Even I

albeit I'm sure I did not know it,

Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king — Was reckon'd a considerable time,

The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

LVI

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero

My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain: "La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion 's fall'n, may rise again:

But I will fall at least as fell my hero;

Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;

Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,

With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

LVII

Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after; but now grown more holy,

The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble
With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble

Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol - by the hilts!

LVIII

Then there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He'll find it rather difficult some day
To turn out both, or either, it may be.

Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor" Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

LIX

John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek

Contrived to talk about the gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

LX

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain
or none will know
The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders
His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.

If I might augur, I should rate but low

Their chances; they're too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.

LXI

This is the literary lower empire,

Where the prætorian bands take up the matter;A "dreadful trade," like his who "gathers samphire," The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter,

With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire.
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire,
I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries,
And show them what an intellectual war is.

LXII

I think I know a trick or two, would turn
Their flanks; but it is hardly worth my while
With such small gear to give myself concern :
Indeed I've not the necessary bile;
My natural temper's really aught but stern,

And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile;
And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy,
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

FROM "DON JUAN," CANTO XIV

DON JUAN DESCRIBED

XXIX

WE left our heroes and our heroines

In that fair clime which don't depend on climate, Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,

Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at, Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines,

Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,

Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun

Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one.

XXX

An in-door life is less poetical;

And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet,

With which I could not brew a pastoral.

But be it as it may, a bard must meet
All difficulties, whether great or small,

To spoil his undertaking or complete,
And work away like spirit upon matter,
Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water.

XXXI

Juan in this respect, at least, like saints-
Was all things unto people of all sorts,
And lived contentedly, without complaints,
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts
Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,
And mingling modestly in toils or sports.
He likewise could be most things to all women,
Without the coxcombry of certain she men.

XXXII

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;
'Tis also subject to the double danger
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange

Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:

But Juan had been early taught to range

The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd avenger, So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack, Knew that he had a rider on his back.