"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."
(_Don Juan._)
This contemner of poesy, however, is soon persuaded, without much
difficulty, to read aloud some excerpts from his new poems in process of
completion: and very well he reads them. The listeners are moved to
smiles by the bitter humour of the _Vision of Judgment_: they are left
half breathless by the impetuous vigour of _Heaven and Earth_. But a
murmur of unfeigned applause punctuates the second canto of _Don Juan_,
with its exquisite presentment of youth, love, and ecstasy in the
persons of Juan and Haidee.
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, hush'd, and dim, and still,
With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded
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.
And thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand,
Over the shining pebbles and the shells,
Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand....
* * * * *
They look'd 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;
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.
(_Don Juan._)
Byron's restless spirit, perpetually eager to express itself in
action, now makes him anxious to dismiss intellectual discussions:
and he hastily proposes a game of billiards. As he moves around the
billiard-table, his lameness is distinctly noticeable: not all the
ingenuity of his tailor, nor his own efforts to walk naturally, can
conceal it. Yet, as has been said of him in other matters, he redeems
all his defects by his graces. And his companions note with surprise the
remarkable change for the better which has taken place in him since,
a few months before, he arrived at this old palace on the Arno with a
troop of servants, carriages, horses, fowls, dogs, and monkeys. The
selfish and sensual Byron of Venetian days is entirely a thing of the
past. "He is improved in every respect,"--says Shelley to Williams,
"in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health and happiness." And
although keeping up a certain splendour upon an income of L4000 a year,
he devotes L1000 of that income entirely to purposes of charity. His own
personal needs are of the simplest.
The game concluded, Byron's carriage is announced: his friends and
he proceed in it as far as the town gates of Pisa, by this means to
avoid the starers of the streets. Horses are in readiness at the gates:
the company, with one or two servant-men, mount and ride into the
pine-forest that reaches towards the sea.
Byron is as excellent and graceful a rider as a swimmer, with remarkable
powers of endurance. He can cover seventy or eighty miles a day, fast
going, and swim five miles at a stretch: he is indeed, in many respects,
the typical open-air Englishman. But to-day he rides slowly and immersed
in thought. As his wife years since assured him, he is at heart the most
melancholy of mankind, often when apparently the gayest. His abnormally
long sight takes in every detail of the scenery,--storing it up
unconsciously for future reference. It has been said that Byron is
nothing without his descriptions: and in these he has achieved some of
his finest work: notably in some immortal stanzas of _Childe Harold_,
with their dazzling panoramic succession of vivid scenes: whether
depicting how
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand.
or, on the eve of Waterloo,
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
whether again, in the "vale of vintage,"
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
* * * * *
And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise.
[Illustration]