432

BYRON'S WORKS.

xxr.

“ Haud ignaraloquor these are Nugce, “ quorumPars parva fui" but still art and part.

Now 1 could much more easily sketch a harem,

A battle, wreck, or history of the heart,

Than these things; and, besides, I wish to spare’em,

For reasons which I choose to keep apart.

“ Vetabo Cereris sa'rum qu% vulgar it "—

Which means that vulgar people must not shareit.

xxn.

And therefore what I throw off is ideal—

Lower'd, leaven'd, like a history of freemasons;Which bears the samo relation to the real,

As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason’s.The grand arcauum’s not lor men to see all;

My music has some mystic diapasons:

And there is much which could not be appreciatedIn any manner by the uninitiated.

XXIII.

Alas! worlds fall—and woman, since she fell’dThe world (as, since that history, less politoThan true, hath been a creed so strictly held)

Has not yot given up the practice quite.

Poor thing of usages 1 coerc'd, compell'd.

Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,Condemn'd to child-bcd, as men, for their sins,Have shaving, too, entail'd upon their chins,—

XXIV.

A daily plague which, in the aggregate,

May average, on the whole, the parturition;

But as to women, who can penetrateThe real sufferings of their she condition?

Man’s very sympathy with their estateHas much of selllshness and more suspicion.Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,

But form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.

XXV.

All this were very well, and can’t be better;

But even this is difficult. Heaven kuows!

So many troubles, front her birth, beset her,

Such small distinction between friends and foes,The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter.

That-but ask any woman if she’d choose,

(Take her at thirty, that is) to have beenFemale or male ? a school-boy or a queen ?

XXVI.

* Petticoat influence” is a great reproach,

Which even those who obey would fain bethought

To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;

But since beneath it, upon earth , .wo arebrought,

By various joltings of life’s hackney coach,

L for one, venerate a petticoat—

A garment of a mystical sublimity,

No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.

xxvil. I

Much I respect, and much I have ador’d,

In my youug days, that chaste and goodly veil* iWhich holds a treasure, like a miser's hoard, 'And more attracts by all it doth conceal— i

A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword, '

A loving letter with a mystic seal, |

A cure for grief—for what can ever rankloBefore a petticoat and peeping ankle ?

xxviii. i

And when, upon a silent, sullen day,

With a sirocco, for example, blowing.

When even the sea looks dim with all its sprav,

And sulkily the river’s ripple’s flowing,

And the sky shows that very ancient grey,

The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,—

'Tis pleasant, if then .anything is pleasant,

To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.

XXIX.

We left our heroes and our heroiuesIn that fair elimo which don't depend oncli'mate.

Quite independent of the Zodiac 's signs, |

Though eertaiuly more difficult to rhyme at, !Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines,Mountains , and ail we can be most sublime at,

Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun —

Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.

XXX.

An in-door life is less poetical;

And out-of-door hath showers, and mists,sleet.

With which I could not brew’ a pastoral: ^

But, be it as it may. a bard must meet i

All difficulties, whether great or small.

To spoil his undertaking or complete; f

And work away, like spirit upon matter,Embarrass'd somewhat both with lire aud water. 1

I

XXXT. |

Juan—in this respect, at least, like saints,—

Was all things unto people of all soits,

And liv'd contentedly, without complaints, j

In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts— j

Born with that happy soul which seldom faints, I

And mingling modestly in toils or sports. i

He, likewise, could bo most things to all women,Without the-coxcombry of certain she men. ’

XXXII.

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange :

'Tis also subject to the double dangerOf tumbling first, and having, in exchange,

Some pleasant jesting at the awkward strangersBut Juan had been early taught to rangeThe wilds, as doth au Arab turn’d avenger.

So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,

Knew that he had a rider on his back.

xxxiii.

And now in this new field, with some applause,

He clear’d hedge, ditch, aud double post, afldrail.

And never cran'd,* and made but few "favx pas."And only fretted when the scent *gan fail.

* Craning —“ To crane," is, or was, an expression used to denote a gentleman stretching out his neckover a hedge, “ to look before he leaped—a pause in his “ vaulting ambition.” which in the field dothoccasion some delay and execration in those who maybe immediately behind the equestrian scepH 0 *