Don Juan 06-056 ~ 060
 
 
Don Juan 06-056
Canto the Sixth
 
     LVI
 
I think it may be of "Corinthian Brass,"
     Which was a mixture of all metals, but
The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass
     This long parenthesis: I could not shut
It sooner for the soul of me, and class
     My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put
A kind construction upon them and me:
But that you won't -- then don't -- I am not less free.
 
 
Don Juan 06-057
Canto the Sixth
 
     LVII
 
'T is time we should return to plain narration,
     And thus my narrative proceeds: -- Dudu,
With every kindness short of ostentation,
     Show'd Juan, or Juanna, through and through
This labyrinth of females, and each station
     Described -- what's strange -- in words extremely few:
I have but one simile, and that's a blunder,
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.
 
 
Don Juan 06-058
Canto the Sixth
 
     LVIII
 
And next she gave her (I say her, because
     The gender still was epicene, at least
In outward show, which is a saving clause)
     An outline of the customs of the East,
With all their chaste integrity of laws,
     By which the more a haram is increased,
The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties
Of any supernumerary beauties.
 
 
Don Juan 06-059
Canto the Sixth
 
     LIX
 
And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:
     Dudu was fond of kissing -- which I'm sure
That nobody can ever take amiss,
     Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure,
And between females means no more than this --
     That they have nothing better near, or newer.
"Kiss" rhymes to "bliss" in fact as well as verse --
I wish it never led to something worse.
 
 
Don Juan 06-060
Canto the Sixth
 
     LX
 
In perfect innocence she then unmade
     Her toilet, which cost little, for she was
A child of Nature, carelessly array'd:
     If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,
'T was like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd,
     Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,
When first she starts, and then returns to peep,
Admiring this new native of the deep.
    
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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