XI. Now, if this holds goed in a Christian land, And take what kings call "an imposing attitude;" And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude; And as four wives must have quadruple claims, The Tigris has its jealousies like Thames. XII. Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed, XIII. His highness, the sublimest of mankind,— To those sad hungry jacobins, the worms, Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,His highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover, XVIII. The "tu" 's too much,-but let it stand-the verse Requires it, that 's to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old Hexameters ; But, after all, there's neither tune nor time As a rule, but Truth may, if you translate it. If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not-it succeeded, and success They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less: We leave this royal couple to repose; A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes; Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep As any man's clay mixture undergoes. Our least of sorrows are such as we weep; 'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears (A "Highland welcome" all the wide world over). The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. XIV. Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, May look like what is-neither here nor there: They are put on as easily as a hat, Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate, Which form an ornament, but no more part Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. XV. A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, XVI. For over warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 't is no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, XXI. A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill, A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted; A bad old woman making a worse will, Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain ;-these are paltry things, and yet I've rarely seen the man they did not fret. XXII. I'm a philosopher; confound them all! Bills, beasts, and men, and-no! not womankind! With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, And then my stoicism leaves nought behind Which it can either pain or evil call, And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth Is more than I know-the deuce take them both. XXIII. So now all things are d-n'd, one feels at ease, Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, Or At least one of them-Oh the heavy night! When wicked wives who love some bachelor Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light Of the gray morning, and look vainly for Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite, To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake, Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake. XXV. These are beneath the canopy of heaven, Don Juan, in his feminine disguise, With all the damsels in their long array, I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse Oh enviable Briareus! with thy hands And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied So let us back to Lilliput, and guide He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, Yet he could not at times keep by the way, Are worse than the worst damages men pay Still he forgot not his disguise :-along The galleries from room to room they walk'd, A virgin-like and edifying throng, By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd Her office was to keep aloof or smother All bad propensities in fifteen hundred XXXII. A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and thea Along the rest, contrived to keep this den XXXIII. And what is that? Devotion, doubtless-how Of ladies of all countries at the will XXXIV. But when they reach'd their own apartments, there, Their guards being gone, and, as it were, a truct Their talk of course ran most on the new comer, But no one doubted, on the whole, that she So silly as to buy slaves who might share But what was strangest in this virgin crew, They all found out as few, or fewer, specks. XXXVIII. And yet they had their little jealousies, Like all the rest; but upon this occasion, Whether there are such things as sympathies Without our knowledge or our approbation, Although they could not see through his disguise, All felt a soft kind of concatenation, Like magnetism, or devilism, or what Young women, and correct them when they blunder'd. You please-we will not quarrel about that: |