Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?
Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal death.
I canter by the spot each afternoon Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy, Who lived too long for men, but died too soon For human vanity, the young De Foix!
A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn, But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face, While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.
I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column.
The time must come, when both alike decay'd, The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume, Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.
With human blood that column was cemented, With human filth that column is defiled, As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd:
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wild Instinct of gore and glory earth has known Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.
Yet there will still be bards: though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thought;
And the unquiet feelings, which first woke Song in the world, will seek what then they sought;
As on the beach the waves at last are broke, Thus to their extreme verge the passions brought Dash into poetry, which is but passion, Or at least was so ere it grew a fashion.
If in the course of such a life as was At once adventurous and contemplative, Men, who partake all passions as they pass, Acquire the deep and bitter power to give Their images again as in a glass, And in such colours that they seem to live;
You may do right forbidding them to show 'em, But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem.
Oh! ye, who make the fortunes of all books!
Benign Ceruleans of the second sex!
Who advertise new poems by your looks, Your 'imprimatur' will ye not annex?
What! must I go to the oblivious cooks, Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks?
Ah! must I then the only minstrel be, Proscribed from tasting your Castalian tea!
What! can I prove 'a lion' then no more?
A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling?
To bear the compliments of many a bore, And sigh, 'I can't get out,' like Yorick's starling;
Why then I 'll swear, as poet Wordy swore (Because the world won't read him, always snarling), That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery, Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.
Oh! 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,'
As some one somewhere sings about the sky, And I, ye learned ladies, say of you;
They say your stockings are so (Heaven knows why, I have examined few pair of that hue);
Blue as the garters which serenely lie Round the Patrician left-legs, which adorn The festal midnight, and the levee morn.
Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures-But times are alter'd since, a rhyming lover, You read my stanzas, and I read your features:
And- but no matter, all those things are over;
Still I have no dislike to learned natures, For sometimes such a world of virtues cover;
I knew one woman of that purple school, The loveliest, chastest, best, but- quite a fool.
Humboldt, 'the first of travellers,' but not The last, if late accounts be accurate, Invented, by some name I have forgot, As well as the sublime discovery's date, An airy instrument, with which he sought To ascertain the atmospheric state, By measuring 'the intensity of blue:'
Oh, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!
But to the narrative:- The vessel bound With slaves to sell off in the capital, After the usual process, might be found At anchor under the seraglio wall;
Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound, Were landed in the market, one and all, And there with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians, Bought up for different purposes and passions.
Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given, Warranted virgin; beauty's brightest colours Had deck'd her out in all the hues of heaven:
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Who bade on till the hundreds reach'd eleven;
But when the offer went beyond, they knew 'T was for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.
Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price Which the West Indian market scarce would bring;
Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice What 't was ere Abolition; and the thing Need not seem very wonderful, for vice Is always much more splendid than a king:
The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity, Are saving- vice spares nothing for a rarity.
But for the destiny of this young troop, How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews, How some to burdens were obliged to stoop, And others rose to the command of crews As renegadoes; while in hapless group, Hoping no very old vizier might choose, The females stood, as one by one they pick'd 'em, To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:
All this must be reserved for further song;
Also our hero's lot, howe'er unpleasant (Because this Canto has become too long), Must be postponed discreetly for the present;
I 'm sensible redundancy is wrong, But could not for the muse of me put less in 't:
And now delay the progress of Don Juan, Till what is call'd in Ossian the fifth Juan.
