XIII.
This were the worst desertion:--renegadoes, Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,[jx]
Would scarcely join again the "reformadoes,"[530]
Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate"s sty; And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes, Whether in Caledon or Italy, Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize To pain, the moment when you cease to please.
XIV.
The lawyer and the critic but behold The baser sides of literature and life, And nought remains unseen, but much untold, By those who scour those double vales of strife.
While common men grow ignorantly old, The lawyer"s brief is like the surgeon"s knife, Dissecting the whole inside of a question, And with it all the process of digestion.
XV.[531]
A legal broom"s a moral chimney-sweeper, And that"s the reason he himself"s so dirty; The endless soot[532] bestows a tint far deeper Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper, At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty, In all their habits;--not so _you_, I own; As Caesar wore his robe you wear your gown.[533]
XVI.
And all our little feuds, at least all _mine_, Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe (As far as rhyme and criticism combine To make such puppets of us things below), Are over: Here"s a health to "Auld Lang Syne!"
I do not know you, and may never know Your face--but you have acted on the whole Most n.o.bly, and I own it from my soul.
XVII.
And when I use the phrase of "Auld Lang Syne!"
"T is not addressed to you--the more"s the pity For me, for I would rather take my wine With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city: But somehow--it may seem a schoolboy"s whine, And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty, But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,--[534]
XVIII.
As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all,[535]
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams, The Dee--the Don--Balgounie"s brig"s _black wall_--[536]
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams Of what I _then dreamt_, clothed in their own pall,-- Like Banquo"s offspring--floating past me seems My childhood, in this childishness of mine:-- I care not--"t is a glimpse of "_Auld Lang Syne_."
XIX.
And though, as you remember, in a fit Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly, I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit, Which must be owned was sensitive and surly, Yet "t is in vain such sallies to permit, They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early: I "_scotched_ not killed" the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of "mountain and of flood."[537]
XX.
Don Juan, who was real, or ideal,-- For both are much the same, since what men think Exists when the once thinkers are less real Than what they thought, for Mind can never sink, And "gainst the Body makes a strong appeal; And yet "t is very puzzling on the brink Of what is called Eternity to stare, And know no more of what is _here_, than _there_;--
XXI.
Don Juan grew a very polished Russian-- _How_ we won"t mention, _why_ we need not say: Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion Of any slight temptation in their way; But _his_ just now were spread as is a cushion Smoothed for a Monarch"s seat of honour: gay Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money, Made ice seem Paradise, and winter sunny.
XXII.
The favour of the Empress was agreeable; And though the duty waxed a little hard, Young people at his time of life should be able To come off handsomely in that regard.
He was now growing up like a green tree, able For Love, War, or Ambition, which reward Their luckier votaries, till old Age"s tedium Make some prefer the circulating medium.
XXIII.
About this time, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, Seduced by Youth and dangerous examples, Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated; Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples On our fresh feelings, but--as being partic.i.p.ated With all kinds of incorrigible samples Of frail humanity--must make us selfish, And shut our souls up in us like a sh.e.l.l-fish.
XXIV.
This we pa.s.s over. We will also pa.s.s The usual progress of intrigues between Unequal matches, such as are, alas!
A young Lieutenant"s with a _not old_ Queen, But one who is not so youthful as she was In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.[jy]
Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter, And wrinkles, the d----d democrats! won"t flatter.
XXV.
And Death, the Sovereign"s Sovereign, though the great Gracchus of all mortality, who levels, With his _Agrarian_ laws,[538] the high estate Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels, To one small gra.s.s-grown patch (which must await Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils Who never had a foot of land till now,-- Death"s a reformer--all men must allow.
XXVI.
He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter, In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry-- Which (though I hate to say a thing that"s bitter) Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry, Through all the "purple and fine linen," fitter For Babylon"s than Russia"s royal harlot-- And neutralise her outward show of scarlet.
XXVII.
And this same state we won"t describe: we would Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection: But getting nigh grim Dante"s "obscure wood,"[539]
That horrid equinox, that hateful section Of human years--that half-way house--that rude Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circ.u.mspection[jz]
Life"s sad post-horses o"er the dreary frontier Of Age, and looking back to Youth, give _one_ tear;--
XXVIII.
I won"t describe,--that is, if I can help Description; and I won"t reflect,--that is, If I can stave off thought, which--as a whelp Clings to its teat--sticks to me through the abyss Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp Holds by the rock; or as a lover"s kiss Drains its first draught of lips:--but, as I said, I _won"t_ philosophise, and _will_ be read.
XXIX.
Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted,-- A thing which happens rarely: this he owed Much to his youth, and much to his reported Valour; much also to the blood he showed, Like a race-horse; much to each dress he sported, Which set the beauty off in which he glowed, As purple clouds befringe the sun; but most He owed to an old woman and his post.
x.x.x.
He wrote to Spain;--and all his near relations, Perceiving he was in a handsome way Of getting on himself, and finding stations For cousins also, answered the same day.
Several prepared themselves for emigrations; And eating ices, were o"erheard to say, That with the addition of a slight pelisse, Madrid"s and Moscow"s climes were of a piece.
x.x.xI.
His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too, That in the lieu of drawing on his banker, Where his a.s.sets were waxing rather few, He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,-- Replied, "that she was glad to see him through Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker; As the sole sign of Man"s being in his senses Is--learning to reduce his past expenses.[ka]
x.x.xII.
"She also recommended him to G.o.d, And no less to G.o.d"s Son, as well as Mother, Warned him against Greek worship, which looks odd In Catholic eyes; but told him, too, to smother _Outward_ dislike, which don"t look well abroad; Informed him that he had a little brother Born in a second wedlock; and above All, praised the Empress"s _maternal_ love.
x.x.xIII.
"She could not too much give her approbation Unto an Empress, who preferred young men Whose age, and what was better still, whose nation And climate, stopped all scandal (now and then);-- At home it might have given her some vexation; But where thermometers sink down to ten, Or five, or one, or zero, she could never Believe that Virtue thawed before the river."[kb]
x.x.xIV.
Oh for a _forty-parson power_[540]--to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise! Oh for trump of Cherubim!