Don Juan 06-021 ~ 025
   
 

Don Juan 06-021
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXI
 
A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill
     To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted
At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,
     A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted,
A bad old woman making a worse will,
     Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted
As certain; -- these are paltry things, and yet
I've rarely seen the man they did not fret.
 
 
Don Juan 06-022
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXII
 
I'm a philosopher; confound them all!
     Bills, beasts, and men, and -- no! not womankind!
With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,
     And then my stoicism leaves nought behind
Which it can either pain or evil call,
     And I can give my whole soul up to mind;
Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth,
Is more than I know -- the deuce take them both!
 
 
Don Juan 06-023
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXIII
 
So now all things are damned one feels at ease,
     As after reading Athanasius' curse,
Which doth your true believer so much please:
     I doubt if any now could make it worse
O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,
     'T is so sententious, positive, and terse,
And decorates the book of Common Prayer,
As doth a rainbow the just clearing air.
 
 
Don Juan 06-024
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXIV
 
Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or
     At least one of them! -- Oh, the heavy night,
When wicked wives, who love some bachelor,
     Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light
Of the gray morning, and look vainly for
     Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite --
To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake
Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake!
 
 
Don Juan 06-025
Canto the Sixth
 
     XXV
 
These are beneath the canopy of heaven,
     Also beneath the canopy of beds
Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given
     For rich men and their brides to lay their heads
Upon, in sheets white as what bards call "driven
     Snow." Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds.
Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been
Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean.
 
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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