from Canto I

91

He, Juan, (and not Wordsworth) so pursued
     His self-communion with his own high soul,
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
     Had mitigated part, though not the whole
Of its disease; he did the best he could
     With things not very subject to control,
And turn’d, without perceiving his condition,
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.

92

He thought about himself, and the whole earth,
     Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,
And how the deuce they ever could have birth;
     And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,
How many miles the moon might have in girth,
     Of air-balloons, and of the many bars
To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;
And then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.

93

In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern
     Longings sublime, and aspirations high,
Which some are born with, but the most part learn
     To plague themselves withal, they know not why:
‘Twas strange that one so young should thus concern
     His brain about the action of the sky;
If you think ‘twas philosophy that this did,
I can’t help thinking puberty assisted.

94

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
     And heard a voice in all the winds; and then
He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers,
     And how the goddesses came down to men:
He miss’d the pathway, he forgot the hours,
     And when he look’d upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner—
He also found that he had lost his dinner.

95

Sometimes he turn’d to gaze upon his book,
    Boscan, or Garcilasso;—by the wind
Even as the page is rustled while we look,
     So by the poesy of his own mind
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,
     As if ‘twere one whereon magicians bind
Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,
According to some good old woman’s tale.

96

Thus would he while his lonely hours away
     Dissatisfied, nor knowing what he wanted;
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet’s lay,
     Could yield his spirit that for which it panted,
A bosom whereon he his head might lay,
     And hear the heart beat with the love it granted,
With—several other things, which I forget,
Or which, at least, I need not mention yet.

97

Those lonely walks, and lengthening reveries,
     Could not escape the gentle Julia’s eyes;
She saw that Juan was not at his ease;
     But that which chiefly may, and must surprise,
Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease
     Her only son with question or surmise;
Whether it was she did not see, or would not,
Or, like all very clever people, could not.

98

This may seem strange, but yet ‘tis very common;
     For instance—gentlemen, whose ladies take
Leave to o’erstep the written rights of woman,
     And break the—Which commandment is’t they break?
(I have forgot the number, and think no man
    Should rashly quote, for fear of a mistake.)
I say, when these same gentlemen are jealous,
They make some blunder, which their ladies tell us.

99

A real husband always is suspicious,
     But still no less suspects in the wrong place,
Jealous of some one who had no such wishes,
     Or pandering blindly to his own disgrace
By harbouring some dear friend extremely vicious;
    The last indeed’s infallibly the case:
And when the spouse and friend are gone off wholly,
He wonders at their vice, and not his folly.

100

Thus parents also are at times short-sighted;
     Though watchful as the lynx, they ne’er discover,
The while the wicked world beholds delighted,
     Young Hopeful’s mistress, or Miss Fanny’s lover,
Till some confounded escapade has blighted
     The plan of twenty years, and all is over;
And then the mother cries, the father swears,
And wonders why the devil he got heirs.