound than sense)—besides all these pretences
To Love, there are those things which words name senses;
LXXV
Those movements, those improvements in our bodies
Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,
For such all women are at first no doubt.797
How beautiful that moment! and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our sensations! What a curious way
The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!798
LXXVI799
The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,
To end or to begin with; the next grand
Is that which may be christened love canonical,
Because the clergy take the thing in hand;
The third sort to be noted in our chronicle
As flourishing in every Christian land,
Is when chaste matrons to their other ties
Add what may be called marriage in disguise.
LXXVII
Well, we won’t analyse—our story must
Tell for itself: the Sovereign was smitten,
Juan much flattered by her love, or lust;—
I cannot stop to alter words once written,
And the two are so mixed with human dust,
That he who names one, both perchance may hit on:
But in such matters Russia’s mighty Empress
Behaved no better than a common sempstress.
LXXVIII
The whole court melted into one wide whisper,
And all lips were applied unto all ears!
The elder ladies’ wrinkles curled much crisper
As they beheld; the younger cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper
Smiled as she talked the matter o’er; but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army who stood by.
LXXIX
All the ambassadors of all the powers
Inquired, Who was this very new young man,
Who promised to be great in some few hours?
Which is full soon (though Life is but a span).
Already they beheld the silver showers
Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,
Upon his cabinet, besides the presents
Of several ribbons, and some thousand peasants.800
LXXX
Catherine was generous—all such ladies are:
Love—that great opener of the heart and all
The ways that lead there, be they near or far,
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small—
Love—(though she had a cursèd taste for War,
And was not the best wife unless we call
Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps ’tis better
That one should
