BYRON’S WORKS,
844
But if it gives them pleasure, be it so;
This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free;Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear,
And tells me to resume my story here.
VIII.
Young Juan and bis lady-love were leftTo their own hearts’ most sweet society;
Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft"With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms*, hoSigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft,Though foe to love; and yet they could not boMeant to grow old, but die in bappy spring,
Before one charm or hope had taken wing.
IX.
Their faces were not made for wrinkles, theirPure blood to stagnate, their great hearts tofail:
The blank grey was not made to blast their hair.But like the climes that know nor snow norhail,
They were all summer; lightning might assailAnd shiver them to ashes, but to trailA long and snake-like life of dull decay"Was not for them—they had too little clay.
x.
They were alone once more; for them to boThus was another Eden: they were neverWeary, unless when separate : the treeCut from its forest root of years—the riverDammd from its fountain—the child from theknee
And breast maternal wean’d at once for ever,—Would wither less than these two torn apart;
Alas! there is no instinct like the heart—xr.
The heart—which may be broken: happy they!
Thrice fortunate! who of that fragile mould,
The precious porcelain of human clay,
Break with the first fall; they can ne’er beholdThe long year link’d with heavy day on day,
And all which must be borne, and never told;While life’s strange principle will often lieDeepest in those who long the most to die.
XII.
H Whom the gods love, die young,” was said ofyore, *
And many deaths do they escape by this:
The death of friends, and that which slays evenmore—
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,Except mere breath; and since the silent shoreAwaits at last even those who longest missThe old archer’s shafts, perhaps the early grave,Which men weep over, may be meant to save.
xnr.
Haidee and Juan thought not of the dead.
The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made forthem:
T ^ey found no fault with Time, save that he fled;
they saw not in themselves aught to condemn:Each was the other’s mirror, and but readJov sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem:
Jna knew such brightness was but the reflectionOf then* exchanging glances of affection.
XIV.
The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch,
The least glance better understood than words,Which still said all, and ne’er could say too much;
A language, too, but like to that of birds,
Known but to them, at least appearing such,
As but to lovers a true sense affords;
Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurdTo those who have ceas’d to hear such, or ne'erheard.
xv.
All these were theirs, for they were children still,And children still they should have ever been:They were not made in the real world to fillA busy character in the dull scene,
But like two beings born from out a rill,
A nymph and her beloved, all unseenTo pass their lives in fountains and on flowers,And never know the weight of human hours.
XVI.
Moons changing had roll'd on, and changelcslfound
Those their bright rise had lighted to such joysAs rarely they behold throughout their round;
And these were not of the vain kind which cloy4For theirs were buoyant spirits, never boundBy the mere senses; and that which destroysMost love, possession, unto them appear’dA thing which each endearment more endear’d.
xvir.
Oh beautiful! and rare as beautiful!
But theirs was love in which the mind delightsTo lose itself, when the old world grows dull.
And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights,Intrigues, adventures of the common school,
Its petty passions, marriages, and flights.
Where Hymen’s torch but brands one strumpe*more,
Whose husband only knows her not a wh—re.XVIII.
Hard words; harsh truth; a truth which manyknow.
Enough.—The faithful and the fairy pair,
Who never found a single hour too slow,
What was it made them thus exempt from care?Young innate feelings all have felt below,
Which perish in the rest, but in them wereInherent; what we mortals call romantic,
And always envy, though we deem it frantic.
XIX.
This is in others a factitious state,
An opium-dream of too much youth and reading*But was in them their nature or their fate:
No novels e’er had set their young hearts bleed-ing;
For Haidee’s knowledge was by no means great,And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding;
So that there was no reason foT their lovesMore than for those of nightingales or doves.
xx. .
They gazed upon the sunset; 'tis an hourDear unto all, but dearest to their eyes,
For it had made them what they were: the powerOf love had first o’erwhelm’d them from suchskies,