A storm it raged, and like the storm it passed, Passed without words--in fact she could not speak; And then her sex's shame[311] broke in at last, A sentiment till then in her but weak, But now it flowed in natural and fast, As water through an unexpected leak; For she felt humbled--and humiliation Is sometimes good for people in her station. CXXXVIII. It teaches them that they are flesh and blood, It also gently hints to them that others, Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud; That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers, And works of the same pottery, bad or good, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers; It teaches--Heaven knows only what it teaches, But sometimes it may mend, and often reaches. CXXXIX. Her first thought was to cut off Juan's head; Her second, to cut only his--acquaintance; Her third, to ask him where he had been bred; Her fourth, to rally him into repentance; Her fifth, to call her maids and go to bed; Her sixth, to stab herself; her seventh, to sentence The lash to Baba:--but her grand resource Was to sit down again, and cry--of course. CXL. She thought to stab herself, but then she had The dagger close at hand, which made it awkward; For Eastern stays are little made to pad, So that a poniard pierces if 't is struck hard: She thought of killing Juan--but, poor lad! Though he deserved it well for being so backward, The cutting off his head was not the art Most likely to attain her aim--his heart. CXLI. Juan was moved: he had made up his mind To be impaled, or quartered as a dish For dogs, or to be slain with pangs refined, Or thrown to lions, or made baits for fish, And thus heroically stood resigned, Rather than sin--except to his own wish: But all his great preparatives for dying Dissolved like snow before a woman crying. CXLII. As through his palms Bob Acres' valour oozed,[312] So Juan's virtue ebbed, I know not how; And first he wondered why he had refused; And then, if matters could be made up now; And next his savage virtue he accused, Just as a friar may accuse his vow, Or as a dame repents her of her oath, Which mostly ends in some small breach of both. CXLIII. So he began to stammer some excuses; But words are not enough in such a matter, Although you borrowed all that e'er the Muses Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandiest chatter, Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses;[fs] Just as a languid smile began to flatter His peace was making, but, before he ventured Further, old Baba rather briskly entered. CXLIV.