We leave this royal couple to repose: A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, Whate’er their dreams be, if of joys or woes: Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep As any man’s day mixture undergoes. Our least of sorrows are such as we weep; ’Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. 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. 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! So now all things are d—n’d, 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, ’Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, And decorates the book of Common Prayer, As doth a rainbow the just clearing air. 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! 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! ’tis all hap-hazard when one weds. Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been Perhaps as wretched if a peasant’s quean. 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. 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.