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(After the Old Spanish. 1922)
TO lose in love, Love holds the least of crimes; | |
| Even I, Don Juan, was crossed in love at times…. | |
| Be calm in everything you do or say— | |
| The sudden motion scares the bird away … | |
| Wait till you see she wants you, then be bold: | 5 |
| Your force is now increased a hundredfold … | |
| Though you pretend to hang on every phrase, | |
| Don’t listen to her words, but to her face; | |
| Hear her eyes’ “yes” when her lips falter “no”— | |
| And then be quick—for love blows cold when slow: | 10 |
| Though Woman yearns to make the sacrifice, | |
| Snatch at the moment or you’ll lose the prize … | |
| Love cannot thrive, like sound, in empty space; | |
| Time must be opportune, as well as place; | |
| Else all in vain the long, assiduous art, | 15 |
| The yielding body and the softened heart…. | |
| A young man may be amorous, yet no fool; | |
| An old man’s love is life’s last ridicule…. | |
| No mortal pain can strike with deeper smart | |
| Than memory stabs the newly widowed heart; | 20 |
| But the best healing force yet known to men | |
| For broken hearts, it is to love again…. | |
| If an ill act its punishment impose, | |
| Caress with wrath, and strike with playful blows: | |
| To be the perfect lover, you must learn | 25 |
| To practice sternness without being stern…. | |
| The headlong suitor proves an easy prey— | |
| Women and statesmen conquer by delay…. | |
| Though doctors know the virgin from the whore, | |
| Beauty is still that little less or more: | 30 |
| Learn then, before your lips in scorn be curled, | |
| There’s scarce an ugly woman in the world; | |
| Much love I’ve had, and much love have I missed— | |
| But every woman’s beautiful when kissed…. | |
| Ponder my axioms well, but let none bind: | 35 |
| Each woman is a different womankind…. | |
| Nor follow blindly like a groping fool— | |
| For time, life, circumstance change every rule … | |
| Though she be beautiful as fairyland, | |
| She’s still a woman as her maker planned, | 40 |
| Subject to moonlight, kisses, and sweet lies— | |
| Assail her; shun the folly of the Wise … | |
| Though heaven above be doubtful, here below | |
| Woman’s the only paradise I know … | |
| There’s nothing so uncertain as a kiss, | 45 |
| Yet nowhere is there found more certain bliss … | |
| A king’s descendant is the prince, his son: | |
| In love, a dairymaid and queen are one: | |
| If she affect aloofness, dare, nor fear: | |
| One scratch of passion shows it’s but veneer … | 50 |
| If you’d preserve the thrilling zest of love, | |
| Remain where nature placed the man—above!… | |
| Though many paths of blandishment I’ve trod, | |
| A virtuous woman’s heart belongs to God, | |
| With her the devil himself can nothing do— | 55 |
| But, Lord, how few she is, O, Lord, how few! | |
| Whatever code she follow, creed profess, | |
| It is a woman’s nature to transgress, | |
| For, though they smite him with a thousand rods, | |
| The god of love remains the god of gods!… | 60 |
| Men differ in the titles that they wear: | |
| A woman’s just a woman everywhere; | |
| Give her a necklace, sweetmeat, poem, flower, | |
| A kiss, YOURSELF—but never give her power!… | |
| For love, for health, a man may walk abroad, | 65 |
| For business, or the worship of his God: | |
| A woman’s acts of being are but two: | |
| She’s either loitering for a rendezvous, | |
| Or—making haste to keep a rendezvous!… | |
| Poetry, history, commerce, music, art, | 70 |
| Lead, as all roads to Rome, to Woman’s heart; | |
| Warriors, statesmen, painters, poets, kings— | |
| Woman loves Man for many varied things | |
| That differ as the dusk does from the day— | |
| But to Man’s heart Beauty is her one way— | 75 |
| Beauty that holds a little time in trust | |
| Then with her sister rose descends to dust: | |
| Man triumphs still on wings of wealth, strength, fame, | |
| But Woman’s ever is the losing game— | |
| A winged defeat even at its highest power— | 80 |
| A masque that leaves its music in an hour!… | |
| Clothed in eternity and perfectness, | |
| Love, while it lasts, must know nor More nor Less … | |
| I’ve loved my thousand women in my time, | |
| Wooed them with lies and madness, prose and rhyme, | 85 |
| And, loyal still to all, I’ll not admit | |
| That any lacked in beauty or in wit! | |
| A thousand women, and not one was dull! | |
| A thousand women, and all beautiful! | |
| Though loved an hour, each one was God to me, | 90 |
| And all that angels know of ecstacy; | |
| Though but an hour until we drew apart, | |
| That hour I gave up all my soul, my heart; | |
| Not dawdling from slack year to tedious year, | |
| For that brief space, at least, I burned sincere: | 95 |
| That’s why, when centuries have come and gone, | |
| I will be famous still, as Don Juan!… | |
| With burning pencil I have shaped these verses— | |
| Not as a student midnight calm immerses | |
| With open folios on every side, | 100 |
| But champing like the Devil in his pride | |
| While waiting for the frequent rendezvous | |
| At times when I had nothing else to do…. | |
| Women are apt for love, lust, lies, and crime,— | |
| But God Himself can’t make them be on time: | 105 |
| I owned my women, body, life, and soul— | |
| But here was one thing I could not control!… | |
| Some write for wealth, power, fame, or even spite— | |
| Myself? The truth compels me, and I write!… | |
| I said I never lied, yet I essayed | 110 |
| Often, where pity or affection bade, | |
| The easy lie: when love still lingered on | |
| In hers, though in my heart its pulse was gone, | |
| I lied to save her heartbreak till delay | |
| And life’s affairs had smoothed the ache away, | 115 |
| And oft affection bade me, ’gainst my will, | |
| Still swear I loved the pretty creature still!… | |
| No woman sticks at close adultery: | |
| All women stick for outward decency; | |
| Seeming is all the virtue that they know: | 120 |
| Since virtue’s fame depends on outward show. | |
| Give her all time to eat, dance, pray, prate, drink— | |
| But never, never give her time to think | |
| Lest she should think of rivals, not of you: | |
| ’Tis lack of thought oft keeps her passion true … | 125 |
| Half accident and half stupidity | |
| Is most of the world’s virtue that we see…. | |
| I loved an actress who could act IN LIFE— | |
| ACTING, her mind and body stood at strife: | |
| A man can, drunk or sober, face a fact— | 130 |
| But every woman thinks that she can act: | |
| In life there is no doubt all women can, | |
| The world her stage, her chief spectator, Man; | |
| She weeps, she loves, she hates, she laughs, she preens,— | |
| With God and Fate the shifters of the scenes…. | 135 |
| At times I’ve loved two, three, or four, or five— | |
| The surest way to keep one’s love alive— | |
| For many eggs are laid where few survive— | |
| For many birds are hatched that do not thrive … | |
| With virgin, matron, mother, widow, wife, | 140 |
| I have not been more pitiless than life; | |
| I have betrayed no more than years betray: | |
| Disease strikes down and old age brings decay— | |
| And Don Juan has followed nature’s way…. | |
| Spare no one you desire, for, soon or late, | 145 |
| Her frailty must accept the woman’s fate; | |
| Make speedily the secret rendezvous, | |
| Nor for another leave what waits for you … | |
| I am a force of nature like the blight | |
| That fell upon the field of corn last night…. | 150 |
| Often I’ve schemed some clever, amorous plan | |
| While through the solemn chant the choir boys ran: | |
| Ah, how I’ve tried to be a pious man: | |
| But to track women’s hearts down is my use, | |
| As the hound scents the fox, the fox, the goose! | 155 |
| Though God, the Pope, and Satan join to damn | |
| My soul, they cannot alter what I am!… | |
| A Third—I had an instinct for the same; | |
| Another Third—for practice taught the game; | |
| A Third succumbed because they knew my fame. | 160 |
| Some sought me for I had an easy laugh, | |
| And some, because I knew good wine to quaff, | |
| Some bartered virtue for my autograph; | |
| For though I was no sonneteer of note | |
| There moved persuasion in the way I wrote. | 165 |
| Some liked the interesting way I talked; | |
| Others, the way I moved my hands or walked— | |
| Up in the Devil’s Inn their score is chalked! | |
| That small events lead on to actions great | |
| Ask any king or minister of state, | 170 |
| Ask the good Lord who made me what I am; | |
| A rose, an idle hour, an epigram, | |
| An act performed too ill, perhaps too well, | |
| May cause a kingdom’s fall, or send a soul to hell! | |
| Ah, whether I’m condemned to freeze or burn | 175 |
| The Devil’s got me every way I turn…. | |
| Although denied and yet again denied, | |
| The certain issue of your suit abide, | |
| Yes, even though she be God’s faith-sworn bride. | |
| Time will put by her coldness and her pride, | 180 |
| For nature fights upon the lover’s side…. | |
| Although I’ve cast my net both far and wide | |
| The fish I have not caught still irk my pride | |
| And to my day of death I shall regret | |
| The rainbowed beings that escaped my net | 185 |
| Despite the skill with which its web was set … | |
| Although so infinite the moving Deep | |
| That the sky’s edges on its bosom sleep, | |
| My thirst is just as infinite to win | |
| With my small net the multitudes therein … | 190 |
| O, if I were as mighty as my mind | |
| And my desire, I’d love all womankind— | |
| O, if I were as mighty as my mind | |
| I’d plunge into this sea of womenkind, | |
| Go on and out until my last, large breath | 195 |
| And gladly find what God intends by death … | |
| No passion ever thrived in vacuo: | |
| For every kiss, you gain another foe; | |
| Love is a ceaseless warfare to the knife: | |
| Say that she comes to you, a faithless wife, | 200 |
| Her husband’s wrath brings danger to your life | |
| If he perceive, as, soon or late, he will. | |
| Unmarried if she be, there remain still | |
| Sweethearts and brothers, cursed kith and kin,— | |
| And skilled is he whose feet escape the gin: | 205 |
| Early I served beneath dear Venus’ star, | |
| And I have borne away full many a scar— | |
| For war is peace compared with love’s imperilled war … | |
| Rein her in close or you will strike disaster: | |
| Women and dogs both love and need a master … | 210 |
| Like ill-played music or an ape’s grimace, | |
| So is a woman when she’s out of place. | |
| More exquisite than a gazelle in grace, | |
| So shines the woman in her fitting place…. | |
| Although I break the rules of every school— | 215 |
| I’m all for regularity and rule…. | |
| The girls to whom my love has brought delight— | |
| I feel their power upon me in the night; | |
| With passionate thought and dream, with love, hate, grief— | |
| I feel their power upon me past belief; | 220 |
| And I perceive that they are all my brides, | |
| In dream I couch once more by all their sides | |
| Unnumbered, and breathe back the tender vow: | |
| Such latitude do sleep and dreams allow…. | |
| They talk as if a law can change the wrong | 225 |
| That falls on womankind, or make them strong: | |
| Ere the first priest taught the first woman shame | |
| Nature herself decreed the losing game, | |
| For heaven in primordial days decreed | |
| Women should be as of a different breed | 230 |
| From men, a race as from another world | |
| Into the common camps of Adam hurled | |
| Which fell straightway into that variance | |
| That, since, has led the world its sorry dance,— | |
| For, somewhat more the problem to perplex, | 235 |
| God gave two foes the common need of sex; | |
| But still, when for a space that need departs, | |
| The lulled distrust awakens in the hearts | |
| Of lover and beloved, though side by side, | |
| The old strangeness falls between the groom and bride | 240 |
| That nothing can assuage or wholly end | |
| Till God himself embrace the Devil as friend…. | |
| Teach her the wisdom of the court and school— | |
| She will talk wisely yet prove thrice the fool. | |
| The only thing that she can understand, | 245 |
| A will that wavers not in its command; | |
| She’ll love you while you keep the upper hand: | |
| Too weak for the dominion she desires, | |
| Like to a slave, unquestioned mastery she requires: | |
| For slaves’ and women’s constant dream is power; | 250 |
| Yet woe to such as sue them in their hour, | |
| For neither help nor mercy shall they see: | |
| The feeble use no rule by tyranny, | |
| Enslaved the more in that they know not to be free … | |
| Where love is sown some tares of hate must grow: | 255 |
| Full many an enemy the heart shall know— | |
| But love rejected makes the greatest foe … | |
| You’ll find some women wise and merciful— | |
| But the exception certifies the rule | |
| That they are savage, wanton, and unwise, | 260 |
| And should be held as warriors seize a prize … | |
| Harnessed and trussed by ribbons, hooks, and stays, | |
| Strutting and chattering like popingays, | |
| Art, books, religion using as a blind, | |
| To love alone they give their life, soul, body, mind!… | 265 |
| Don Louis is my friend though I enjoy | |
| His wife, why should that add the least alloy | |
| Unto our friendship’s gold? The ways we go | |
| Don Louis never knows, nor need he know; | |
| And since he shares both heart and wife with me, | 270 |
| I’m twice as jealous for his fame as he: | |
| In his repute I’ll wield a ready sword | |
| Let Slander look askance or breathe one doubtful word…. | |
| Beneath Convention’s strict, observed parade | |
| The Devil and his people ply their trade, | 275 |
| And Laws the foolish break the wise evade— | |
| Evade, but, in their wisdom, never break, | |
| Enjoy the theft, yet leave the thing they take— | |
| To smell the rose one need not pluck at all— | |
| Such nice distinctions to the worldly fall!… | 280 |
| Marrying her whose virtue you’ve destroyed | |
| Is paying for a luxury enjoyed | |
| And twice as hateful; better give her over | |
| Into the convoy of another lover | |
| Than into such sure shipwreck to be drawn— | 285 |
| Then hoist the good black flag and voyage on!… | |
| After the second year, when wives begin | |
| To meditate the pleasantness of sin | |
| Like ripe fruit at the easy touch they fall, | |
| Like silly birds that heed the fowler’s call…. | 290 |
| Learn well the value of the passing hour | |
| And the quick thrust that sweeps the heart to power … | |
| Women are hungry-minded everywhere | |
| Or for their first or sixtieth affair, | |
| And soon the mistress cracks the cold veneer— | 295 |
| But every time the first, sheer plunge they fear: | |
| Maid, wife, or harlot, she will bid you wait: | |
| The female’s instinct is to hesitate; | |
| To dilatory stratagem inclined, | |
| ’Tis you must help her to make up her mind; | 300 |
| Each time she has to overcome the fear | |
| That nature planted in the little dear, | |
| A fear by age-long misadventure taught | |
| That love by final bitterness is bought— | |
| Yet, though love do her hurt with every breath, | 305 |
| A loveless life to her is worse than death; | |
| So, since the fatal cast depends on you, | |
| Help her to choose the better of the two…. | |
| The faithful is repaid with faithlessness— | |
| The latter end of love is bitterness. | 310 |
| Though each his days at sundry tasks employ | |
| Life’s greatest pleasure is love’s passing joy … | |
| Between embraces guard the ready whip | |
| And like the Turk retain your mastership … | |
| Remember, though she bears no certain mind | 315 |
| And no strong oath her wandering moods can bind, | |
| The surest pathway to persuaded sin | |
| And to illicit passion, is to win | |
| Her confidences, never giving yours— | |
| This conquers o’er a thousand subtler lures…. | 320 |
| If she has given herself for ease and wealth | |
| She’ll find the greater charm in lover’s stealth; | |
| Strong-guarded towers the rich man’s wealth may hold— | |
| Woman’s a subtler element than gold: | |
| She can be bought, yet still remain unsold. | 325 |
| Like quicksilver burning with quenchless fire | |
| She seeks the level of her own desire, | |
| Nor will be long confined to one sure spot, | |
| But where men’s wish would find her she is not … | |
| Invent elaborate lies if you would stir | 330 |
| The eagerness of love that waits in her; | |
| There is a certain texture in the lie | |
| That, like the bold and glittering fisher’s fly, | |
| Has charms the harmless worm of truth holds not— | |
| By the eye’s appetite the wary trout is caught … | 335 |
| Or curiosity will lure her on, | |
| As by a fluttering rag the deer is drawn … | |
| At twenty scarcely dry behind the ears, | |
| At thirty I had far outstripped my peers, | |
| But I beguiled them best at forty years … | 340 |
| At forty years a woman’s day is past; | |
| A man, well-kept, has ten more years to last…. | |
| What long delay the slave just raised to power | |
| Subjects the worthy to, what exquisite flower | |
| Of insult does he pluck when set above | 345 |
| His betters! So does Woman, sure of love, | |
| Torture the hearts of men as on a rack!… | |
| Give much but, somehow, hold a little back, | |
| And, rendered plaint by uncertainty, | |
| She’ll kiss and weep and gladly yield the mastery … | 350 |
| The greatest joy of misers is to creep | |
| At midnight to count o’er their glittering heap. | |
| Midnight’s the lover’s hour, too, when he finds | |
| That wealth that’s shared by mutual hearts and minds: | |
| But lovers to the top of heaven mount | 355 |
| By kisses that the miser cannot count…. | |
| Each knows the base beginnings of his trade: | |
| I climbed from kitchen wench and chamber maid, | |
| From height to gradual height, until I laid | |
| For the great queen herself successful ambuscade!… | 360 |
| All song and art and beauty hold their root | |
| In love’s delays, in love’s prolonged pursuit … | |
| When I was true to one I possessed none; | |
| When true to none all womenkind I won, | |
| To whom the lie tastes sweeter than the truth, | 365 |
| Who far prefer the lust that knows no ruth | |
| To the considerate heart, o’er which they pass | |
| As the ox treads the daisy in the grass…. | |
| All simple honesty they scourge with hate; | |
| They whip sincerity without the gate | 370 |
| Yet yield like water when men simulate | |
| The blunt, plain virtues; under flattery’s stroke | |
| They bow their necks down to the Devil’s yoke…. | |
| Art has its place,—song she will gladly hear, | |
| But praise her to herself, she is all ear; | 375 |
| Then lay art, song, and learning on the shelf: | |
| There is one subject never bores—HERSELF!… | |
| There’s no one way to bring the captive home— | |
| For all ways lead to love, as well as Rome…. | |
| They say I’ve ruined women, when the sun | 380 |
| Sinking in gold, ensnared the pretty one, | |
| When forest moons or floated music played, | |
| Or scent of roses, sprung the ambuscade— | |
| When I MY feast upon THEIR victims made; | |
| I’ve used all earth and heaven for my aid: | 385 |
| Even God’s rituals have aided me— | |
| The holy cassock and the bended knee— | |
| For lust will find a path where devils flee…. | |
| The duel has its code which men declare— | |
| But in love’s actions foul itself is fair…. | 390 |
| In vain the greybeards who forgot their youth | |
| Would check my headlong course with bitter truth | |
| For all ill that has been or yet shall be | |
| Cannot outweigh love’s briefest ecstacy…. | |
| Though I’m a nobleman of great renown | 395 |
| I’ve often brushed a rival in some clown | |
| Or wooed a cottage maid of base descent | |
| Yet from her kisses drained such rich content | |
| As many a titled lady could not give. | |
| Love yields to no one his prerogative, | 400 |
| And a page often holds a queen in fee, | |
| And, though he’s absolute in tyranny, | |
| Love proves your only true democracy!… | |
| GOD MADE MEN TO BEGET, WOMEN TO BEAR, | |
| AND EVERY WOMAN NEEDS A HUSBAND’S CARE; | 405 |
| HER FUNCTIONS THREE—THE CHILD, THE HOME, AND PRAYER— | |
| AND ALL THE REST IS HELL’S AND MY AFFAIR!… | |
| BY SOME MAN EVERY WOMAN SHOULD BE OWNED— | |
| HUMBLE YET IN HIS HEART A QUEEN ENTHRONED— | |
| I, WHO ENCOMPASS WOMEN’S OVERTHROW | 410 |
| AND UNDERSTAND THEIR NATURES, OUGHT TO KNOW; | |
| BY HEAVEN ABOVE AND BY THE EARTH BELOW, | |
| BY ALL GOD’S ANGELS—WHAT I SAY IS SO!… | |
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