from Canto IV

21

I know not why, but in that hour to-night,
     Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor came,
And swept, as ‘twere, across their heart’s delight,
     Like the wind o’er a harp-string, or a flame,
When one is shook in sound, and one in sight;
    And thus some boding flash’d through either frame,
And called from Juan’s breast a faint low sigh,
While one new tear arose in Haide’s eye.

22

That large black prophet eye seem’d to dilate
     And follow far the disappearing sun,
As if their last day of a happy date
     With his broad, bright, and dropping orb were gone;
Juan gazed on her as to ask his fate—
     He felt a grief, but knowing cause for none,
His glance inquired of hers for some excuse
For feelings causeless, or at least abstruse.

23

She turn’d to him, and smiled, but in that sort
     Which makes not others smile; then turn’d aside:
Whatever feeling shook her, it seem’d short,
     And master’d by her wisdom or her pride;
When Juan spoke, too—it might be in sport—
     Of this their mutual feeling, she replied—
“If it should be so,—but—it cannot be—
Or I at least shall not survive to see.”

24

Juan would question further, but she press’d
     His lip to hers, and silenced him with this,
And then dismiss’d the omen from her breast,
    Defying augury with that fond kiss;
And no doubt of all methods ‘tis the best:
     Some people prefer wine—’tis not amiss;
I have tried both; so those who would a part take
May choose between the headache and the heartache.

25

One of the two, according to your choice,
     Woman or wine, you’ll have to undergo;
Both maladies are taxes on our joys:
     But which to choose, I really hardly know;
And if I had to give a casting voice,
     For both sides I could many reasons show,
And then decide, without great wrong to either,
It were much better to have both than neither.

26

Juan and Haide gazed upon each other
     With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
Which mix’d all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother,
     All that the best can mingle and express
When two pure hearts are pour’d in one another,
     And love too much, and yet can not love less;
But almost sanctify the sweet excess
By the immortal wish and power to bless.

27

Mix’d in each other’s arms, and heart in heart,
     Why did they not then die?—they had lived too long
Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart;
     Years could but bring them cruel things or wrong,
The world was not for them, nor the world’s art
    For beings passionate as Sappho’s song;
Love was born with them, in them, so intense,
It was their very spirit—not a sense.

28

They should have lived together deep in woods,
     Unseen as sings the nightingale; they were
Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes
     Call’d social, haunts of Hate, and Vice, and Care:
How lonely every freeborn creature broods!
     The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair;
The eagle soars alone; the gull and crow
Flock o’er their carrion, just like men below.

29

Now pillow’d cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,
    Haide and Juan their siesta took,
A gentle slumber, but it was not deep,
     For ever and anon a something shook
Juan, and shuddering o’er his frame would creep;
     And Haide’s sweet lips murmur’d like a brook
A wordless music, and her face so fair
Stirr’d with her dream as rose-leaves with the air:

30

Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream
     Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind
Walks o’er it, was she shaken by the dream,
    The mystical usurper of the mind—
O’erpowering us to be whate’er may seem
     Good to the soul which we no more can bind;
Strange state of being! (for ‘tis still to be)
Senseless to feel, and with seal’d eyes to see.