from Canto XIV

71

But there was something wanting on the whole—
     I don’t know what, and therefore cannot tell—
Which pretty women—the sweet souls!—call Soul.
     Certes it was not body; he was well
Proportion’d, as a poplar or a pole,
     A handsome man, that human miracle;
And in each circumstance of love or war
Had still preserved his perpendicular.

72

Still there was something wanting, as I’ve said—
    That undefinable “Je ne sais quoi,”
Which, for what I know, may of yore have led
     To Homer’s Iliad, since it drew to Troy
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan’s bed;
    Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy
Was much inferior to King Menelaus;—
But thus it is some women will betray us.

73

There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,
    Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved
By turns the difference of the several sexes:
     Neither can show quite how they would be loved.
The sensual for a short time but connects us—
     The sentimental boasts to be unmoved;
But both together form a kind of centaur,
Upon whose back ‘tis better not to venture.

74

A something all-sufficient for the heart
     Is that for which the Sex are always seeking;
But how to fill up that same vacant part?
     There lies the rub—and this they are but weak in.
Frail mariners afloat without a chart,
     They run before the wind through high seas breaking;
And when they have made the shore through ev’ry shock,
‘Tis odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock.

75

There is a flower called “Love in Idleness,”
     For which see Shakspeare’s ever blooming garden;—
I will not make his great description less,
    And beg his British Godship’s humble pardon,
If in my extremity of rhyme’s distress,
     I touch a single leaf where he is warden;—
But though the flower is different, with the French
Or Swiss Rousseau, cry “Voil la Pervenche!“

76

Eureka! I have found it! What I mean
     To say is, not that Love is Idleness,
But that in Love such Idleness has been
    An accessary, as I have cause to guess.
Hard labour’s an indifferent go-between;
     Your men of business are not apt to express
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,
Convey’d Medea as her Supercargo.

77

“Beatus ille procul!” from “negotiis,”
     Saith Horace; the great little poet’s wrong;
His other maxim, “Noscitur a sociis,”
     Is much more to the purpose of his song;
Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,
     Unless good company he kept too long;
But, in his teeth, whate’er their state or station,
Thrice happy they who have an occupation!

78

Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,
    Eve made up millinery with fig leaves—
The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing,
     As far as I know, that the Church receives:
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
     That many of the ills o’er which man grieves,
And still more women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.

79

And hence high life is oft a dreary void,
     A rack of pleasures, where we must invent
A something wherewithal to be annoy’d.
     Bards may sing what they please about Content;
Contented, when translated, means but cloyed;
     And hence arise the woes of sentiment,
Blue devils, and Blue-stockings, and Romances
Reduced to practice and perform’d like dances.

80

I do declare, upon an affidavit,
     Romances I ne’er read like those I have seen;
Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,
     Would some believe that such a tale had been:
But such intent I never had, nor have it;
     Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.