Don Juan 06-086 ~ 090
 
 
Don Juan 06-086
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXXVI
 
And so good night to them, -- or, if you will,
     Good morrow -- for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,
     And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
     Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.
 
 
Don Juan 06-087
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXXVII
 
With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,
     Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale
As passion rises, with its bosom worn,
     Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil.
The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,
     Which fable places in her breast of wail,
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.
 
 
Don Juan 06-088
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXXVIII
 
And that's the moral of this composition,
     If people would but see its real drift; --
But that they will not do without suspicion,
     Because all gentle readers have the gift
Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision;
     While gentle writers also love to lift
Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural,
The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.
 
 
Don Juan 06-089
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXXIX
 
Rose the sultana from a bed of splendour,
     Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried
Aloud because his feelings were too tender
     To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side, --
So beautiful that art could little mend her,
     Though pale with conflicts between love and pride; --
So agitated was she with her error,
She did not even look into the mirror.
 
 
Don Juan 06-090
Canto the Sixth
 
     XC
 
Also arose about the self-same time,
     Perhaps a little later, her great lord,
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,
     And of a wife by whom he was abhorr'd;
A thing of much less import in that clime --
     At least to those of incomes which afford
The filling up their whole connubial cargo --
Than where two wives are under an embargo.
       
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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