from Canto XIV

81

“An oyster may be cross’d in Love,”—and why?
    Because he mopeth idly in his shell,
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,
     Much as a monk may do within his cell:
And _ propos_ of monks, their piety
     With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell;
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.

82

Oh, Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,
     Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
     Thou moral Washington of Africa!
But there’s another little thing, I own,
     Which you should perpetrate some summer’s day,
And set the other half of earth to rights:
You have freed the blacks—now pray shut up the whites.

83

Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander;
     Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;
Teach them that “sauce for goose is sauce for gander,”
     And ask them how they like to be in thrall?
Shut up each high heroic Salamander,
     Who eats fire gratis (since the pay’s but small);
Shut up—no, not the King, but the Pavilion,
Or else ‘twill cost us all another million.

84

Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;
     And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
    As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
     Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d’appui is found, alas!
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as ‘twas.

85

Our gentle Adeline had one defect—
     Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
     As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wreck’d,
    Because ‘tis frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an Earthquake’s ruin.

86

She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love
     Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sysiphus, if once we move
     Our feelings ‘gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
    No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene, and noble,—conjugal, but cold.

87

There was no great disparity of years,
     Though much in temper; but they never clash’d:
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
     Or like the Rhone by Leman’s waters wash’d,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
    The river from the lake, all bluely dash’d
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.

88

Now when she once had ta’en an interest
     In any thing, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best—
     Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guess’d,
     And gather’d as they run like growing water
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impress’d.

89

But when it was, she had that lurking demon
     Of double nature, and thus doubly named—
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
     That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,
     Whene’er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:—
And ‘twill perplex the casuists in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.

90

Had Bonaparte won at Waterloo,
    It had been firmness; now ‘tis pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?
    I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
     If such can e’er be drawn by man’s capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.