All this were very well, and can’t be better; But even this is difficult, Heaven knows, So many troubles from her birth beset her, Such small distinction between friends and foes, The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter, That—but ask any woman if she’d choose (Take her at thirty, that is) to have been Female or male? a schoolboy or a queen? ‘Petticoat influence’ is a great reproach, Which even those who obey would fain be thought To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach; But since beneath it upon earth we are brought, By various joltings of life’s hackney coach, I for one venerate a petticoat— A garment of a mystical sublimity, No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity. Much I respect, and much I have adored, In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil, Which holds a treasure, like a miser’s hoard, And more attracts by all it doth conceal— A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword, A loving letter with a mystic seal, A cure for grief—for what can ever rankle Before a petticoat and peeping ankle? And when upon a silent, sullen day, With a sirocco, for example, blowing, When even the sea looks dim with all its spray, And sulkily the river’s ripple ’s flowing, And the sky shows that very ancient gray, The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,— ’Tis pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant, To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant. We left our heroes and our heroines In that fair clime which don’t depend on climate, Quite independent of the Zodiac’s signs, Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at, Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines, Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at, Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun— Whether a sky’s or tradesman’s is all one. An in-door life is less poetical; And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet, With which I could not brew a pastoral. But be it as it may, a bard must meet All difficulties, whether great or small, To spoil his undertaking or complete, And work away like spirit upon matter, Embarrass’d somewhat both with fire and water. Juan—in this respect, at least, like saints— Was all things unto people of all sorts, And lived contentedly, without complaints, In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts— Born with that happy soul which seldom faints, And mingling modestly in toils or sports. He likewise could be most things to all women, Without the coxcombry of certain she men. A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange; ’Tis also subject to the double danger Of tumbling first, and having in exchange Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger: But Juan had been early taught to range The wilds, as doth an Arab turn’d avenger, So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack, Knew that he had a rider on his back.