Don Juan 05-031
Canto the Fifth
 
     XXXI

Voltaire says "No:" he tells you that Candide
     Found life most tolerable after meals;
He's wrong -- unless man were a pig, indeed,
     Repletion rather adds to what he feels,
Unless he's drunk, and then no doubt he's freed
     From his own brain's oppression while it reels.
Of food I think with Philip's son, or rather
Ammon's (ill pleased with one world and one father);
 
 
Don Juan 05-032
 
     XXXII

I think with Alexander, that the act
     Of eating, with another act or two,
Makes us feel our mortality in fact
     Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout,
And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd,
     Can give us either pain or pleasure, who
Would pique himself on intellects, whose use
Depends so much upon the gastric juice?
 
 
Don Juan 05-033
Canto the Fifth
 
     XXXIII

The other evening ('t was on Friday last) --
     This is a fact and no poetic fable --
Just as my great coat was about me cast,
     My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
I heard a shot -- 't was eight o'clock scarce past --
     And, running out as fast as I was able,
I found the military commandant
Stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pant.
 
 
Don Juan 05-034
 
     XXXIV

Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,
     They had slain him with five slugs; and left him there
To perish on the pavement: so I had
     Him borne into the house and up the stair,
And stripp'd and look'd to -- But why should I ad
     More circumstances? vain was every care;
The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel
Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.
 
 
Don Juan 05-035
 
     XXXV

I gazed upon him, for I knew him well;
     And though I have seen many corpses, never
Saw one, whom such an accident befell,
     So calm; though pierced through stomach, heart, and liver,
He seem'd to sleep, -- for you could scarcely tell
     (As he bled inwardly, no hideous river
Of gore divulged the cause) that he was dead:
So as I gazed on him, I thought or said --

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 
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