from Canto II

211

“Stop!” so I stopp’d.—But to return: that which
     Men call inconstancy is nothing more
Than admiration due where nature’s rich
     Profusion with young beauty covers o’er
Some favour’d object; and as in the niche
     A lovely statue we almost adore,
This sort of adoration of the real
Is but a heightening of the “beau ideal.”

212

‘Tis the perception of the beautiful,
     A fine extension of the faculties,
Platonic, universal, wonderful,
     Drawn from the stars, and filter’d through the skies,
Without which life would be extremely dull;
     In short, it is the use of our own eyes,
With one or two small senses added, just
To hint that flesh is form’d of fiery dust.

213

Yet ‘tis a painful feeling, and unwilling,
     For surely if we always could perceive
In the same object graces quite as killing
     As when she rose upon us like an Eve,
‘Twould save us many a heart-ache, many a shilling,
     (For we must get them any how, or grieve),
Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever,
How pleasant for the heart, as well as liver!

214

The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven,
     But changes night and day too, like the sky;
Now o’er it clouds and thunder must be driven,
     And darkness and destruction as on high;
But when it hath been scorch’d, and pierced, and riven,
     Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye
Pours forth at last the heart’s-blood turn’d to tears,
Which make the English climate of our years.

215

The liver is the lazaret of bile,
     But very rarely executes its function,
For the first passion stays there such a while,
     That all the rest creep in and form a junction,
Like knots of vipers on a dunghill’s soil,
     Rage, fear, hate, jealousy, revenge, compunction,
So that all mischiefs spring up from this entrail,
Like earthquakes from the hidden fire call’d “central.”

216

In the mean time, without proceeding more
     In this anatomy, I’ve finish’d now
Two hundred and odd stanzas as before,
     That being about the number I’ll allow
Each canto of the twelve, or twenty-four;
     And, laying down my pen, I make my bow,
Leaving Don Juan and Haide to plead
For them and theirs with all who deign to read.