from Canto II

191

She loved, and was beloved—she adored,
     And she was worshipp’d; after nature’s fashion,
Their intense souls, into each other pour’d,
     If souls could die, had perish’d in that passion,—
But by degrees their senses were restored,
    Again to be o’ercome, again to dash on;
And, beating ‘gainst his bosom, Haide’s heart
Felt as if never more to beat apart.

192

Alas! they were so young, so beautiful,
     So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour
Was that in which the heart is always full,
     And, having o’er itself no further power,
Prompts deeds eternity can not annul,
     But pays off moments in an endless shower
Of hell-fire—all prepared for people giving
Pleasure or pain to one another living.

193

Alas! for Juan and Haide! they were
     So loving and so lovely—till then never,
Excepting our first parents, such a pair
     Had run the risk of being damn’d for ever;
And Haide, being devout as well as fair,
    Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river,
And hell and purgatory—but forgot
Just in the very crisis she should not.

194

They look upon each other, and their eyes
    Gleam in the moonlight; and her white arm clasps
Round Juan’s head, and his around hers lies
     Half buried in the tresses which it grasps;
She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs,
     He hers, until they end in broken gasps;
And thus they form a group that’s quite antique,
Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek.

195

And when those deep and burning moments pass’d,
     And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms,
She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast,
     Sustain’d his head upon her bosom’s charms;
And now and then her eye to heaven is cast,
     And then on the pale cheek her breast now warms,
Pillow’d on her o’erflowing heart, which pants
With all it granted, and with all it grants.

196

An infant when it gazes on a light,
     A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
     An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
     A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch o’er what they love while sleeping.

197

For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved,
     All that it hath of life with us is living;
So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved,
     And all unconscious of the joy ‘tis giving;
All it hath felt, inflicted, pass’d, and proved,
     Hush’d into depths beyond the watcher’s diving;
There lies the thing we love with all its errors
And all its charms, like death without its terrors.

198

The lady watch’d her lover—and that hour
     Of Love’s, and Night’s, and Ocean’s solitude,
O’erflow’d her soul with their united power;
     Amidst the barren sand and rocks so rude
She and her wave-worn love had made their bower,
     Where nought upon their passion could intrude,
And all the stars that crowded the blue space
Saw nothing happier than her glowing face.

199

Alas! the love of women! it is known
     To be a lovely and a fearful thing;
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown,
     And if ‘tis lost, life hath no more to bring
To them but mockeries of the past alone,
     And their revenge is as the tiger’s spring,
Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real
Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel.

200

They are right; for man, to man so oft unjust,
     Is always so to women; one sole bond
Awaits them, treachery is all their trust;
    Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond
Over their idol, till some wealthier lust
     Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond?
A thankless husband, next a faithless lover,
Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all’s over.