from Canto VI

61

And one by one her articles of dress
     Were laid aside; but not before she offered
Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess
     Of Modesty declined the assistance proffered:
Which past well off—as she could do no less;
    Though by this politesse she rather suffered,
Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins,
Which surely were invented for our sins,—

62

Making a woman like a porcupine,
    Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread,
Oh ye! whose fate it is, as once ‘twas mine,
     In early youth, to turn a lady’s maid;—
I did my very boyish best to shine
     In tricking her out for a masquerade:
The pins were placed sufficiently, but not
Stuck all exactly in the proper spot.

63

But these are foolish things to all the wise,
     And I love wisdom more than she loves me;
My tendency is to philosophize
     On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;
But still the spouseless Virgin Knowledge flies.
     What are we? and whence came we? what shall be
Our ultimate existence? what’s our present?
Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

64

There was deep silence in the chamber: dim
     And distant from each other burned the lights,
And Slumber hovered o’er each lovely limb
    Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,
They should have walked there in their spriteliest trim,
    By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as Ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old Ruin or wild Waste.

65

Many and beautiful lay those around,
     Like flowers of different hue and clime and root,
In some exotic garden sometimes found,
     With cost and care and warmth induced to shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,
     And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath
And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.

66

One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,
    And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;
     And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud
The Moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm,
     As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.

67

This is no bull, although it sounds so; for
     ‘Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.
A third’s all pallid aspect offered more
     The traits of sleeping Sorrow, and betrayed
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore
     Beloved and deplored; while slowly strayed
(As Night Dew, on a Cypress glittering, tinges
The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes’ dark fringes.

68

A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,
     Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep;
White, cold and pure, as looks a frozen rill,
     Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,
Or Lot’s wife done in salt,—or what you will;—
    My similes are gathered in a heap,
So pick and chuse—perhaps you’ll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.

69

And lo! a fifth appears;—and what is she?
     A lady of “a certain age,” which means
Certainly aged—what her years might be
     I know not, never counting past their teens;
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,
     As ere that awful period intervenes
Which lays both men and women on the shelf,
To meditate upon their sins and self.

70

But all this time how slept, or dreamed, Dud?
    With strict enquiry I could ne’er discover,
And scorn to add a syllable untrue;
     But ere the middle watch was hardly over,
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,
     And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover
To those who like their company, about
The apartment, on a sudden she screamed out: