For we all know that English people are Fed upon beef--I won't say much of beer, Because 't is liquor only, and being far From this my subject, has no business here; We know, too, they are very fond of war, A pleasure--like all pleasures--rather dear; So were the Cretans--from which I infer, That beef and battles both were owing to her. CLVII. But to resume. The languid Juan raised His head upon his elbow, and he saw A sight on which he had not lately gazed, As all his latter meals had been quite raw, Three or four things, for which the Lord he praised, And, feeling still the famished vulture gnaw, He fell upon whate'er was offered, like A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike. CLVIII. He ate, and he was well supplied; and she, Who watched him like a mother, would have fed Him past all bounds, because she smiled to see Such appetite in one she had deemed dead: But Zoe, being older than Haidée, Knew (by tradition, for she ne'er had read) That famished people must be slowly nurst, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst. CLIX. And so she took the liberty to state, Rather by deeds than words, because the case Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose fate Had made her mistress quit her bed to trace The sea-shore at this hour, must leave his plate, Unless he wished to die upon the place-- She snatched it, and refused another morsel, Saying, he had gorged enough to make a horse ill. CLX. Next they--he being naked, save a tattered Pair of scarce decent trowsers--went to work, And in the fire his recent rags they scattered, And dressed him, for the present, like a Turk, Or Greek--that is, although it not much mattered, Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, dirk,-- They furnished him, entire, except some stitches, With a clean shirt, and very spacious breeches. CLXI. And then fair Haidée tried her tongue at speaking, But not a word could Juan comprehend, Although he listened so that the young Greek in Her earnestness would ne'er have made an end; And, as he interrupted not, went eking Her speech out to her protégé and friend, Till pausing at the last her breath to take, She saw he did not understand Romaic. CLXII. And then she had recourse to nods, and signs, And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye, And read (the only book she could) the lines Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy, The answer eloquent, where the Soul shines And darts in one quick glance a long reply; And thus in every look she saw expressed A world of words, and things at which she guessed. CLXIII.