from Canto II

131

And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best
     (A virgin always on her maid relies)
To place him in the cave for present rest:
     And when, at last, he open’d his black eyes,
Their charity increased about their guest;
     And their compassion grew to such a size,
It open’d half the turnpike-gates to heaven—
(St. Paul says ‘tis the toll which must be given).

132

They made a fire, but such a fire as they
     Upon the moment could contrive with such
Materials as were cast up round the bay,
     Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch
Were nearly tinder, since so long they lay
     A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch;
But, by God’s grace, here wrecks were in such plenty,
That there was fuel to have furnish’d twenty.

133

He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse,
     For Haide stripp’d her sables off to make
His couch; and, that he might be more at ease,
     And warm, in case by chance he should awake,
They also gave a petticoat apiece,
     She and her maid, and promised by day-break
To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish
For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish.

134

And thus they left him to his lone repose:
     Juan slept like a top, or like the dead,
Who sleep at last, perhaps, (God only knows)
     Just for the present; and in his lull’d head
Not even a vision of his former woes
    Throbb’d in accursed dreams, which sometimes spread
Unwelcome visions of our former years,
Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears.

135

Young Juan slept all dreamless:—but the maid,
     Who smooth’d his pillow, as she left the den
Look’d back upon him, and a moment staid,
     And turn’d, believing that he call’d again.
He slumber’d; yet she thought, at least she said,
     (The heart will slip even as the tongue and pen)
He had pronounced her name—but she forgot
That at this moment Juan knew it not.

136

And pensive to her father’s house she went,
     Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who
Better than her knew what, in fact, she meant,
     She being wiser by a year or two:
A year or two’s an age when rightly spent,
     And Zoe spent hers, as most women do,
In gaining all that useful sort of knowledge
Which is acquired in nature’s good old college.

137

The morn broke, and found Juan slumbering still
     Fast in his cave, and nothing clash’d upon
His rest; the rushing of the neighbouring rill,
     And the young beams of the excluded sun,
Troubled him not, and he might sleep his fill;
     And need he had of slumber yet, for none
Had suffer’d more—his hardships were comparative
To those related in my grand-dad’s Narrative.

138

Not so Haide; she sadly toss’d and tumbled,
     And started from her sleep, and, turning o’er,
Dream’d of a thousand wrecks, o’er which she stumbled,
    And handsome corpses strew’d upon the shore;
And woke her maid so early that she grumbled,
     And call’d her father’s old slaves up, who swore
In several oaths—Armenian, Turk, and Greek,—
They knew not what to think of such a freak.

139

But up she got, and up she made them get,
     With some pretence about the sun, that makes
Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set;
     And ‘tis, no doubt, a sight to see when breaks
Bright Phoebus, while the mountains still are wet
    With mist, and every bird with him awakes,
And night is flung off like a mourning suit
Worn for a husband, or some other brute.

140

I say, the sun is a most glorious sight,
     I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late
I have sat up on purpose all the night,
     Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;
And so all ye, who would be in the right
     In health and purse, begin your day to date
From day-break, and when coffin’d at fourscore,
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.