Oh, Wellington! (or “Villainton”730⁠—for Fame731
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punned it down to this facetious phrase⁠—
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,)
You have obtained great pensions and much praise:
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,
Humanity would rise, and thunder “Nay!”732

I don’t think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinèt’s affair733⁠—in fact, ’twas shabby,
And like some other things won’t do to tell
Upon your tomb in Westminster’s old Abbey.
Upon the rest ’tis not worth while to dwell,
Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby;734
But though your years as man tend fast to zero,
In fact your Grace is still but a young Hero.

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more:
You have repaired Legitimacy’s crutch,
A prop not quite so certain as before:
The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor
(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).

You are “the best of cut-throats:”735⁠—do not start;
The phrase is Shakespeare’s, and not misapplied:⁠—
War’s a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,
Unless her cause by right be sanctified.
If you have acted once a generous part,
The World, not the World’s masters, will decide,
And I shall be delighted to learn who,
Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?

I am no flatterer⁠—you’ve supped full of flattery:736
They say you like it too⁠—’tis no great wonder.
He whose whole life has been assault and battery,
At last may get a little tired of thunder;
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder,
Called “Saviour of the Nations”⁠—not yet saved⁠—
And “Europe’s Liberator”⁠—still enslaved.737

I’ve done. Now go and dine from off the plate
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,
And send the sentinel before your gate
A slice or two from your luxurious meals:738
He fought, but has not fed so well of late.
Some hunger, too, they say the people feels:⁠—
There is no doubt that you deserve your ration,
But pray give back a little to the nation.

I don’t mean to reflect⁠—a man so great as
You, my lord Duke! is far above reflection:
The high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus,
With modern history has but small connection:
Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,
You need not take them under your direction;
And half a million for your Sabine farm
Is rather dear!⁠—I’m sure I mean no harm.

Great men have always scorned great recompenses:
Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,
Not leaving even his funeral expenses:739
George Washington had thanks, and nought beside,
Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men’s is)
To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,
And as a high-souled Minister of state is
Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis.740

Never had mortal man such opportunity,
Except Napoleon, or abused it more:
You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity
Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore:
And now⁠—what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?
Now⁠—that the rabble’s first vain shouts are o’er?
Go! hear it in your famished country’s cries!
Behold the World! and curse your victories!

As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe741
Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,
But which ’tis time to teach the hireling tribe
Who fatten on their country’s gore, and debts,
Must be recited⁠—and without a bribe.
You did great things, but not being great in mind,
Have left undone the greatest⁠—and mankind.

Death laughs⁠—Go ponder o’er the skeleton
With which men image out the unknown thing
That hides the past world, like to a set sun
Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring⁠—
Death laughs at all you weep for!⁠—look upon
This hourly dread of all! whose threatened sting
Turns Life to terror, even though in its sheath:
Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!
And yet was what you are; from ear to ear
It laughs not⁠—there is now no fleshy bar
So called; the Antic long hath ceased to hear,
But still he smiles; and whether near or far,
He strips from man that mantle (far more dear
Than even the tailor’s), his incarnate skin,742
White, black, or copper⁠—the dead bones will grin.

And thus Death laughs⁠—it is sad merriment,
But still it is so; and with such example
Why should not Life be equally content
With his Superior, in a smile to trample
Upon the nothings which are daily spent
Like bubbles on an Ocean much less ample
Than the Eternal Deluge, which devours
Suns as rays⁠—worlds like atoms⁠—years like hours?

“To be, or not to be? that is the question,”
Says Shakespeare,743 who just now is much in fashion.
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion,
Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion;
But would much rather have a sound digestion
Than Bonaparte’s cancer:⁠—could I dash on
Through fifty victories to shame or fame⁠—
Without a stomach what were a good name?

“O dura ilia messorum!”744⁠—“Oh
Ye rigid guts of reapers!” I translate745
For the great benefit of those who know
What indigestion is⁠—that inward fate
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.
A peasant’s sweat is worth his lord’s estate:
Let this one toil for bread⁠—that rack for rent,
He who sleeps best may be the most content.

“To be, or not to be?”⁠—Ere I decide,
I should be glad to know that which is being.
’Tis true we speculate both far and wide,
And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing:
For my part, I’ll enlist on neither side,
Until I see both sides for once agreeing.
For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,
Rather than Life a mere affair of breath.

“Que scais-je”746 was the motto of Montaigne,
As also of the first academicians:
That all is dubious which man may attain,
Was one of their most favourite positions.
There’s no such thing as certainty, that’s plain
As any of Mortality’s conditions;
So little do we know what we’re about in
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,
Like Pyrrho,747 on a sea of speculation;
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?
Your wise men don’t know much of navigation;
And swimming long in the abyss of thought
Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station
Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers
Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.

“But Heaven,” as Cassio says, “is above all⁠—748
No more of this, then, let us pray!” We have
Souls to save, since Eve’s slip and Adam’s fall,
Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,
Besides fish, beasts, and birds. “The sparrow’s fall
Is special providence,”749 though how it gave
Offence, we know not; probably it perched
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched.

Oh! ye immortal Gods! what is Theogony?
Oh! thou, too, mortal man! what is Philanthropy?
Oh! World, which was and is, what is Cosmogony?
Some people have accused me of Misanthropy;
And yet I know no more than the mahogany
That forms this desk, of what they mean;⁠—Lycanthropy750
I comprehend, for without transformation
Men become wolves on any slight occasion.

But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind,
Like Moses, or Melancthon,751 who have ne’er752
Done anything exceedingly unkind⁠—
And (though I could not now and then forbear
Following the bent of body or of mind)
Have always had a tendency to spare⁠—
Why do they call me Misanthrope? Because
They hate me, not I them:⁠—and here we’ll pause.

’Tis time we should proceed with our good poem⁠—
For I maintain that it is really good,
Not only in the body but the proem,
However little both are understood
Just now⁠—but by and by the Truth will show ’em
Herself in her sublimest attitude:
And till she doth, I fain must be content
To share her beauty and her banishment.

Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader! yours)
Was left upon his way to the chief city
Of the immortal Peter’s polished boors,
Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.
I know its mighty Empire now allures
Much flattery⁠—even Voltaire’s,753 and that’s a pity.
For me, I deem an absolute autocrat
Not a barbarian, but much worse than that.

And I will war, at least in words (and⁠—should
My chance so happen⁠—deeds), with all who war
With Thought;⁠—and of Thought’s foes by far most rude,
Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.
I know not who may conquer: if I could
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar
To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every despotism in every nation.754

It is not that I adulate the people:
Without me, there are demagogues enough,755
And infidels, to pull down every steeple,
And set up in their stead some proper stuff.
Whether they may sow scepticism to reap Hell,
As is the Christian dogma rather rough,
I do not know;⁠—I wish men to be free
As much from mobs as kings⁠—from you as me.

The consequence is, being of no party,
I shall offend all parties:⁠—never mind!
My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty
Than if I sought to sail before the wind.
He who has nought to gain can have small art: he
Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,
May still expatiate freely, as will I,
Nor give my voice to slavery’s jackal cry.756

That’s an appropriate simile, that jackal;⁠—
I’ve heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl757
By night, as do that mercenary pack all,
Power’s base purveyors, who for pickings prowl,
And scent the prey their masters would attack all.
However, the poor jackals are less foul
(As being the brave lions’ keen providers)
Than human insects, catering for spiders.758

Raise but an arm! ’twill brush their web away,
And without that, their poison and their claws
Are useless. Mind, good people! what I say⁠—
(Or rather Peoples)⁠—go on without pause!
The web of these Tarantulas each day
Increases, till you shall make common cause:
None, save the Spanish Fly and Attic Bee,
As yet are strongly stinging to be free.759

Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter,
Was left upon his way with the despatch,
Where blood was talked of as we would of water;
And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch
O’er silenced cities, merely served to flatter
Fair Catherine’s pastime⁠—who looked on the match
Between these nations as a main of cocks,
Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.

And there in a kibitka he rolled on,
(A cursèd sort of carriage without springs,
Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone,)
Pondering on Glory, Chivalry, and Kings,
And Orders, and on all that he had done⁠—
And wishing that post-horses had the wings
Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises
Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is.

At every jolt⁠—and they were many⁠—still
He turned his eyes upon his little charge,
As if he wished that she should fare less ill
Than he, in these sad highways left at large
To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature’s skill,
Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge
On her canals, where God takes sea and land,
Fishery and farm, both into his own hand.

At least he pays no rent, and has best right
To be the first of what we used to call
“Gentlemen farmers”⁠—a race worn out quite,
Since lately there have been no rents at all,
And “gentlemen” are in a piteous plight,
And “farmers” can’t raise Ceres from her fall:
She fell with Bonaparte,760⁠—What strange thoughts
Arise, when we see Emperors fall with oats!

But Juan turned his eyes on the sweet child
Whom he had saved from slaughter⁠—what a trophy
Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled
With gore, like Nadir Shah,761 that costive Sophy,
Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild,
And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee
To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!
Because he could no more digest his dinner;⁠—762763

Oh ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect,
That one life saved, especially if young
Or pretty, is a thing to recollect
Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung
From the manure of human clay, though decked
With all the praises ever said or sung:
Though hymned by every harp, unless within
Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din.

Oh! ye great authors luminous, voluminous!
Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes!
Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us!
Whether you’re paid by government in bribes,
To prove the public debt is not consuming us⁠—
Or, roughly treading on the “courtier’s kibes”
With clownish heel764 your popular circulation
Feeds you by printing half the realm’s starvation;⁠—

Oh, ye great authors!⁠—À propos des bottes,⁠—
I have forgotten what I meant to say,
As sometimes have been greater sages’ lots;⁠—
’Twas something calculated to allay
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:
Certes it would have been but thrown away,
And that’s one comfort for my lost advice,
Although no doubt it was beyond all price.

But let it go:⁠—it will one day be found
With other relics of “a former World,”
When this World shall be former, underground,
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,
Baked, fried, or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled
First out of, and then back again to chaos⁠—
The superstratum which will overlay us.765

So Cuvier says:766⁠—and then shall come again
Unto the new creation, rising out
From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain
Of things destroyed and left in airy doubt;
Like to the notions we now entertain
Of Titans, giants, fellows of about
Some hundred feet in height, not to say miles,
And mammoths, and your wingèd crocodiles.

Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up!767
How the new worldlings of the then new East
Will wonder where such animals could sup!
(For they themselves will be but of the least:
Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup,
And every new creation hath decreased
In size, from overworking the material⁠—
Men are but maggots of some huge Earth’s burial.)

How will⁠—to these young people, just thrust out
From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough,
And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about,
And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow,
Till all the arts at length are brought about,
Especially of War and taxing⁠—how,
I say, will these great relics, when they see ’em,
Look like the monsters of a new Museum!

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical:
“The time is out of joint,”768⁠—and so am I;
I quite forget this poem’s merely quizzical,
And deviate into matters rather dry.
I ne’er decide what I shall say, and this I call769
Much too poetical: men should know why
They write, and for what end; but, note or text,
I never know the word which will come next.

So on I ramble, now and then narrating,
Now pondering:⁠—it is time we should narrate.
I left Don Juan with his horses baiting⁠—
Now we’ll get o’er the ground at a great rate:
I shall not be particular in stating
His journey, we’ve so many tours of late:
Suppose him then at Petersburgh; suppose
That pleasant capital of painted snows;770

Suppose him in a handsome uniform⁠—
A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume,
Waving, like sails new shivered in a storm,
Over a cocked hat in a crowded room,
And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme,
Of yellow casimire we may presume,
White stockings drawn uncurdled as new milk
O’er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk;771

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand,
Made up by Youth, Fame, and an army tailor⁠—
That great enchanter, at whose rod’s command
Beauty springs forth, and Nature’s self turns paler,
Seeing how Art can make her work more grand
(When she don’t pin men’s limbs in like a gaoler)⁠—
Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He772
Seems Love turned a Lieutenant of Artillery!773

His bandage slipped down into a cravat⁠—
His wings subdued to epaulettes⁠—his quiver
Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at
His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever⁠—
His bow converted into a cocked hat⁠—
But still so like, that Psyche were more clever
Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid),
If she had not mistaken him for Cupid.

The courtiers stared, the ladies whispered, and
The Empress smiled: the reigning favourite frowned⁠—774
I quite forget which of them was in hand
Just then, as they are rather numerous found,775
Who took, by turns, that difficult command
Since first her Majesty was singly crowned:776
But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows,
All fit to make a Patagonian jealous.

Juan was none of these, but slight and slim,
Blushing and beardless; and, yet, ne’ertheless,
There was a something in his turn of limb,
And still more in his eye, which seemed to express,
That, though he looked one of the Seraphim,
There lurked a man beneath the Spirit’s dress.
Besides, the Empress sometimes liked a boy,
And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi.777778

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff,779
Or Scherbatoff, or any other off
Or on, might dread her Majesty had not room enough
Within her bosom (which was not too tough),
For a new flame; a thought to cast of gloom enough
Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough,
Of him who, in the language of his station,
Then held that “high official situation.”

O gentle ladies! should you seek to know
The import of this diplomatic phrase,
Bid Ireland’s Londonderry’s Marquess780 show
His parts of speech, and in the strange displays
Of that odd string of words, all in a row,
Which none divine, and every one obeys,
Perhaps you may pick out some queer no meaning⁠—
Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning.

I think I can explain myself without
That sad inexplicable beast of prey⁠—
That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt,
Did not his deeds unriddle them each day⁠—
That monstrous hieroglyphic⁠—that long spout
Of blood and water⁠—leaden Castlereagh!
And here I must an anecdote relate,
But luckily of no great length or weight.

An English lady asked of an Italian,
What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing some women set a value on,
Which hovers oft about some married beauties,
Called “Cavalier Servente?”781⁠—a Pygmalion
Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true ’tis)
Beneath his art:782⁠—the dame, pressed to disclose them,
Said⁠—“Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.”

And thus I supplicate your supposition,
And mildest, matron-like interpretation,
Of the imperial favourite’s condition.
’Twas a high place, the highest in the nation
In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion
Of any one’s attaining to his station,
No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,
If rather broad, made stocks rise⁠—and their holders.

Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy,
And had retained his boyish look beyond
The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,
With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond
Parisian aspect, which upset old Troy
And founded Doctors’ Commons:783⁠—I have conned
The history of divorces, which, though chequered,
Calls Ilion’s the first damages on record.

And Catherine, who loved all things (save her Lord,
Who was gone to his place), and passed for much,
Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorred)
Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch
Of sentiment: and he she most adored
Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such
A lover as had cost her many a tear,
And yet but made a middling grenadier.

Oh thou “teterrima causa” of all “belli”⁠—784
Thou gate of Life and Death⁠—thou nondescript!
Whence is our exit and our entrance⁠—well I
May pause in pondering how all souls are dipped
In thy perennial fountain:⁠—how man fell I
Know not, since Knowledge saw her branches stripped
Of her first fruit; but how he falls and rises
Since⁠—thou hast settled beyond all surmises.

Some call thee “the worst cause of War,” but I
Maintain thou art the best:⁠—for after all,
From thee we come, to thee we go, and why
To get at thee not batter down a wall,
Or waste a World? since no one can deny
Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:
With⁠—or without thee⁠—all things at a stand785
Are, or would be, thou sea of Life’s dry land!786

Catherine, who was the grand Epitome
Of that great cause of War, or Peace, or what
You please (it causes all the things which be,
So you may take your choice of this or that)⁠—
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see
The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat787
Victory; and, pausing as she saw him kneel
With his despatch, forgot to break the seal.

Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor
Forgetting quite the Woman (which composed
At least three parts of this great whole), she tore
The letter open with an air which posed
The Court, that watched each look her visage wore,
Until a royal smile at length disclosed
Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.788

Great joy was hers, or rather joys: the first
Was a ta’en city, thirty thousand slain:
Glory and triumph o’er her aspect burst,
As an East Indian sunrise on the main:⁠—
These quenched a moment her Ambition’s thirst⁠—
So Arab deserts drink in Summer’s rain:
In vain!⁠—As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash Ambition’s hands!

Her next amusement was more fanciful;
She smiled at mad Suwarrow’s rhymes, who threw
Into a Russian couplet rather dull
The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew:
Her third was feminine enough to annul
The shudder which runs naturally through
Our veins, when things called Sovereigns think it best
To kill, and Generals turn it into jest.

The two first feelings ran their course complete,
And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth:
The whole court looked immediately most sweet,
Like flowers well watered after a long drouth:⁠—
But when on the Lieutenant at her feet
Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on youth
Almost as much as on a new despatch,
Glanced mildly⁠—all the world was on the watch.

Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent,
When wroth⁠—while pleased, she was as fine a figure
As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent,
Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.
She could repay each amatory look you lent
With interest, and, in turn, was wont with rigour
To exact of Cupid’s bills the full amount
At sight, nor would permit you to discount.

With her the latter, though at times convenient,
Was not so necessary; for they tell
That she was handsome, and though fierce looked lenient,
And always used her favourites too well.
If once beyond her boudoir’s precincts in ye went,
Your “fortune” was in a fair way “to swell
A man” (as Giles says);789 for though she would widow all
Nations, she liked Man as an individual.

What a strange thing is Man! and what a stranger
Is Woman! What a whirlwind is her head,
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her! Whether wed,
Or widow⁠—maid⁠—or mother, she can change her
Mind like the wind: whatever she has said
Or done, is light to what she’ll say or do;⁠—
The oldest thing on record, and yet new!

Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections,
To thee both oh! and ah! belong, of right,
In Love and War) how odd are the connections
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!
Just now yours were cut out in different sections:
First Ismail’s capture caught your fancy quite;
Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch:
And thirdly he who brought you the despatch!

Shakespeare talks of “the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:”790
And some such visions crossed her Majesty,
While her young herald knelt before her still.
’Tis very true the hill seemed rather high,
For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill
Smoothed even the Simplon’s steep, and by God’s blessing,
With Youth and Health all kisses are “Heaven-kissing.”

Her Majesty looked down, the youth looked up⁠—
And so they fell in love;⁠—she with his face,
His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid’s cup
With the first draught intoxicates apace,
A quintessential laudanum or “Black Drop,”
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base
Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye
In love drinks all Life’s fountains (save tears) dry.

He, on the other hand, if not in love,
Fell into that no less imperious passion,
Self-love⁠—which, when some sort of thing above
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,
Or Duchess⁠—Princess⁠—Empress, “deigns to prove”791
(’Tis Pope’s phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,
For one especial person out of many,
Make us believe ourselves as good as any.

Besides, he was of that delighted age
Which makes all female ages equal⁠—when
We don’t much care with whom we may engage,
As bold as Daniel in the lions’ den,
So that we can our native sun assuage
In the next ocean, which may flow just then⁠—
To make a twilight in, just as Sol’s heat is
Quenched in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis.

And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),
Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,
Because each lover looked a sort of King,
Made up upon an amatory pattern,
A royal husband in all save the ring⁠—792
Which, (being the damnedest part of matrimony,)
Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey:

And when you add to this, her Womanhood
In its meridian, her blue eyes793 or gray⁠—
(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,
Or better, as the best examples say:
Napoleon’s, Mary’s794 (Queen of Scotland), should
Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,
Too wise to look through optics black or blue)⁠—

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,795
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,
Her preference of a boy to men much bigger
(Fellows whom Messalina’s self would pension),
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,
With other extras, which we need not mention⁠—
All these, or any one of these, explain
Enough to make a stripling very vain.

And that’s enough, for Love is vanity,
Selfish in its beginning as its end,796
Except where ’tis a mere insanity,
A maddening spirit which would strive to blend
Itself with Beauty’s frail inanity,
On which the Passion’s self seems to depend;
And hence some heathenish philosophers
Make Love the main-spring of the Universe.

Besides Platonic love, besides the love
Of God, the love of sentiment, the
loving Of faithful pairs⁠—(I needs must rhyme with dove,
That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving
’Gainst reason⁠—Reason ne’er was hand-and-glove
With rhyme, but always leant less to improving
The sound than sense)⁠—besides all these pretences
To Love, there are those things which words name senses;

Those movements, those improvements in our bodies
Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,
For such all women are at first no doubt.797
How beautiful that moment! and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our sensations! What a curious way
The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!798

The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,
To end or to begin with; the next grand
Is that which may be christened love canonical,
Because the clergy take the thing in hand;
The third sort to be noted in our chronicle
As flourishing in every Christian land,
Is when chaste matrons to their other ties
Add what may be called marriage in disguise.

Well, we won’t analyse⁠—our story must
Tell for itself: the Sovereign was smitten,
Juan much flattered by her love, or lust;⁠—
I cannot stop to alter words once written,
And the two are so mixed with human dust,
That he who names one, both perchance may hit on:
But in such matters Russia’s mighty Empress
Behaved no better than a common sempstress.

The whole court melted into one wide whisper,
And all lips were applied unto all ears!
The elder ladies’ wrinkles curled much crisper
As they beheld; the younger cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper
Smiled as she talked the matter o’er; but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army who stood by.

All the ambassadors of all the powers
Inquired, Who was this very new young man,
Who promised to be great in some few hours?
Which is full soon (though Life is but a span).
Already they beheld the silver showers
Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,
Upon his cabinet, besides the presents
Of several ribbons, and some thousand peasants.800

Catherine was generous⁠—all such ladies are:
Love⁠—that great opener of the heart and all
The ways that lead there, be they near or far,
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small⁠—
Love⁠—(though she had a cursèd taste for War,
And was not the best wife unless we call
Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps ’tis better
That one should die⁠—than two drag on the fetter)⁠—

Love had made Catherine make each lover’s fortune,
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth,
Whose avarice all disbursements did importune,
If History, the grand liar, ever saith
The truth; and though grief her old age might shorten,
Because she put a favourite to death,
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,
And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station.

But when the levée rose, and all was bustle
In the dissolving circle, all the nations’
Ambassadors began as ’twere to hustle
Round the young man with their congratulations.
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle
Of gentle dames, among whose recreations
It is to speculate on handsome faces,
Especially when such lead to high places.

Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,
A general object of attention, made
His answers with a very graceful bow,
As if born for the ministerial trade.
Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow
Nature had written “Gentleman!” He said
Little, but to the purpose; and his manner
Flung hovering graces o’er him like a banner.

An order from her Majesty consigned
Our young Lieutenant to the genial care
Of those in office: all the world looked kind,
(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,
Which Youth would not act ill to keep in mind,)
As also did Miss Protasoff801 then there,802
Named from her mystic office “l’Éprouveuse,”
A term inexplicable to the Muse.

With her then, as in humble duty bound,
Juan retired⁠—and so will I, until
My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.
We have just lit on a “heaven-kissing hill,”
So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,
And all my fancies whirling like a mill;
Which is a signal to my nerves and brain,
To take a quiet ride in some green lane.803