DON JUAN.

CANTO THE SEVENTH.

I.

O LOVE! O Glory! what are ye who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight?
There's not a meteor in the polar sky

Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight. Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high Our eyes in search of either lovely light;

A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

II.

And such as they are, such my present tale is, A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme,

A versified Aurora Borealis,

Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime. When we know what all are, we must bewail us, But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime

To laugh at all things-for I wish to know
What, after all, are all things—but a show?

III.

They accuse me-Me-the present writer of
The present poem—of— I know not what—
A tendency to under-rate and scoff

At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.

Good God! I wonder what they would be at! I say no more than hath been said in Dante's Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

IV.

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,
By Fénélon, by Luther, and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,

Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
"Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes.- We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.

V.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was (1)

"To know that nothing could be known; "a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass

Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present. Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas!

Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,

(1) ["Scrawled this additional page of life's log-book. One day more is over of it, and of me; -but, which is best, life or death, the gods only know,' as Socrates said to his judges, on the breaking up of the tribunal. Two thousand years since that sage's declaration of ignorance have not enlightened us more upon this important point. —B. Diary, 1821.]

That he himself felt only "like a youth
Picking up shells by the great ocean-Truth." (1)

Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity :

In short, all know, or very soon may know it; And in this scene of all-confess'd inanity,

By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet, Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife, From holding up the nothingness of life?

VII.

Dogs, or men!-for I flatter you (2) in saying
That ye are dogs-your betters far-ye may
Read, or read not, what I am now essaying
To show ye what ye are in every way.
As little as the moon stops for the baying

Of wolves, will the bright muse withdraw one ray From out her skies—then howl your idle wrath! While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path.

(1) [A short time before his death, he uttered this memorable sentiment:-"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." What a lesson to the vanity and presumption of philosophers; to those, especially, who have never even found the smoother pebble or the prettier shell! What a preparation for the latest enquiries, and the last views, of the decaying spirit,- for those inspired doctrines which alone can throw a light over the dark ocean of undiscovered truth!"-SIR DAVID BREWSTER.] (2) [See" Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog," antè, Vol. VIL p. 292.]

VIII.

"Fierce loves and faithless wars"-I am not sure If this be the right reading-'tis no matter; The fact's about the same, I am secure;

I sing them both, and am about to batter A town which did a famous siege endure,

And was beleaguer'd both by land and water (1) By Souvaroff, or Anglicè Suwarrow,

Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow.

IX.

The fortress is call'd Ismail, and is placed
Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank, (2)
With buildings in the Oriental taste,

But still a fortress of the foremost rank,
Or was at least, unless 'tis since defaced,

Which with your conquerors is a common prank : It stands some eighty versts from the high sea, And measures round of toises thousands three.(3)

X.

Within the extent of this fortification

A borough is comprised along the height Upon the left, which from its loftier station Commands the city, and upon its site

(1) [“ An. 1790. Le 30 de Novembre on s'approcha de la place; les troupes de terres formaient un total de vingt mille hommes, indépendamment de sept à huit mille Kozaks.". Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie, tom. ii. p. 201.]

(2) ["Ismaël est situé sur la rive gauche du bras gauche du Danube." - Ibid.]

(3) ["à peu près à quatre-vingts verstes de la mer: elle a près de trois milles toises de tour."- Ibid.]

A Greek had raised around this elevation
A quantity of palisades upright,
So placed as to impede the fire of those
Who held the place, and to assist the foe's. (1)

XI.

This circumstance may serve to give a notion

Of the high talents of this new Vauban: But the town ditch below was deep as ocean,

The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang: But then there was a great want of precaution (Prithee, excuse this engineering slang), Nor work advanced, nor cover'd way was there, (2) To hint at least " Here is no thoroughfare."

XII.

But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge,
And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet;
Two batteries, cap-à-pie, as our St. George,

Case-mated (3) one, and t'other " à barbette," (4)

(1) [" On a compris dans ces fortifications un faubourg Moldave, situé à la gauche de la ville, sur une hauteur qui la domine: l'ouvrage a été terminé par un Grec. Pour donner une idée des talens de cet ingénieur; il suffira de dire qu'il fit placer les palissades perpendiculairement sur le parapet, de manière qu'elles favorisaient les assiégeans, et arrêtaient le feu des assiégés," Hist. de la N, R. p. 202.]

(2) ["Le rempart en terre est prodigieusement élevé, à cause de l'immense profondeur du fosse; il est cependant absolument rasant; il n'y a ni ouvrage avancé, ni chemin couvert."— Ibid. p. 202.]

(3) [Casemate is a work made under the rampart, like a cellar or cave, with loopholes to place guns in it, and is bomb proof, ― Milit. Dict.]

(4) [When the breastwork of a battery is only of such height that the guns may fire over it without being obliged to make embrasures, the guns are said to fire in barbet,— Ibid.]