I have seen John half detect himself a fool.—
LXXXVI
But “carpe diem,” Juan, “carpe, carpe!”926
To-morrow sees another race as gay
And transient, and devoured by the same harpy.
“Life’s a poor player,”927—then “play out the play,928
Ye villains!” and above all keep a sharp eye
Much less on what you do than what you say:
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.
LXXXVII
But how shall I relate in other cantos
Of what befell our hero in the land,
Which ’tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as
A moral country? But I hold my hand—
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;929
But ’tis as well at once to understand,
You are not a moral people, and you know it,
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.
LXXXVIII
What Juan saw and underwent shall be
My topic, with of course the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy;
And recollect the work is only fiction,
And that I sing of neither mine nor me,
Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne’er doubt
This—when I speak, I don’t hint, but speak out.
LXXXIX
Whether he married with the third or fourth
Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess,
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
(I mean in Fortune’s matrimonial bounties),
He took to regularly peopling Earth,
Of which your lawful, awful wedlock fount is—
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages—
XC
Is yet within the unread events of Time.
Thus far, go forth, thou Lay, which I will back
Against the same given quantity of rhyme,
For being as much the subject of attack
As ever yet was any work sublime,
By those who love to say that white is black.
So much the better!—I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.930
Canto XII
I
Of all the barbarous middle ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man! it is—I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and sage,
And don’t know justly what we would be at—
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were;—
II
Too old for Youth—too young, at thirty-five,
To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore—
I wonder people should be left alive;
But since they are, that epoch is a bore:
Love lingers still, although ’twere late to wive:
And as for other love, the illusion’s o’er;
And Money, that most pure imagination,
Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.931
III
O Gold! Why call we misers miserable?932
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;
Theirs is the best bower anchor, the chain cable
Which holds fast other pleasures great and small.
Ye who but see the saving man at table,
And scorn his temperate board, as none at all,
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,
Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.
IV
Love or lust makes Man sick, and wine much sicker;
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss;
But making money, slowly first, then quicker,
And adding still a little through each cross
(Which will come over things), beats Love or liquor,
The gamester’s counter, or the statesman’s dross.
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank credit like a bank of vapour.
V
Who hold the balance of the World? Who reign
O’er congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?933
(That make old Europe’s journals “squeak and gibber”934 all)
Who keep the World, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Bonaparte’s noble daring?—
Jew Rothschild,935 and his fellow-Christian, Baring.
VI
Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,936
Are the true Lords of Europe. Every loan
Is not a merely speculative hit,
But seats a Nation or upsets a Throne.
Republics also get involved a bit;
Columbia’s stock hath holders not unknown
On ’Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,
Must get itself discounted by a Jew.
VII
Why call the miser miserable? as
I said before: the frugal life is his,
Which in a saint or cynic ever was
The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss
Canonization for the self-same cause,
And wherefore blame gaunt Wealth’s austerities?
Because, you’ll say, nought calls for such a trial;—
Then there’s more merit in his self-denial.
VIII
He is your only poet;—Passion, pure
And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays,
Possessed, the ore, of which mere hopes allure
Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays
Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure:
On him the Diamond pours its brilliant blaze,
While the mild Emerald’s beam shades down the dies
Of other stones, to soothe the miser’s eyes.
IX
The lands on either side are his; the ship
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads
For him the fragrant produce of each trip;
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,
And the vine blushes like Aurora’s lip;
His very cellars might be Kings’ abodes;
While he, despising every sensual call,
Commands—the intellectual Lord of all.
X
Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race,
A hospital, a church—and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face:
Perhaps he fain would liberate Mankind
Even with the very ore which makes them base;
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,
Or revel in the joys of calculation.
XI
But whether all, or each, or none of these
May be the hoarder’s principle of action,
The fool will call such mania a disease:—
What is his own? Go—look at each transaction,
Wars, revels, loves—do these bring men more ease
Than the mere plodding through each “vulgar fraction?”
Or do they benefit Mankind? Lean Miser!
Let
