Don Juan: Canto The Sixteenth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCC D DEDEFF GHGHGHG IJIJIJGG KLKLKLK MNONMNPP QGQGQGRR FSFTUTVV WXWXWXYY ZA2ZA2ZB2RR RWRWRWC2C2 D2E2D2E2D2D2D2D2 VB2F2B2F2 G2G2 WD2WD2WD2GG D2RD2RD2RD2D2 H2D2H2D2H2D2RR WI2WJ2WJ2D2D2 D2K2D2K2D2K2L2L2 M2GM2GM2GG2G2 D2GN2GN2GGG D2D2D2D2D2D2N2N2 D2D2D2D2D2D2WW WGWGWGThe antique Persians taught three useful things | A |
To draw the bow to ride and speak the truth | B |
This was the mode of Cyrus best of kings | A |
A mode adopted since by modern youth | B |
Bows have they generally with two strings | A |
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth | B |
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever | C |
But draw the long bow better now than ever | C |
- | |
The cause of this effect or this defect | D |
'For this effect defective comes by cause ' | - |
Is what I have not leisure to inspect | D |
But this I must say in my own applause | E |
Of all the Muses that I recollect | D |
Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws | E |
In some things mine's beyond all contradiction | F |
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction | F |
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And as she treats all things and ne'er retreats | G |
From any thing this epic will contain | H |
A wilderness of the most rare conceits | G |
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain | H |
'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets | G |
Yet mix'd so slightly that you can't complain | H |
But wonder they so few are since my tale is | G |
'De rebus cunctis et quibusdam aliis ' | - |
- | |
But of all truths which she has told the most | I |
True is that which she is about to tell | J |
I said it was a story of a ghost | I |
What then I only know it so befell | J |
Have you explored the limits of the coast | I |
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell | J |
'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as | G |
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus | G |
- | |
Some people would impose now with authority | K |
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle | L |
Men whose historical superiority | K |
Is always greatest at a miracle | L |
But Saint Augustine has the great priority | K |
Who bids all men believe the impossible | L |
Because 'tis so Who nibble scribble quibble he | K |
Quiets at once with 'quia impossibile ' | - |
- | |
And therefore mortals cavil not at all | M |
Believe if 'tis improbable you must | N |
And if it is impossible you shall | O |
'Tis always best to take things upon trust | N |
I do not speak profanely to recall | M |
Those holier mysteries which the wise and just | N |
Receive as gospel and which grow more rooted | P |
As all truths must the more they are disputed | P |
- | |
I merely mean to say what Johnson said | Q |
That in the course of some six thousand years | G |
All nations have believed that from the dead | Q |
A visitant at intervals appears | G |
And what is strangest upon this strange head | Q |
Is that whatever bar the reason rears | G |
'Gainst such belief there's something stronger still | R |
In its behalf let those deny who will | R |
- | |
The dinner and the soiree too were done | F |
The supper too discuss'd the dames admired | S |
The banqueteers had dropp'd off one by one | F |
The song was silent and the dance expired | T |
The last thin petticoats were vanish'd gone | U |
Like fleecy Clouds into the sky retired | T |
And nothing brighter gleam'd through the saloon | V |
Than dying tapers and the peeping moon | V |
- | |
The evaporation of a joyous day | W |
Is like the last glass of champagne without | X |
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay | W |
Or like a system coupled with a doubt | X |
Or like a soda bottle when its spray | W |
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out | X |
Or like a billow left by storms behind | Y |
Without the animation of the wind | Y |
- | |
Or like an opiate which brings troubled rest | Z |
Or none or like like nothing that I know | A2 |
Except itself such is the human breast | Z |
A thing of which similitudes can show | A2 |
No real likeness like the old Tyrian vest | Z |
Dyed purple none at present can tell how | B2 |
If from a shell fish or from cochineal | R |
So perish every tyrant's robe piece meal | R |
- | |
But next to dressing for a rout or ball | R |
Undressing is a woe our robe de chambre | W |
May sit like that of Nessus and recall | R |
Thoughts quite as yellow but less clear than amber | W |
Titus exclaim'd 'I've lost a day ' Of all | R |
The nights and days most people can remember | W |
I have had of both some not to be disdain'd | C2 |
I wish they 'd state how many they have gain'd | C2 |
- | |
And Juan on retiring for the night | D2 |
Felt restless and perplex'd and compromised | E2 |
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright | D2 |
Than Adeline such is advice advised | E2 |
If he had known exactly his own plight | D2 |
He probably would have philosophised | D2 |
A great resource to all and ne'er denied | D2 |
Till wanted therefore Juan only sigh'd | D2 |
- | |
He sigh'd the next resource is the full moon | V |
Where all sighs are deposited and now | B2 |
It happen'd luckily the chaste orb shone | F2 |
As clear as such a climate will allow | B2 |
And Juan's mind was in the proper tone | F2 |
To hail her with the apostrophe 'O thou ' | - |
Of amatory egotism the Tuism | G2 |
Which further to explain would be a truism | G2 |
- | |
But lover poet or astronomer | W |
Shepherd or swain whoever may behold | D2 |
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her | W |
Great thoughts we catch from thence besides a cold | D2 |
Sometimes unless my feelings rather err | W |
Deep secrets to her rolling light are told | D2 |
The ocean's tides and mortals' brains she sways | G |
And also hearts if there be truth in lays | G |
- | |
Juan felt somewhat pensive and disposed | D2 |
For contemplation rather than his pillow | R |
The Gothic chamber where he was enclosed | D2 |
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow | R |
With all the mystery by midnight caused | D2 |
Below his window waved of course a willow | R |
And he stood gazing out on the cascade | D2 |
That flash'd and after darken'd in the shade | D2 |
- | |
Upon his table or his toilet which | H2 |
Of these is not exactly ascertain'd | D2 |
I state this for I am cautious to a pitch | H2 |
Of nicety where a fact is to be gain'd | D2 |
A lamp burn'd high while he leant from a niche | H2 |
Where many a Gothic ornament remain'd | D2 |
In chisell'd stone and painted glass and all | R |
That time has left our fathers of their hall | R |
- | |
Then as the night was clear though cold he threw | W |
His chamber door wide open and went forth | I2 |
Into a gallery of a sombre hue | W |
Long furnish'd with old pictures of great worth | J2 |
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too | W |
As doubtless should be people of high birth | J2 |
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead | D2 |
Have something ghastly desolate and dread | D2 |
- | |
The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint | D2 |
Look living in the moon and as you turn | K2 |
Backward and forward to the echoes faint | D2 |
Of your own footsteps voices from the urn | K2 |
Appear to wake and shadows wild and quaint | D2 |
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern | K2 |
As if to ask how you can dare to keep | L2 |
A vigil there where all but death should sleep | L2 |
- | |
And the pale smile of beauties in the grave | M2 |
The charms of other days in starlight gleams | G |
Glimmer on high their buried locks still wave | M2 |
Along the canvas their eyes glance like dreams | G |
On ours or spars within some dusky cave | M2 |
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams | G |
A picture is the past even ere its frame | G2 |
Be gilt who sate hath ceased to be the same | G2 |
- | |
As Juan mused on mutability | D2 |
Or on his mistress terms synonymous | G |
No sound except the echo of his sigh | N2 |
Or step ran sadly through that antique house | G |
When suddenly he heard or thought so nigh | N2 |
A supernatural agent or a mouse | G |
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass | G |
Most people as it plays along the arras | G |
- | |
It was no mouse but lo a monk array'd | D2 |
In cowl and beads and dusky garb appear'd | D2 |
Now in the moonlight and now lapsed in shade | D2 |
With steps that trod as heavy yet unheard | D2 |
His garments only a slight murmur made | D2 |
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird | D2 |
But slowly and as he pass'd Juan by | N2 |
Glanced without pausing on him a bright eye | N2 |
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Juan was petrified he had heard a hint | D2 |
Of such a spirit in these halls of old | D2 |
But thought like most men there was nothing in't | D2 |
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold | D2 |
Coin'd from surviving superstition's mint | D2 |
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold | D2 |
But rarely seen like gold compared with paper | W |
And did he see this or was it a vapour | W |
- | |
Once twice thrice pass'd repass'd the thing of air | W |
Or earth beneath or heaven or t'other place | G |
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare | W |
Yet could not speak or move but on its base | G |
As stands a statue stood he felt his hair | W |
Twine like a knot of snakes | G |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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