‘What dost thou know of love or feeling?—Wretch! Begone!’ she cried, with kindling eyes—‘and do My bidding!’ Baba vanish’d, for to stretch His own remonstrance further he well knew Might end in acting as his own ‘Jack Ketch;’ And though he wish’d extremely to get through This awkward business without harm to others, He still preferr’d his own neck to another’s. Away he went then upon his commission, Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase Against all women of whate’er condition, Especially sultanas and their ways; Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision, Their never knowing their own mind two days, The trouble that they gave, their immorality, Which made him daily bless his own neutrality. And then he call’d his brethren to his aid, And sent one on a summons to the pair, That they must instantly be well array’d, And above all be comb’d even to a hair, And brought before the empress, who had made Inquiries after them with kindest care: At which Dudu look’d strange, and Juan silly; But go they must at once, and will I—nill I. And here I leave them at their preparation For the imperial presence, wherein whether Gulbeyaz show’d them both commiseration, Or got rid of the parties altogether, Like other angry ladies of her nation,— Are things the turning of a hair or feather May settle; but far be ’t from me to anticipate In what way feminine caprice may dissipate. I leave them for the present with good wishes, Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange Another part of history; for the dishes Of this our banquet we must sometimes change; And trusting Juan may escape the fishes, Although his situation now seems strange And scarce secure, as such digressions are fair, The Muse will take a little touch at warfare. [Illustration] CANTO THE SEVENTH. O Love! O Glory! what are ye who fly Around us ever, rarely to alight? There’s not a meteor in the polar sky Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight. Chill, and chain’d to cold earth, we lift on high Our eyes in search of either lovely light; A thousand and a thousand colours they Assume, then leave us on our freezing way. And such as they are, such my present tale is, A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme, A versified Aurora Borealis, Which flashes o’er a waste and icy clime. When we know what all are, we must bewail us, But ne’ertheless I hope it is no crime To laugh at all things—for I wish to know What, after all, are all things—but a show? They accuse me—Me—the present writer of The present poem—of—I know not what— A tendency to under-rate and scoff At human power and virtue, and all that; And this they say in language rather rough. Good God! I wonder what they would be at! I say no more than hath been said in Dante’s Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;