from Canto IV

111

Yet some of you are most seraphic creatures—
     But times are alter’d since, a rhyming lover,
You read my stanzas, and I read your features:
     And—but no matter, all those things are over;
Still I have no dislike to learned natures,
     For sometimes such a world of virtues cover;
I know one woman of that purple school,
The loveliest, chastest, best, but—quite a fool.

112

Humboldt, “the first of travellers,” but not
     The last, if late accounts be accurate,
Invented, by some name I have forgot,
     As well as the sublime discovery’s date,
An airy instrument, with which he sought
     To ascertain the atmospheric state,
By measuring “the intensity of blue”:
Oh, Lady Daphne! let me measure you!

113

But to the narrative: the vessel bound
     With slaves to sell off in the capital,
After the usual process, might be found
     At anchor under the seraglio wall;
Her cargo, from the plague being safe and sound,
     Were landed in the market, one and all,
And there with Georgians, Russians, and Circassians,
Bought up for different purposes and passions.

114

Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred dollars
    For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were given,
Warranted virgin; beauty’s brightest colours
     Had deck’d her out in all the hues of heaven:
Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers,
     Who bade on till the hundreds reach’d eleven;
But when the offer went beyond, they knew
‘Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew.

115

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought a price
     Which the West Indian market scarce would bring;
Though Wilberforce, at last, has made it twice
     What ‘twas ere Abolition; and the thing
Need not seem very wonderful, for vice
     Is always much more splendid than a king:
The virtues, even the most exalted, Charity,
Are saving—vice spares nothing for a rarity.

116

But for the destiny of this young troop,
    How some were bought by pachas, some by Jews,
How some to burdens were obliged to stoop,
     And others rose to the command of crews
As renegadoes; while in hapless group,
    Hoping no very old vizier might choose,
The females stood, as one by one they pick’d ‘em,
To make a mistress, or fourth wife, or victim:

117

All this must be reserved for further song;
     Also our hero’s lot, howe’er unpleasant,
(Because this Canto has become too long)
     Must be postponed discreetly for the present;
I’m sensible redundancy is wrong,
     But could not for the muse of me put less in’t:
And now delay the progress of Don Juan,
Till what is call’d in Ossian the fifth Duan.