Part 32

Meanwhile Sweet Adeline deserved their praises, By an impartial indemnification For all her past exertion and soft phrases, In a most edifying conversation, Which turn’d upon their late guests’ miens and faces, And families, even to the last relation; Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses, And truculent distortion of their tresses.

True, she said little—’twas the rest that broke Forth into universal epigram; But then ’twas to the purpose what she spoke: Like Addison’s ‘faint praise,’ so wont to damn, Her own but served to set off every joke, As music chimes in with a melodrame. How sweet the task to shield an absent friend! I ask but this of mine, to—not defend.

There were but two exceptions to this keen Skirmish of wits o’er the departed; one Aurora, with her pure and placid mien; And Juan, too, in general behind none In gay remark on what he had heard or seen, Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone: In vain he heard the others rail or rally, He would not join them in a single sally.

’Tis true he saw Aurora look as though She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook Its motive for that charity we owe But seldom pay the absent, nor would look Farther—it might or might not be so. But Juan, sitting silent in his nook, Observing little in his reverie, Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.

The ghost at least had done him this much good, In making him as silent as a ghost, If in the circumstances which ensued He gain’d esteem where it was worth the most. And certainly Aurora had renew’d In him some feelings he had lately lost, Or harden’d; feelings which, perhaps ideal, Are so divine, that I must deem them real:—

The love of higher things and better days; The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance Of what is call’d the world, and the world’s ways; The moments when we gather from a glance More joy than from all future pride or praise, Which kindle manhood, but can ne’er entrance The heart in an existence of its own, Of which another’s bosom is the zone.

Who would not sigh Ai ai Tan Kuuerheian That hath a memory, or that had a heart? Alas! her star must fade like that of Dian: Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart. Anacreon only had the soul to tie an Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart Of Eros: but though thou hast play’d us many tricks, Still we respect thee, ‘Alma Venus Genetrix!’

And full of sentiments, sublime as billows Heaving between this world and worlds beyond, Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows Arrived, retired to his; but to despond Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows Waved o’er his couch; he meditated, fond Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep, And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

The night was as before: he was undrest, Saving his night-gown, which is an undress; Completely ‘sans culotte,’ and without vest; In short, he hardly could be clothed with less: But apprehensive of his spectral guest, He sate with feelings awkward to express (By those who have not had such visitations), Expectant of the ghost’s fresh operations.

And not in vain he listen’d;—Hush! what ’s that? I see—I see—Ah, no!—’tis not—yet ’tis— Ye powers! it is the—the—the—Pooh! the cat! The devil may take that stealthy pace of his! So like a spiritual pit-a-pat, Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss, Gliding the first time to a rendezvous, And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.

Again—what is ’t? The wind? No, no—this time It is the sable friar as before, With awful footsteps regular as rhyme, Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more. Again through shadows of the night sublime, When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore The starry darkness round her like a girdle Spangled with gems—the monk made his blood curdle.

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass, Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter, Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass, Sounding like very supernatural water, Came over Juan’s ear, which throbb’d, alas! For immaterialism ’s a serious matter; So that even those whose faith is the most great In souls immortal, shun them tête-à-tête.

Were his eyes open?—Yes! and his mouth too. Surprise has this effect—to make one dumb, Yet leave the gate which eloquence slips through As wide as if a long speech were to come. Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew, Tremendous to a mortal tympanum: His eyes were open, and (as was before Stated) his mouth. What open’d next?—the door.

It open’d with a most infernal creak, Like that of hell. ‘Lasciate ogni speranza Voi che entrate!’ The hinge seem’d to speak, Dreadful as Dante’s rhima, or this stanza; Or—but all words upon such themes are weak: A single shade ’s sufficient to entrance a Hero—for what is substance to a spirit? Or how is ’t matter trembles to come near it?

The door flew wide,—not swiftly, but, as fly The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight, And then swung back, nor close, but stood awry, Half letting in long shadows on the light, Which still in Juan’s candlesticks burned high, For he had two, both tolerably bright, And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood The sable Friar in his solemn hood.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, ’Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge. How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lash’d from the foam of ages; while the graves Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken The night before, but being sick of shaking, He first inclined to think he had been mistaken, And then to be ashamed of such mistaking. His own internal ghost began to awaken Within him and to quell his corporal quaking, Hinting that soul and body on the whole Were odds against a disembodied soul.

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce, And he arose, advanced. The shade retreated, But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce, Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated, Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce, At whatsoever risk of being defeated. The ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until He reached the ancient wall, then stood stone still.

Juan put forth one arm. Eternal powers! It touched no soul nor body, but the wall, On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers Checkered with all the tracery of the hall. He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers When he can’t tell what ’tis that doth appal. How odd, a single hobgoblin’s nonentity Should cause more fear than a whole host’s identity.

But still the shade remained, the blue eyes glared, And rather variably for stony death. Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared; The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath. A straggling curl showed he had been fair-haired. A red lip with two rows of pearls beneath Gleamed forth, as through the casement’s ivy shroud The moon peeped, just escaped from a grey cloud.

And Juan, puzzled but still curious, thrust His other arm forth. Wonder upon wonder! It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust, Which beat as if there was a warm heart under. He found, as people on most trials must, That he had made at first a silly blunder And that in his confusion he had caught Only the wall, instead of what he sought

The ghost, if ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul As ever lurked beneath a holy hood. A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory stole Forth into something much like flesh and blood. Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl And they revealed, alas, that ere they should, In full, voluptuous, but not o’ergrown bulk, The phantom of her frolic Grace—Fitz-Fulke!

[The end of the 1857 edition]

CANTO THE SEVENTEENTH.

The world is full of orphans: firstly, those Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase (But many a lonely tree the loftier grows Than others crowded in the forest’s maze); The next are such as are not doomed to lose Their tender parents in their budding days, But merely their parental tenderness, Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.

The next are ‘only children’, as they are styled, Who grow up children only, since the old saw Pronounces that an ‘only’ ’s a spoilt child. But not to go too far, I hold it law That where their education, harsh or mild, ‘Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe, The sufferers, be’t in heart or intellect, Whate’er the cause are orphans in effect.

But to return unto the stricter rule (As far as words make rules), our common notion Of orphans paints at once a parish school, A half-starved babe, a wreck upon life’s ocean, A human (what the Italians nickname) ‘mule’, A theme for pity or some worse emotion; Yet, if examined, it might be admitted The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.

Too soon they are parents to themselves; for what Are tutors, guardians, and so forth, compared With Nature’s genial genitors, so that A child of Chancery, that Star Chamber ward (I’ll take the likeness I can first come at), Is like a duckling by Dame Partlett reared And frights, especially if ’tis a daughter, The old hen by running headlong to the water.

There is a commonplace book argument, Which glibly glides from every vulgar tongue When any dare a new light to present: ‘If you are right, then everybody’s wrong.’ Suppose the converse of this precedent So often urged, so loudly and so long: ‘If you are wrong, then everybody’s right.’ Was ever everybody yet so quite?

Therefore I would solicit free discussion Upon all points, no matter what or whose, Because as ages upon ages push on, The last is apt the former to accuse Of pillowing its head on a pincushion, Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse. What was a paradox becomes a truth or A something like it, as bear witness Luther.

The sacraments have been reduced to two And witches unto none, though somewhat late Since burning aged women (save a few, Not witches, only bitches, who create Mischief in families, as some know or knew, Should still be singed, but slightly let me state) Has been declared an act of inurbanity, Malgré Sir Matthew Hale’s great humanity.

Great Galileo was debarred the sun, Because he fixed it, and to stop his talking How earth could round the solar orbit run, Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking. The man was well nigh dead, ere men begun To think his skull had not some need of caulking, But now it seems he’s right, his notion just, No doubt a consolation to his dust.

Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages Might be filled up, as vainly as before, With the sad usage of all sorts of sages, Who in his lifetime each was deemed a bore. The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages; This they must bear with and perhaps much more. The wise man’s sure when he no more can share it, he Will have a firm post-obit on posterity.

If such doom waits each intellectual giant, We little people in our lesser way To life’s small rubs should surely be more pliant, And so for one will I, as well I may. Would that I were less bilious—but oh fie on’t! Just as I make my mind up everyday To be a totus teres stoic, sage, The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.

Temperate I am, yet never had a temper; Modest I am, yet with some slight assurance; Changeable too, yet somehow idem semper; Patient, but not enamoured of endurance; Cheerful, but sometimes rather apt to whimper; Mild, but at times a sort of Hercules furens; So that I almost think that the same skin For one without has two or three within.

Our hero was in canto the sixteenth Left in a tender moonlight situation, Such as enables man to show his strength Moral or physical: on this occasion Whether his virtue triumphed, or at length His vice—for he was of a kindling nation— Is more than I shall venture to describe, Unless some beauty with a kiss should bribe.

I leave the thing a problem, like all things. The morning came, and breakfast, tea and toast, Of which most men partake, but no one sings. The company, whose birth, wealth, worth have cost My trembling lyre already several strings, Assembled with our hostess and mine host. The guests dropped in, the last but one, Her Grace, The latest, Juan with his virgin face.

Which best is to encounter, ghost or none, ’Twere difficult to say, but Juan looked As if he had combated with more than one, Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked The light that through the Gothic windows shone. Her Grace too had a sort of air rebuked, Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept A vigil or dreamt rather more than slept.