A voice of no great compass, and not sweet: He always is complaining of his lot,

Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the street; In lovers' parts his passion more to breathe, Having no heart to show, he shows his teeth."

XC.

Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital

Was interrupted by the pirate crew,

Who came at stated moments to invite all

The captives back to their sad births; each threw A rueful glance upon the waves (which bright all From the blue skies derived a double blue; Dancing all free and happy in the sun),

And then went down the hatchway one by one.

XCI.

They heard next day-that in the Dardanelles,
Waiting for his sublimity's firman,
The most imperative of sovereign spells,
Which every body does without who can,
More to secure them in their naval cells,
Lady to lady, well as man to man,
Were to be chain'd and lotted out per couple,
For the slave, market of Constantinople.

XCII.

It seems when this allotment was made out,
There chanced to be an odd male and odd female,
Who (after some discussion and some doubt,
If the soprano might be doom'd to be male,
They placed him o'er the woman as a scout)
Were link'd together, and it happen'd the male
Was Juan, who, an awkward thing at his age,
Pair'd off with a Bacchante blooming visage.

XCIII.

With Raucocanti lucklessly was chain'd

The tenor; these two hated with a hate Found only on the stage, and each more pain'd With this his tuneful neighbour than his fate; for they were so cross-grain'd,

Sad strife arose,

Instead of bearing up without debate,

That each pull'd different ways with many an oath, "Arcades ambo," id est-blackguards both.

XCIV.

Juan's companion was a Romagnole,

But bred within the March of old Ancona, With eyes that look'd into the very soul

(And other chief points of a "bella donna”), Bright-and as black and burning as a coal;

And through her clear brunette complexion shone a Great wish to please-a most attractive dower, Especially when added to the power.

XCV.

But all that power was wasted upon him,
For sorrow o'er each sense held stern command;
Her eye might flash on his, but found it dim,
And though thus chain'd, as natural, her hand
Touch'd his, nor that-nor any handsome limb
(And she had some not easy to withstand)
Could stir his pulse, or make his faith feel brittle;
Perhaps his recent wounds might help a little.

XCVI.

No matter: we should ne'er too much inquire,

But facts are facts, no knight could be more true, And firmer faith no lady-love desire;

We will omit the proofs, save one or two,

'Tis said no one in hand "can hold a fire

By thought of frosty Caucasus," but few
I really think: yet Juan's then ordeal.
Was more triumphant, and not much less real.

XCVII.

Here I might enter on a chaste description,
Having withstood temptation in my youth,
But hear that several people take exception
At the first two books having too much truth;
Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave the ship soon,
Because the publisher declares, in sooth,
Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is
To pass, than those two cantos into families.

XCVIII.

'Tis all the same to me; I'm fond of yielding, And therefore leave them to the purer page Of Smollet, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding,

Who say strange things for so correct an age; I once had great alacrity in wielding

My pen, and lik'd poetic war to wage,

And recollect the time when all this cant
Would have provok'd remarks which now it shan't.

ХСІХ.

As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a squabble; But at this hour I wish to part in peace, Leaving such to the literary rable,

Whether my verse's fame be doom'd to cease, While the right hand which wrote it is still able, Or of some centuries to take a lease;

The grass upon my grave will grow as long,
And sigh to midnight winds, but not to song.

C.

Of poets who come down to us through distance
Of time and tongues, the foster-babes of Fame,
Life seems the smallest portion of existence;

Where twenty ages gather o'er a name,
'Tis as a snowball which derives assistance
From every flake, and yet rolls on the same,
Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow,
But after all 'tis nothing but cold snow.

CI.

And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory's but an airy lust,

Too often in its fury overcoming all

Who would as 'twere identify their dust, From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, Leaves nothing till the coming of the justSave change; I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome.

CII.

The very generations of the dead

Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb, Until the memory of an age is fled,

And, buried, sinks beneath its offspring's doom; Where are the epitaphs our fathers read?

Save a few glean'd from the sepulchral gloom Which once-named myriads nameless lie beneath, And lose their own in universal death.

CIII.

I canter by the spot each afternoon

Where perish'd in his fame the hero-boy, Who lived too long for men, but died too soon For human vanity, the young De Foix!

A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn,

But which neglect is hastening to destroy, Records Ravenna's carnage on its face,

While weeds and ordure rankle round the base.*

CIV.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust, but reverence here is paid

To the bard's tomb, and not the warrior's column The time must come, when both alike decay'd,

The chieftain's trophy, and the poet's volume, Will sink where lies the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth.

With human blood that column was cemented,
With human filth that column is defiled;
As if the peasant's coarse contempt were vented
To show his loathing of the spot he soil'd;
Thus is the trophy used, and thus lamented

Should ever be those blood-hounds, from whose wld
Instinct of gore and glory earth has known
Those sufferings Dante saw in hell alone.

CVI.

Yet there will still be bards; though fame is smoke,
Its fumes are frankinscence to human thought;
And the unquiet feelings, which first woke

Song in the world, will seek what then they sought;

*The pillar which records the battle of Ravenna is about two miles from the city, on the opposite side of the river to the road towards Forli. Gaston de Foix, who gained the battle, was kill'd in it; there fell on both sides twenty thousand men. The present state of the pillar and its site is described in the text.