from Canto V

21

“You take things coolly, sir,” said Juan. “Why,”
     Replied the other, “what can a man do?
There still are many rainbows in your sky,
     But mine have vanished. All, when life is new,
Commence with feelings warm and prospects high;
     But time strips our illusions of their hue,
And one by one in turn, some grand mistake
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.

22

”’Tis true, it gets another bright and fresh,
     Or fresher, brighter; but the year gone through,
This skin must go the way too of all flesh,
     Or sometimes only wear a week or two;—
Love’s the first net which spreads its deadly mesh;
     Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue
The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,
Where still we flutter on for pence or praise.”

23

“All this is very fine, and may be true,”
     Said Juan; “but I really don’t see how
It betters present times with me or you.”
     “No?” quoth the other; “yet you will allow
By setting things in their right point of view,
     Knowledge, at least, is gained; for instance, now,
We know what slavery is, and our disasters
May teach us better to behave when masters.”

24

“Would we were masters now, if but to try
     Their present lessons on our Pagan friends here,”
Said Juan—swallowing a heart-burning sigh:
     “Heaven help the scholar whom his fortune sends here!”
“Perhaps we shall be one day, by and by,”
    Rejoined the other, “when our bad luck mends here;
Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems to eye us)
I wish to G—d that somebody would buy us!

25

“But after all, what is our present state?
     ‘Tis bad, and may be better—all men’s lot:
Most men are slaves, none more so than the great,
     To their own whims and passions, and what not;
Society itself, which should create
     Kindness, destroys what little we had got:
To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world’s stoics—men without a heart.”

26

Just now a black old neutral personage
    Of the third sex stept up, and peering over
The captives, seemed to mark their looks and age,
     And capabilities, as to discover
If they were fitted for the purposed cage:
     No lady e’er is ogled by a lover,
Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a tailor,
Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor,

27

As is a slave by his intended bidder.
     ‘Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow creatures;
And all are to be sold, if you consider
    Their passions, and are dext’rous; some by features
Are bought up, others by a warlike leader,
     Some by a place—as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash—but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

28

The eunuch having eyed them o’er with care,
     Turn’d to the merchant, and begun to bid
First but for one, and after for the pair;
     They haggled, wrangled, swore, too—so they did!
As though they were in a mere christian fair
     Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or kid;
So that their bargain sounded like a battle
For this superior yoke of human cattle.

29

At last they settled into simple grumbling,
     And pulling out reluctant purses, and
Turning each piece of silver o’er, and tumbling
     Some down, and weighing others in their hand,
And by mistake sequins with paras jumbling,
     Until the sum was accurately scanned,
And then the merchant giving change, and signing
Receipts in full, began to think of dining.

30

I wonder if his appetite was good?
     Or, if it were, if also his digestion?
Methinks at meals some odd thoughts might intrude,
     And conscience ask a curious sort of question,
About the right divine how far we should
    Sell flesh and blood. When dinner has opprest one,
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.