Into as furious English), with her best look, Set down his sayings in her common-place book.
Juan knew several languages- as well He might- and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.
There wanted but this requisite to swell His qualities (with them) into sublime:
Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.
However, he did pretty well, and was Admitted as an aspirant to all The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass, At great assemblies or in parties small, He saw ten thousand living authors pass, That being about their average numeral;
Also the eighty 'greatest living poets,'
As every paltry magazine can show its.
In twice five years the 'greatest living poet,'
Like to the champion in the fisty ring, Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it, Although 't is an imaginary thing.
Even I- albeit I 'm sure I did not know it, Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king-Was reckon'd a considerable time, The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.
But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain:
'La Belle Alliance' of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion 's fall'n, may rise again:
But I will fall at least as fell my hero;
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.
Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell Before and after; but now grown more holy, The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, A modern Ancient Pistol- by the hilts?
Then there 's my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He 'll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be.
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway;
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;
And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian 'Savage Landor'
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.
John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Just as he really promised something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
The list grows long of live and dead pretenders To that which none will gain- or none will know The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders His last award, will have the long grass grow Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low Their chances; they 're too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.
This is the literary lower empire, Where the praetorian bands take up the matter;-A 'dreadful trade,' like his who 'gathers samphire,'
The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, With the same feelings as you 'd coax a vampire.
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, I 'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, And show them what an intellectual war is.
I think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks;- but it is hardly worth my while With such small gear to give myself concern:
Indeed I 've not the necessary bile;
My natural temper 's really aught but stern, And even my Muse's worst reproof 's a smile;
And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.
My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past With some small profit through that field so sterile, Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last, Left it before he had been treated very ill;
And henceforth found himself more gaily class'd Amongst the higher spirits of the day, The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.
His morns he pass'd in business- which, dissected, Was like all business a laborious nothing That leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing, And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathing All kinds of toil, save for our country's good-Which grows no better, though 't is time it should.
His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons, Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour In riding round those vegetable puncheons Call'd 'Parks,' where there is neither fruit nor flower Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings;
But after all it is the only 'bower'
(In Moore's phrase), where the fashionable fair Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.
Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd Like harness'd meteors; then along the floor Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl'd;
Then roll the brazen thunders of the door, Which opens to the thousand happy few An earthly paradise of 'Or Molu.'
There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz, The only dance which teaches girls to think, Makes one in love even with its very faults.
Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts, 'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb, And gain an inch of staircase at a time.
Thrice happy he who, after a survey Of the good company, can win a corner, A door that's in or boudoir out of the way, Where he may fix himself like small 'Jack Horner,'
And let the Babel round run as it may, And look on as a mourner, or a scorner, Or an approver, or a mere spectator, Yawning a little as the night grows later.
But this won't do, save by and by; and he Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share, Must steer with care through all that glittering sea Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where He deems it is his proper place to be;
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air, Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.
