from Canto X

31

His Mother, Donna Inez, finding too
     That in the lieu of drawing on his banker,
Where his assets were waxing rather few,
     He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,—
Replied, “that she was glad to see him through
     Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker;
As the sole sign of man’s being in his senses
Is, learning to reduce his past expenses.

32

“She also recommended him to God,
     And no less to God’s Son, as well as Mother;
Warned him against Greek-worship, which looks odd
     In Catholic eyes; but told him too to smother
Outward dislike, which don’t look well abroad:
     Informed him that he had a little brother
Born in a second wedlock; and above
All, praised the Empress’s maternal love.

33

“She could not too much give her approbation
     Unto an Empress, who preferred young men
Whose age, and, what was better still, whose nation
     And climate, stopped all scandal (now and then):—
At home it might have given her some vexation;
     But where thermometers sunk down to ten,
Or five, or one, or zero, she could never
Believe that virtue thawed before the river.”

34

Oh for a forty-parson-power to chaunt
     Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn
Loud as the Virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,
    Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim!
Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,
     Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,
Drew quiet consolation through its hint,
When she no more could read the pious print.

35

She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul,
     But went to heaven in as sincere a way
As any body on the Elected Roll,
     Which portions out upon the judgment day
Heaven’s freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll,
     Such as the conqueror William did repay
His knights with, lotting others’ properties
Into some sixty thousand new knights’ fees.

36

I can’t complain, whose ancestors are there,
    Erneis, Radulphus—eight-and-forty manors
(If that my memory doth not greatly err)
     Were their reward for following Billy’s banners;
And though I can’t help thinking ‘twas scarce fair
    To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners;
Yet as they founded churches with the produce,
You’ll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use.

37

The gentle Juan flourished, though at times
     He felt like other plants called Sensitive,
Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes,
     Save such as Southey can afford to give.
Perhaps he longed, in bitter frosts, for climes
     In which the Neva’s ice would cease to live
Before May-day: perhaps, despite his duty,
In royalty’s vast arms he sighed for beauty:

38

Perhaps—but, sans perhaps, we need not seek
     For causes young or old: the canker-worm
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek,
     As well as further drain the withered form:
Care, like a house-keeper, brings every week
     His bills in, and however we may storm,
They must be paid: though six days smoothly run,
The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.

39

I don’t know how it was, but he grew sick:
     The Empress was alarmed, and her physician
(The same who physicked Peter) found the tick
    Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition
Which augured of the dead, however quick
     Itself, and showed a feverish disposition;
At which the whole court was extremely troubled,
The Sovereign shocked, and all his medicines doubled.

40

Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:
     Some said he had been poisoned by Potemkin;
Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,
     Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;
Some said ‘twas a concoction of the humours,
     Which with the blood too readily will claim kin;
Others again were ready to maintain,
”’Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.”