For ’tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, lawsuit Country, where a young couple of the same ages Can’t form a friendship, but the world o’erawes it. Then there’s the vulgar trick of those d—d damages! ! A verdict—grievous foe to those who cause it!— Forms a sad climax to romantic homages; Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders, And evidences which regale all readers. But they who blunder thus are raw beginners; A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners, The loveliest oligarchs of our gynocracy; You may see such at all the balls and dinners, Among the proudest of our aristocracy, So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste— And all by having tact as well as taste. Juan, who did not stand in the predicament Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more; For he was sick—no, ’twas not the word sick I meant— But he had seen so much love before, That he was not in heart so very weak;—I meant But thus much, and no sneer against the shore Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings, Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings. But coming young from lands and scenes romantic, Where lives, not lawsuits, must be risk’d for Passion, And Passion’s self must have a spice of frantic, Into a country where ’tis half a fashion, Seem’d to him half commercial, half pedantic, Howe’er he might esteem this moral nation: Besides (alas! his taste—forgive and pity!) At first he did not think the women pretty. I say at first—for he found out at last, But by degrees, that they were fairer far Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast Beneath the influence of the eastern star. A further proof we should not judge in haste; Yet inexperience could not be his bar To taste:—the truth is, if men would confess, That novelties please less than they impress. Though travell’d, I have never had the luck to Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger, To that impracticable place, Timbuctoo, Where Geography finds no one to oblige her With such a chart as may be safely stuck to— For Europe ploughs in Afric like ‘bos piger:’ But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there No doubt I should be told that black is fair. It is. I will not swear that black is white; But I suspect in fact that white is black, And the whole matter rests upon eyesight. Ask a blind man, the best judge. You’ll attack Perhaps this new position—but I’m right; Or if I’m wrong, I’ll not be ta’en aback:— He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark Within; and what seest thou? A dubious spark. But I’m relapsing into metaphysics, That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics, Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame; And this reflection brings me to plain physics, And to the beauties of a foreign dame, Compared with those of our pure pearls of price, Those polar summers, all sun, and some ice.