Of health but flickered with a faint reflection
Along his wasted cheek, and seemed to gravel
The faculty—who said that he must travel.
XLIV
The climate was too cold, they said, for him,
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion
Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,
Who did not like at first to lose her minion:
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim,
And drooping like an eagle’s with clipt pinion,
She then resolved to send him on a mission,
But in a style becoming his condition.
XLV
There was just then a kind of a discussion,
A sort of treaty or negotiation,
Between the British cabinet and Russian,
Maintained with all the due prevarication
With which great states such things are apt to push on;
Something about the Baltic’s navigation,
Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,
Which Britons deem their uti possidetis.
XLVI
So Catherine, who had a handsome way
Of fitting out her favourites, conferred
This secret charge on Juan, to display
At once her royal splendour, and reward
His services. He kissed hands the next day,
Received instructions how to play his card,
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,
Which showed what great discernment was the donor’s.
XLVII
But she was lucky, and luck’s all. Your Queens
Are generally prosperous in reigning—
Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means:—
But to continue—though her years were waning,
Her climacteric teased her like her teens;
And though her dignity brooked no complaining,
So much did Juan’s setting off distress her,
She could not find at first a fit successor.
XLVIII
But Time, the comforter, will come at last;
And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number
Of candidates requesting to be placed,
Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber:—
Not that she meant to fix again in haste,
Nor did she find the quantity encumber,
But always choosing with deliberation,
Kept the place open for their emulation.
XLIX
While this high post of honour’s in abeyance,
For one or two days, reader, we request
You’ll mount with our young hero the conveyance
Which wafted him from Petersburgh: the best
Barouche, which had the glory to display once
The fair Czarina’s autocratic crest,
When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris,
Was given to her favourite,836 and now bore his.
L
A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an ermine,
All private favourites of Don Juan;—for
(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)
He had a kind of inclination, or
Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin,
Live animals: an old maid of threescore
For cats and birds more penchant ne’er displayed,
Although he was not old, nor even a maid;—
LI
The animals aforesaid occupied
Their station: there were valets, secretaries,
In other vehicles; but at his side
Sat little Leila, who survived the parries
He made ’gainst Cossacque sabres in the wide
Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies
Her note, she don’t forget the infant girl
Whom he preserved, a pure and living pearl.
LII
Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,
And with that gentle, serious character,
As rare in living beings as a fossile
Man, ’midst thy mouldy mammoths, “grand Cuvier!”837
Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle
With this o’erwhelming world, where all must err:
But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore
Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.
LIII
Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.—
I cannot tell exactly what it was;
He was not yet quite old enough to prove
Parental feelings, and the other class,
Called brotherly affection, could not move
His bosom—for he never had a sister:
Ah! if he had—how much he would have missed her!
LIV
And still less was it sensual; for besides
That he was not an ancient debauchee,
(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins’ salt tides,
As acids rouse a dormant alkali,)838
Although (’twill happen as our planet guides)
His youth was not the chastest that might be,
There was the purest Platonism at bottom
Of all his feelings—only he forgot ’em.
LV
Just now there was no peril of temptation;
He loved the infant orphan he had saved,
As patriots (now and then) may love a nation;
His pride, too, felt that she was not enslaved
Owing to him;—as also her salvation
Through his means and the Church’s might be paved.
But one thing’s odd, which here must be inserted,
The little Turk refused to be converted.
LVI
’Twas strange enough she should retain the impression
Through such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter;
But though three Bishops told her the transgression,
She showed a great dislike to holy water;
She also had no passion for confession;
Perhaps she had nothing to confess:—no matter,
Whate’er the cause, the Church made little of it—
She still held out that Muhammad was a prophet.
LVII
In fact, the only Christian she could bear
Was Juan; whom she seemed to have selected
In place of what her home and friends once were.
He naturally loved what he protected:
And thus they formed a rather curious pair,
A guardian green in years, a ward connected
In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender;
And yet this want of ties made theirs more tender.
LVIII
They journeyed on through Poland and through Warsaw,
Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron:
Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw
Which gave her dukes the graceless name of “Biron.”839
’Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw,
Who marched to Moscow, led by Fame, the Siren!
To lose by one month’s frost some twenty years
Of conquest, and his guard of Grenadiers.
LIX
Let this not seem an anti-climax:—“Oh!
My guard! my old guard!”840 exclaimed that god of clay.
Think of the Thunderer’s falling down below
Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!841
Alas! that glory should be chilled by snow!
But should we wish to warm us on our way
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko’s name
Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla’s flame.
LX
From Poland
