And as for love-Oh, love !-We will proceed.
The Lady Adeline Amundeville,
A pretty name as one would wish to read,
Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.
There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
The Lady Adeline, right honourable,
And honour'd, ran a risk of growing less so ; For few of the soft sex are very stable
In their resolves-alas! that I should say so!
They differ as wine differs from its label,
When once decanted;-I presume to guess so.
But will not swear: yet both upon occasion,
Till old, may undergo adulteration.
But Adeline was of the purest vintage,
The unmingled essence of the grape;
Bright as a new Napoleon from its mintage,
Or glorious as a diamond richly set;
page where Time should hesitate to print age, And for which Nature might forego her debtSole creditor whose process doth involve in 't
The luck of finding every body solvent.
Oh, Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily
Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,
Like a meek tradesman when approaching palely
Some splendid debtor he would take by sap
But oft denied, as patience 'gins to fail, he
Advances with exasperated rap,
And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome,
On ready money, or
66 a draft on Ransom."
Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor Beauty!
She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey."
What though she now and then may slip from duty,
The more's the reason why you ought to stay.
Gaunt gourmand! with whole nations for your booty,
You should be civil in a modest way:
Suppress then some slight feminine diseases,
And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases.
Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous
Where she was interested (as was said),
Because she was not apt, like some of us,
To like too readily, or too high bred
To show it-points we need not now discuss-
Would give up artlessly both heart and head
Unto such feelings as seem'd innocent
For objects worthy of the sentiment.
Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumour,
That live gazette, had scatter'd to disfigure,
She'd heard; but women hear with more good humour
Such aberrations than we men of rigour.
Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more
Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour;
Because he had, like Alcibiades,
The art of living in all climes with ease.
His manner was perhaps the more seductive,
Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce ;
Nothing affected, studied, or constructive
Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse
Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective,
To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,
And seem to "resist us if
say,
Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.
They are wrong-that 's not the way to set about it;
As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.
But, right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;
In fact, his manner was his own alone:
Sincere he was at least you could not doubt it,
In listening merely to his voice's tone.
The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
By nature soft, his whole address held off
Suspicion though not timid, his regard
Was such as rather seem'd to keep aloof,
To shield himself, than put you on your guard :
Perhaps, 't was hardly quite assured enough,
But modesty 's at times its own reward,
Like virtue; and the absence of pretension
Will go much farther than there 's need to mention.
Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful, but not loud;
Insinuating without insinuation ;
Observant of the foibles of the crowd,
Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation;
Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud,
So as to make them feel he knew his station
And theirs ;-without a struggle for priority,
He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority,
That is, with men : with women he was what
They pleased to make or take him for; and their
Imagination 's quite enough for that:
So that the outline 's tolerably fair.
They fill the canvas up-and verbum sat.
If once their phantasies be brought to bear
Upon an object, whether sad or playful,
They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.
Adeline, no deep judge of character,
Was apt to add a colouring from her own. 'T is thus the good will amiably err,
And eke the wise, as has been often shown.
Experience is the chief philosopher,
But saddest when his science is well known;
And persecuted sages teach the schools
Their folly in forgetting there are fools.
Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon?
Great Socrates? And thou, diviner still,'
Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken,
And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?
Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,
How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill Volumes with similar sad illustrations,
But leave them to the conscience of the nations.
I perch upon an humbler promontory,
Amidst life's infinite variety :
With no great care for what is nicknamed glory,
But speculating as I cast mine eye
On what may suit or may not suit my story,
And never straining hard to versify,
I rattle on exactly as I'd talk
With any body in a ride or walk.
I don't know that there may be much ability
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme;
But there's a conversational facility,
Which may round off an hour upon a time.
Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility
In mine irregularity of chime,
Which rings what 's uppermost of new or hoary,
Just as I feel the improvvisatore.
"Omnia vult belle Matho dicere-dic aliquando Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male." The first is rather more than mortal can do;
The second may be sadly done or gaily; The third is still more difficult to stand to;
The fourth we hear, and see, and say too, daily; The whole together is what I could wish To serve in this conundrum of a dish.
A modest hope-but modesty 's my forte,
And pride my feeble :-let us ramble on.
I meant to make this poem very short,
But now I can't tell where it
may not run.
No doubt, if I had wish'd to pay my court
To critics, or to hail the setting sun
Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision
Were more ;-but I was born for opposition.
But then 't is mostly on the weaker side:
So that I verily believe if they
Who now are basking in their full-blown pride,
Were shaken down, and "dogs had had their day,"
Though at the first I might by chance deride
Their tumble, I should turn the other way,
And wax an ultra-royalist in loyalty,
Because I hate even democratic royalty.
I think I should have made a decent spouse,
If I had never proved the soft condition;
I think I should have made monastic vows,
But for my own peculiar superstition;
'Gainst rhyme I never should have knock'd
brows, Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian, Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet, If some one had not told me to forego it.
But "laissez aller "-knights and dames I sing,
Such as the times may furnish. 'Tis a flight
Which seems at first to need no lofty wing,
Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite :
The difficulty lies in colouring
(Keeping the due proportion still in sight)
With nature manners which are artificial,
And rendering general that which is especial.
The difference is, that in the days of old
Men made the manners; manners now make menPinn'd like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold,
At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten.
Now this at all events must render cold
Your writers, who must either draw again
Days better drawn before, or else assume
The present, with their common-place costume."
We'll do our best to make the best on 't :- -March!
March, my Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter;
And when you inay not be sublime, be arch,
Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter.
We surely shall find something worth research;
Columbus found a new world in a cutter,
Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage,
While yet America was in her non-age.
When Adeline, in all her growing sense
Of Juan's merits and his situation,
Felt on the whole an interest intense-
Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation,
Or that he had an air of innocence,
Which is for innocence a sad temptation,—
As women hate half measures, on the whole,
She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.
She had a good opinion of advice,
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,
For which small thanks are still the market price,
Even where the article at highest rate is.
She thought upon the subject twice or thrice,
And morally decided, the best state is
For morals, marriage; and, this question carried,
She seriously advised him to get married.
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