from Canto VI

81

“And poor Juanna too! the child’s first night
     Within these walls, to be broke in upon
With such a clamour—I had thought it right
     That the young stranger should not lie alone,
And as the quietest of all, she might
     With you, Dud, a good night’s rest have known.
But now I must transfer her to the charge
Of Lolah—though her couch is not so large.”

82

Lolah’s eyes sparkled at the proposition;
     But poor Dud, with large drops in her own,
Resulting from the scolding or the vision,
     Implored that present pardon might be shown
For this first fault, and that on no condition
    (She added in a soft and piteous tone)
Juanna should be taken from her, and
Her future dreams should all be kept in hand.

83

She promised never more to have a dream,
     At least to dream so loudly as just now;
She wondered at herself how she could scream—
     ‘Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow,
A fond hallucination, and a theme
     For laughter—but she felt her spirits low,
And begged they would excuse her; she’d get over
This weakness in a few hours, and recover.

84

And here Juanna kindly interposed,
     And said she felt herself extremely well
Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed
    When all around rang like a tocsin bell:
She did not find herself the least disposed
     To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell
Apart from one who had no sin to show
Save that of dreaming once “mal—propos.”

85

As thus Juanna spoke, Dud turned round
     And hid her face within Juanna’s breast;
Her neck alone was seen, but that was found
     The colour of a budding rose’s crest.
I can’t tell why she blushed, nor can expound
     The mystery of this rupture of their rest;
All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late.

86

And so good night to them,—or, if you will,
     Good morrow—for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,
     And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
     Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.

87

With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,
     Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale
As Passion rises, with its bosom worn,
     Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, and veil.
The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,
     Which Fable places in her breast of Wail,
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.

88

And that’s the moral of this composition,
     If people would but see its real drift;—
But that they will not do without suspicion,
     Because all gentle readers have the gift
Of closing ‘gainst the light their orbs of vision;
     While gentle writers also love to lift
Their voices ‘gainst each other, which is natural,
The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.

89

Rose the Sultana from a bed of splendour,
    Softer than the soft Sybarite’s, who cried
Aloud because his feelings were too tender
     To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,—
So beautiful that art could little mend her,
     Though pale with conflicts between love and pride:—
So agitated was she with her error,
She did not even look into the mirror.

90

Also arose about the self-same time,
     Perhaps a little later, her great lord,
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,
     And of a wife by whom he was abhorred;
A thing of much less import in that clime—
     At least to those of incomes which afford
The filling up their whole connubial cargo—
Than where two wives are under an embargo.