from Canto XVI

51

Oh! the long evenings of duets and trios!
     The admirations and the speculations;
The “Mamma Mia’s!” and the “Amor Mio’s!”
    The “Tanti palpiti’s” on such occasions:
The “Lasciami’s,” and quavering “Addio’s!”
     Amongst our own most musical of nations;
With “Tu mi chamas’s” from Portingale,
To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.

52

In Babylon’s bravuras—as the home
     Heart-ballads of Green Erin or Grey Highlands,
That brings Lochaber back to eyes that roam
     O’er far Atlantic continents or islands,
The calentures of music which o’ercome
    All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh lands,
No more to be beheld but in such visions,—
Was Adeline well versed, as compositions.

53

She also had a twilight tinge of “Blue,”
     Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote;
Made epigrams occasionally too
     Upon her friends, as every body ought.
But still from that sublimer azure hue,
     So much the present dye, she was remote,
Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet,
And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it.

54

Aurora—since we are touching upon taste,
     Which now-a-days is the thermometer
By whose degrees all characters are classed—
    Was more Shakespearian, if I do not err.
The worlds beyond this world’s perplexing waste
     Had more of her existence, for in her
There was a depth of feeling to embrace
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.

55

Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace,
     The full grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind,
If she had any, was upon her face,
     And that was of a fascinating kind.
A little turn for mischief you might trace
    Also thereon,—but that’s not much; we find
Few females without some such gentle leaven,
For fear we should suppose us quite in heaven.

56

I have not heard she was at all poetic,
     Though once she was seen reading the “Bath Guide,”
And “Hayley’s Triumphs,” which she deemed pathetic,
     Because, she said, her temper had been tried
So much, the bard had really been prophetic
     Of what she had gone through with,—since a bride.
But of all verse, what most insured her praise
Were sonnets to herself, or “Bouts rims.”

57

‘Twere difficult to say what was the object
     Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay
To bear on what appeared to her the subject
     Of Juan’s nervous feelings on that day.
Perhaps she merely had the simple project
     To laugh him out of his supposed dismay;
Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it,
Though why I cannot say—at least this minute.

58

But so far the immediate effect
     Was to restore him to his self propriety,
A thing quite necessary to the elect,
     Who wish to take the tone of their society:
In which you cannot be too circumspect,
    Whether the mode be persiflage or piety,
But wear the newest mantle of hypocrisy,
On pain of much displeasing the Gynocrasy.

59

And therefore Juan now began to rally
     His spirits, and without more explanation,
To jest upon such themes in many a sally.
     Her Grace too also seized the same occasion,
With various similar remarks to tally,
     But wished for a still more detailed narration
Of this same mystic Friar’s curious doings,
About the present family’s deaths and wooings.

60

Of these few could say more than has been said;
     They passed as such things do, for superstition
With some, while others, who had more in dread
     The theme, half credited the strange tradition;
And much was talked on all sides on that head;
     But Juan, when cross-questioned on the vision,
Which some supposed (though he had not avowed it)
Had stirred him, answered in a way to cloud it.