'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets, Yet mixed so slightly that you can't complain, But wonder they so few are, since my tale is "De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis."

IV.

But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.

I said it was a story of a ghost

What then? I only know it so befel. Have you explored the limits of the coast,

Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell? 'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.

V.

Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority

Is always greatest at a miracle.

But Saint Augustine has the great priority,

Who bids all men believe the impossible, Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he Quiets at once with " quia impossible."

VI.

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe:-if 'tis improbable, you must; '

And if it is impossible, you shall:

'Tis always best to take things upon trust. I do not speak profanely, to recal

Those holier mysteries, which the wise and just Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted, As all truths must, the more they are disputed.

VII.

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,

That in the course of some six thousand years, All nations have believed that from the dead

A visitant at intervals appears;

And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears
'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will,

VIII.

The dinner and the soirée too were done,
The supper too discussed, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropped off one by one—
The song was silent, and the dance expired:
The last thin petticoats were vanished, gone
Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleamed through the saloon
Than dying tapers-and the peeping moon,

IX.

The evaporation of a joyous day

Is like the last glass of champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;
Or like a system coupled with a doubt;
Or like a soda bottle when its spray
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;
Or like a billow left by storms behind,
Without the animation of the wind;

X.

Or like an opiate which brings troubled rest,
Or none; or like-like nothing that I know
Except itself;-such is the human breast;
A thing, of which similitudes can show

No real likeness,-like the old Tyrian vest
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.*
So perish every tyrant's robe piece-meal!

XI.

But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
Undressing is a wo; our robe de chambre
May sit like that of Nessus and recal

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.

XII.

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.

XIII.

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

The composition of the old Tyrian purple whether from a shell-fish or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an article of dispute; and even its colour-some say purple, others scarlet: I say nothing.

To hail her with the apostrophe-"Oh, Thou!" Of amatory egotism the Tuism,

Which further to explain would be a truism.

XIV.

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.

XV.

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.

XVI.

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.

XVII.

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, dosolate, and dread.

XVIII.

The forms of the grim knights and pictured saints
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.

XIX.

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 canvass; 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.

XX.

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,