Don Juan 06-076 ~ 080
 
 
Don Juan 06-076
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXVI
 
And in the midst a golden apple grew, --
     A most prodigious pippin, -- but it hung
Rather too high and distant; that she threw
     Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung
Stones and whatever she could pick up, to
     Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung
To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,
But always at a most provoking height; --
 
 
Don Juan 06-077
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXVII
 
That on a sudden, when she least had hope,
     It fell down of its own accord before
Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop
     And pick it up, and bite it to the core;
That just as her young lip began to ope
     Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,
A bee flew out and stung her to the heart,
And so -- she awoke with a great scream and start.
 
 
Don Juan 06-078
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXVIII
 
All this she told with some confusion and
     Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
     To expound their vain and visionary gleams.
I've known some odd ones which seem'd really plann'd
     Prophetically, or that which one deems
A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days.
 
 
Don Juan 06-079
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXIX
 
The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,
     Began, as is the consequence of fear,
To scold a little at the false alarm
     That broke for nothing on their sleeping car.
The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm
     Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,
And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sigh'd,
And said that she was sorry she had cried.
 
 
Don Juan 06-080
Canto the Sixth
 
     LXXX
 
"I've heard of stories of a cock and bull;
     But visions of an apple and a bee,
To take us from our natural rest, and pull
     The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,
Would make us think the moon is at its full.
     You surely are unwell, child! we must see,
To-morrow, what his Highness's physician
Will say to this hysteric of a vision.
       
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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