DON JUAN. CANTO III. I. HAIL Muse! et cetera.-We left Juan sleeping, And watch'd by eyes that never yet knew weeping, II. Oh, Love! what is it in this world of ours With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breast-but place to die— Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish III. In her first passion woman loves her lover, And fits her loosely-like an easy glove, She then prefers him in the plural number, IV. I know not if the fault be men's or theirs; But one thing's pretty sure; a woman planted- Is that to which her heart is wholly granted; V. 'T is melancholy, and a fearful sign 1 VI. There's something of antipathy, as 't were, Is used until the truth arrives too late— Yet what can people do, except despair? The same things change their names at such a rate; For instance, passion in a lover's glorious, But in a husband is pronounced uxorious. VII. Men grow ashamed of being so very fond, That both are tied till one shall have expired. VIII. There's doubtless something in domestic doings, For no one cares for matrimonial cooings, IX. All tragedies are finish'd by a death, For authors fear description might disparage And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage; So leaving each their priest and prayer-book ready, They say no more of Death or of the Lady. X. The only two that in my recollection Have sung of heaven and hell, or marriage, are (Such things, in fact, it don't ask much to mar); But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve Were not drawn from their spouses, you conceive. I. Some persons say that Dante meant theology I think that Dante's more abstruse ecstatics Meant to personify the mathematics. XII. Haidee and Juan were not married, but The fault was theirs, not mine: it is not fair, Chaste reader, then, in any way to put The blame on me, unless you wish they were; Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut The book which treats of this erroneous pair, Before the consequences grow too awful; 'T is dangerous to read of loves unlawful. XIII. Yet they were happy,-happy in the illicit XIV. Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a prime minister but change His title, and 't is nothing but taxation; But he, more modest, took an humbler range Of life, and in an honester vocation Pursued o'er the high seas his watery journey, And merely practised as a sea-attorney. |