Don Juan 06-026 ~ 030
 
 
Don Juan 06-026
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXVI
 
Don Juan in his feminine disguise,
     With all the damsels in their long array,
Had bow'd themselves before th' imperial eyes,
     And at the usual signal ta'en their way
Back to their chambers, those long galleries
     In the seraglio, where the ladies lay
Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there
Beating for love, as the caged bird's for air.
 
 
Don Juan 06-027
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXVII
 
I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse
     The tyrant's wish, "that mankind only had
One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:"
     My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,
And much more tender on the whole than fierce;
     It being (not now, but only while a lad)
That womankind had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once from North to South.
 
 
Don Juan 06-028
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXVIII
 
Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands
     And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied
In such proportion! -- But my Muse withstands
     The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,
Or travelling in Patagonian lands;
     So let us back to Lilliput, and guide
Our hero through the labyrinth of love
In which we left him several lines above.
 
 
Don Juan 06-029
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXIX
 
He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,
     At the given signal join'd to their array;
And though he certainly ran many risks,
     Yet he could not at times keep, by the way
(Although the consequences of such frisks
     Are worse than the worst damages men pay
In moral England, where the thing's a tax),
From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.
 
 
Don Juan 06-030
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXX
 
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
A dame who kept up discipline among
     The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd
Without her sanction on their she-parades:
Her title was "the Mother of the Maids."
 
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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