from Canto XVI

11

But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
    Undressing is a woe; our robe de chambre
May sit like that of Nessus and recall
     Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.
Titus exclaimed, “I’ve lost a day!” Of all
     The nights and days most people can remember,
(I have had of both, some not to be disdained)
I wish they’d state how many they have gained.

12

And Juan, on retiring for the night,
     Felt restless, and perplexed, and compromised;
He thought Aurora Raby’s eyes more bright
     Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;
If he had known exactly his own plight,
    He probably would have philosophised;
A great resource to all, and ne’er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sighed.

13

He sighed;—the next resource is the full moon,
     Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happened luckily, the chaste orb shone
     As clear as such a climate will allow;
And Juan’s mind was in the proper tone
     To hail her with the apostrophe—”Oh, Thou!”
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.

14

But lover, poet, or astronomer,
     Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold,
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her:
     Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);
     Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;
The ocean’s tides and mortal’s brains she sways,
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.

15

Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed
     For contemplation rather than his pillow:
The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
     Let in the rippling sound of the lake’s billow,
With all the mystery by midnight caused;
     Below his window waved (of course) a willow;
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flashed and after darkened in the shade.

16

Upon his table or his toilet,—which
     Of these is not exactly ascertained—
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
    Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained)
A lamp burned high, while he leant from a niche,
     Where many a gothic ornament remained,
In chiselled stone and painted glass, and all
That time has left our fathers of their Hall.

17

Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw
     His chamber door wide open—and went forth
Into a gallery, of a sombre hue,
     Long, furnished with old pictures of great worth,
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,
     As doubtless should be people of high birth.
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.

18

The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
     Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint
     Of your own footsteps—voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
     Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.

19

And the pale smile of Beauties in the grave,
     The charms of other days, in starlight gleams
Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave
     Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,
    But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.
A picture is the past; even ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.

20

As Juan mused on mutability,
    Or on his mistress—terms synonimous—
No sound except the echo of his sigh
     Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
     A supernatural agent—or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.