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(From Don Juan: Canto II. 1819)
CLXXXIII IT was the cooling hour, just when the rounded | |
| Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, | |
| Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded, | |
| Circling all nature, hushed, and dim, and still, | |
| With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded | 5 |
| On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill, | |
| Upon the other, and the rosy sky, | |
| With one star sparkling through it like an eye. | |
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CLXXXIV And thus they wandered forth, and hand in hand, | |
| Over the shining pebbles and the shells, | 10 |
| Glided along the smooth and hardened sand, | |
| And in the worn and wild receptacles | |
| Worked by the storms, yet worked as it were planned, | |
| In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells, | |
| They turned to rest; and, each clasped by an arm, | 15 |
| Yielded to the deep twilight’s purple charm. | |
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CLXXXV They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow | |
| Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; | |
| They gazed upon the glittering sea below, | |
| Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; | 20 |
| They heard the waves splash, and the wind so low, | |
| And saw each other’s dark eyes darting light | |
| Into each other—and, beholding this, | |
| Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss; | |
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CLXXXVI A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love, | 25 |
| And beauty, all concentrating like rays | |
| Into one focus, kindled from above; | |
| Such kisses as belong to early days, | |
| Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move, | |
| And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze, | 30 |
| Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss’s strength, | |
| I think it must be reckoned by its length. | |
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CLXXXVII By length I mean duration; theirs endured | |
| Heaven knows how long—no doubt they never reckoned; | |
| And if they had, they could not have secured | 35 |
| The sum of their sensations to a second: | |
| They had not spoken, but they felt allured, | |
| As if their souls and lips each other beckoned, | |
| Which, being joined, like swarming bees they clung— | |
| Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung. | 40 |
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CLXXXVIII They were alone, but not alone as they | |
| Who shut in chambers think it loneliness; | |
| The silent ocean, and the starlight bay, | |
| The twilight glow, which momently grew less, | |
| The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay | 45 |
| Around them, made them to each other press, | |
| As if there were no life beneath the sky | |
| Save theirs, and that their life could never die. | |
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CLXXXIX They feared no eyes nor ears on that lone beach, | |
| They felt no terrors from the night; they were | 50 |
| All in all to each other; though their speech | |
| Was broken words, they thought a language there,— | |
| And all the burning tongues the Passions teach | |
| Found in one sigh the best interpreter | |
| Of nature’s oracle—first love,—that all | 55 |
| Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall. | |
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CXC Haidée spoke not of scruples, asked no vows, | |
| Nor offered any; she had never heard | |
| Of plight and promises to be a spouse, | |
| Or perils by a loving maid incurred; | 60 |
| She was all which pure ignorance allows, | |
| And flew to her young mate like a young bird, | |
| And never having dreamt of falsehood, she | |
| Had not one word to say of constancy. | |
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CXCI She loved, and was beloved—she adored, | 65 |
| And she was worshipped; after nature’s fashion, | |
| Their intense souls, into each other poured, | |
| If souls could die, had perished in that passion,— | |
| But by degrees their senses were restored, | |
| Again to be o’ercome, again to dash on; | 70 |
| And, beating ’gainst his bosom, Haidée’s heart | |
| Felt as if never more to beat apart. | |
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CXCII Alas! they were so young, so beautiful, | |
| So lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour | |
| Was that in which the heart is always full, | 75 |
| And, having o’er itself no further power, | |
| Prompts deeds eternity cannot annul, | |
| But pays off moments in an endless shower | |
| Of hell-fire—all prepared for people giving | |
| Pleasure or pain to one another living. | 80 |
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CXCIII Alas! for Juan and Haidée! they were | |
| So loving and so lovely—till then never, | |
| Excepting our first parents, such a pair | |
| Had run the risk of being damned for ever; | |
| And Haidée, being devout as well as fair, | 85 |
| Had, doubtless, heard about the Stygian river, | |
| And hell and purgatory—but forgot | |
| Just in the very crisis she should not. | |
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CXCIV They look upon each other, and their eyes | |
| Gleam in the moonlight; and her white arm clasps | 90 |
| Round Juan’s head, and his around her lies | |
| Half buried in the tresses which it grasps; | |
| She sits upon his knee, and drinks his sighs, | |
| He hers, until they end in broken gasps; | |
| And thus they form a group that ’s quite antique, | 95 |
| Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek. | |
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CXCV And when those deep and burning moments passed, | |
| And Juan sunk to sleep within her arms, | |
| She slept not, but all tenderly, though fast, | |
| Sustained his head upon her bosom’s charms; | 100 |
| And now and then her eye to heaven is cast, | |
| And then on the pale cheek her breast now warms, | |
| Pillowed on her o’erflowing heart, which pants | |
| With all it granted, and with all it grants. * * * * * | |
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