Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (205 page)

LV

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, all
    
Selected for discretion and devotion,
There was the Donna Julia, whom to call
    
Pretty were but to give a feeble notion
Of many charms in her as natural
 
   
As sweetness to the flower, or salt to ocean,
Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid
(But this last simile is trite and stupid).

LVI

The darkness of her Oriental eye
    
Accorded with her Moorish origin
(Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by;
    
In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin);
When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly,
    
Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia’s kin
Some went to Africa, some stay’d in Spain,
Her great-great-grandmamma chose to remain.

LVII

She married (I forget the pedigree)
    
With an Hidalgo, who transmitted down
His blood less noble than such blood should be;
    
At such alliances his sires would frown,
In that point so precise in each degree
    
That they bred
in and in
, as might be shown,
Marrying their cousins — nay, their aunts, and nieces,
Which always spoils the breed, if it increases.

LVIII

This heathenish cross restored the breed again,
    
Ruin’d its blood, but much improved its flesh;
For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain
    
Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh;
The sons no more were short, the daughters plain:
    
But there’s a rumour which I fain would hush,
‘T is said that Donna Julia’s grandmamma
Produced her Don more heirs at love than law.

LIX

However this might be, the race went on
    
Improving still through every generation,
Until it centred in an only son,
    
Who left an only daughter; my narration
May have suggested that this single one
    
Could be but Julia (whom on this occasion
I shall have much to speak about), and she
Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

LX

Her eye (I’m very fond of handsome eyes)
    
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
    
Flash’d an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise
    
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled through and chasten’d down the whole.

LXI

Her glossy hair was cluster’d o’er a brow
    
Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;
Her eyebrow’s shape was like th’ aerial bow,
    
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
    
As if her veins ran lightning; she, in sooth,
Possess’d an air and grace by no means common:
Her stature tall — I hate a dumpy woman.

LXII

Wedded she was some years, and to a man
    
Of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;
And yet, I think, instead of such a
one
    
‘T were better to have
two
of five-and-twenty,
Especially in countries near the sun:
   
 
And now I think on ‘t, “
mi vien in mente
”,
Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty.

LXIII

‘T is a sad thing, I cannot choose but say,
    
And all the fault of that indecent sun,
Who cannot leave alone our helpless clay,
    
But will keep baking, broiling, burning on,
That howsoever people fast and pray,
    
The flesh is frail, and so the soul undone:
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.

LXIV

Happy the nations of the moral North!
    
Where all is virtue, and the winter season
Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering forth
    
(‘T was snow that brought St. Anthony to reason);
Where juries cast up what a wife is worth,
    
By laying whate’er sum in mulct they please on
The lover, who must pay a handsome price,
Because it is a marketable vice.

LXV

Alfonso was the name of Julia’s lord,
    
A man well looking for his years, and who
Was neither much beloved nor yet abhorr’d:
    
They lived together, as most people do,
Suffering each other’s foibles by accord,
    
And not exactly either
one
or
two
;
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

LXVI

Julia was — yet I never could see why —
    
With Donna Inez quite a favourite friend;
Between their tastes there was small sympathy,
    
For not a line had Julia ever penn’d:
Some people whisper but no doubt they lie,
    
For malice still imputes some private end)
That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso’s marriage,
Forgot with him her very prudent carriage;

LXVII

And that still keeping up the old connection,
    
Which time had lately render’d much more chaste,
She took his lady also in affection,
    
And certainly this course was much the best:
She flatter’d Julia with her sage protection,
    
And complimented Don Alfonso’s taste;
And if she could not (who can?) silence scandal,
At least she left it a more slender handle.

LXVIII

I can’t tell whether Julia saw the affair
    
With other people’s eyes, or if her own
Discoveries made, but none could be aware
    
Of this, at least no symptom e’er was shown;
Perhaps she did not know, or did not care,
    
Indifferent from the first or callous grown:
I’m really puzzled what to think or say,
She kept her counsel in so close a way.

LXIX

Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child,
    
Caress’d him often — such a thing might be
Quite innocently done, and harmless styled,
    
When she had twenty years, and thirteen he;
But I am not so sure I should have smiled
    
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three;
These few short years make wondrous alterations,
Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations.

LXX

Whate’er the cause might be, they had become
    
Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy,
Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb,
    
And much embarrassment in either eye;
There surely will be little doubt with some
    
That Donna Julia knew the reason why,
But as for Juan, he had no more notion
Than he who never saw the sea of ocean.

LXXI

Yet Julia’s very coldness still was kind,
    
And tremulously gentle her small hand
Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
    
A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland
And slight, so very slight, that to the mind
    
‘T was but a doubt; but ne’er magician’s wand
Wrought change with all Armida’s fairy art
Like what this light touch left on Juan’s heart.

LXXII

And if she met him, though she smiled no more,
    
She look’d a sadness sweeter than her smile,
As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store
    
She must not own, but cherish’d more the while
For that compression in its burning core;
    
Even innocence itself has many a wile,
And will not dare to trust itself with truth,
And love is taught hypocrisy from youth.

LXXIII

But passion most dissembles, yet betrays
    
Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays
    
Its workings through the vainly guarded eye,
And in whatever aspect it arrays
    
Itself, ‘t is still the same hypocrisy;
Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate,
Are masks it often wears, and still too late.

LXXIV

Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
    
And stolen glances, sweeter for the theft,
And burning blushes, though for no transgression,
    
Tremblings when met, and restlessness when left;
All these are little preludes to possession,
    
Of which young passion cannot be bereft,
And merely tend to show how greatly love is
Embarrass’d at first starting with a novice.

LXXV

Poor Julia’s heart was in an awkward state;
    
She felt it going, and resolved to make
The noblest efforts for herself and mate,
    
For honour’s, pride’s, religion’s, virtue’s sake;
Her resolutions were most truly great,
    
And almost might have made a Tarquin quake:
She pray’d the Virgin Mary for her grace,
As being the best judge of a lady’s case.

LXXVI

She vow’d she never would see Juan more,
    
And next day paid a visit to his mother,
And look’d extremely at the opening door,
    
Which, by the Virgin’s grace, let in another;
Grateful she was, and yet a little sore —
    
Again it opens, it can be no other,
‘T is surely Juan now — No! I’m afraid
That night the Virgin was no further pray’d.

LXXVII

She now determined that a virtuous woman
    
Should rather face and overcome temptation,
That flight was base and dastardly, and no man
    
Should ever give her heart the least sensation;
That is to say, a thought beyond the common
    
Preference, that we must feel upon occasion
For people who are pleasanter than others,
But then they only seem so many brothers.

LXXVIII

And even if by chance — and who can tell?
    
The devil’s so very sly — she should discover
That all within was not so very well,
    
And, if still free, that such or such a lover
Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife can quell
    
Such thoughts, and be the better when they’re over;
And if the man should ask, ‘t is but denial:
I recommend young ladies to make trial.

LXXIX

And then there are such things as love divine,
    
Bright and immaculate, unmix’d and pure,
Such as the angels think so very fine,
    
And matrons who would be no less secure,
Platonic, perfect, “just such love as mine;”
    
Thus Julia said — and thought so, to be sure;
And so I’d have her think, were I the man
On whom her reveries celestial ran.

LXXX

Such love is innocent, and may exist
    
Between young persons without any danger.
A hand may first, and then a lip be kist;
    
For my part, to such doings I’m a stranger,
But hear these freedoms form the utmost list
    
Of all o’er which such love may be a ranger:
If people go beyond, ‘t is quite a crime,
But not my fault — I tell them all in time.

LXXXI

Love, then, but love within its proper limits,
    
Was Julia’s innocent determination
In young Don Juan’s favour, and to him its
    
Exertion might be useful on occasion;
And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim its
    
Ethereal lustre, with what sweet persuasion
He might be taught, by love and her together —
I really don’t know what, nor Julia either.