DON JUAN.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

VOL. XVI.

B

5

DON JUAN.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

I.

NOTHING SO difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;

For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning

The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,

Being pride, (1) which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are. (2)

II.

But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last

Man, and, as we would hope, perhaps the devil,

(1)

That neither of their intellects are vast:

[—“how glorious once above thy sphere,
Till Pride and worse Ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King."

Paradise Lost.]

While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this-the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion. (1)

III.

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,

And wish'd that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow

Leaf," (2) and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

IV.

weep,

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep; and if I
'Tis that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep

(1) ["Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,
And shuts up all the passages of joy :
In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r ;
With listless eyes the dotard views the store,

He views, and wonders that they please no more."
JOHNSON'S Vanity of Human Wishes

"'Tis a grand poem-and so true! - true as the 10th of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things-time-language- the earth -the bounds of the sea- the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment.”. B. Diary, 1821.]